Nigerian media personality Emir Sirdam said Bola Tinubu’s government appears to be using the recent altercation between FCT Minister Nyesom Wike and a naval officer to shift public attention away from a growing crisis of violence against Christians in Nigeria.
Sirdam made the claim in a post on his official X account, where he described Nigerians as “so predictable” and “the best gift to our politicians, so easily manipulated and controlled.”
He alleged that the confrontation between Wike and the naval officer was not spontaneous but part of a government strategy to divert attention from the #EndGenocideInNigeria campaign that has been trending for days.
“I am ready to wager that the Wike nonsense yesterday was a stunt,” he wrote.
Sirdam said in his post, “And Bulaba asked his cabinet of clowns, ‘How do we change the conversation from #EndGenocideInNigeria? It has broken the 72-hour attention mark, and more voices are speaking up.’”
READ MORE: VIDEO: Soldiers Block FCT Minister Wike, FCTA Officials from Accessing Land in Abuja
According to him, the alleged plan was suggested by Wike himself, who volunteered to “give them a show and a new hero” to distract citizens.
“You know they hate me. I have a plan. Gather the press to follow me. I got this, and the rest is history,” Sirdam said that Wike seemed to tell the press.
In the 4-minute video shared with the post, Sirdam argued that Nigeria’s ruling class has long exploited citizens’ short attention spans to divert focus from national crises.
He said Nigerians “always move on to the next thing”, giving the government room to create “these distractions for us that we keep moving on.”
Sirdam warned that the alleged genocide in Nigeria has remained one of the few issues the government “doesn’t know how to move on from” because it has gained international attention.
He added, “It is that bone that is at the neck of this current government, and they don’t know how to move on from it.”
He called on opposition leaders and Nigerians in the diaspora to sustain pressure on the Tinubu administration and demand decisive action to end the killings.
“All I am clamouring for, all I’m saying is that I wish that political voices right now would be as loud as this opposition as the ruling party were when they were in opposition,” he said.
Sirdam urged Nigerians abroad to emulate protests in the Arab world during the Palestinian crisis by amplifying the call to “end the genocide in Nigeria now.”
Social media users reacted strongly to his remarks, with many agreeing that the Wike incident was a government-scripted distraction.
A user, @GOOgbeh, said, “The goal of the entire drama between Wike and that officer yesterday was to deflect the nation’s attention from the pressure being mounted on the Tinubu government to take decisive steps to end the ongoing genocide in Nigeria.”
Another user, @tysiinn, wrote, “See, you’re not wrong. Every time I wonder how do Nigerians break free from amebo, distraction, and manipulation?”
Others criticised Nigerians for being easily manipulated by media drama, describing them as people “who follow drops of grains even when it’s a trap.”
The controversy follows a viral video of Wike’s heated exchange with a naval officer over a land dispute in Abuja, which has dominated national conversations since November 11.
Sirdam’s statement links the episode to what he called a deliberate information tactic by the Tinubu government to “bury” ongoing conversations about the reported mass killings of Christians and minority communities across northern and central Nigeria.
The self-described “conspiracy theorist” ended his post by urging Nigerians to keep demanding justice and accountability under the hashtag #EndGenocideInNigeriaNow.
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