‘I Never meant what I said’ – Wike bows to pressure, clarifies threat to shoot journalist

Nyesom Wike, the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, has clarified comments he made about Channels Television’s anchor, Seun Okinbaloye.

Wike had said he would have “broken his TV screen and shot” Okinbaloye, over his comments that a one-party system would destroy democracy in Nigeria.

The statement has attracted widespread condemnation, with Amnesty International describing the minister’s remarks as “reckless and violent”.

But in a statement signed by his media aide, Lere Olayinka, Wike has explained that he did not mean it literally.

The statement released by Olayinka on Saturday read: “The minister never meant that he will shoot Seun Okinbaloye. They even spoke on phone today, and he (Okinbaloye) understood what the minister meant.

“What the minister meant, which he made clear during the media chat was that he was angry seeing Okinbaloye, whom he hold in high esteem as a journalist, descending into the political arena by speaking as an interested party, instead of an interviewer.

“The statement made by the minister was in hyperbolic context, which was clearly without intent. It was primarily using exaggeration to make a point.

“Even after the minister made the clarifications on the live television program, which had Chamberlain Uzor, Head of Channels Television’s Abuja Office as part of the interviewers, all the journalists who were interviewing him just laughed.

“Therefore, after the minister detailed explanations of what he meant, including saying on the live television program that he didn’t mean that he will carry gun and shoot the television anchor, it will become a clear hatchet job for any individual or group to pick the statement out of context and make any issue out of it.

“The public is therefore urged to discontenance the use of the comment as instrument of blackmail and propaganda by those whose intent is to misrepresent facts for their political gains.”