The Passport Defence: Wike’s Son Has an Alibi, and Abuja Has a Question

Now step back from the exhibits. Whoever is telling the truth, one fact sits quietly in the middle of this case: two businessmen apparently believed the road to 60 hectares of Abuja ran through the minister’s family. Nobody in the proceedings is arguing that this belief is absurd. In a city where land allocation rests with one office, “facilitation” is not scandal to the people paying. It is a line item, budgeted between survey fees and the generator.

That is the real story, and no passport stamp can address it. A judge can establish where one man was on one Friday. He cannot establish why so many Nigerians find the claimants’ version plausible enough to tell at a dinner party.

To be clear, none of this is proven. It is a civil suit, the allegations are untested, and Jordan Nyesom-Wike denies them. The court resumes on 1 December.

Until then, the passport proves one thing beyond doubt: some Nigerians travel very well.