It is befuddling that activities in the Federal Capital Territory’s(FCT’s) six Area Council secretariats, health centres and public primary schools are currently in utter paralysis. The usual boisterousness in the councils’ seats of power has been displaced by gloom and quiescence.
According to reports, for between five and three months now, the health centres and all the public primary schools have been wearing sombre looks. While the council secretariats have been deserted, leaving an acutely sparse human presence, the health centres and primary schools remain under lock and key.
So, locals have since then been denied access to the usual treatments for sundry health issues, while those battling with slightly critical medical conditions, especially the very vulnerable poor who lack the means to seek alternatives in private medical facilities or purchase drugs, are on the cusp between life and death. What is more, with the primary schools shuttered, essential basic education has also been sundered for months now!
And the cause of these dislocations is not unconnected with the multiple strikes simultaneously embarked upon by the council workers, health personnel and public primary school teachers, all in the FCT over the non-payment of the new minimum wage and their peculiar allowance as well as other related issues.
Meanwhile, the FCT chapter of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) is mobilising to totally shut down the FCT after this Thursday, July 3, if all issues leading to the strikes are not resolved by then.
This development, to say the least, is totally incongruous with the image of the FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, as ‘Mr Project,’ a moniker he had earned during his days as Rivers State governor because of the streak of infrastructural turnaround that hallmarked his tenure.
This sobriquet has also dovetailed into the controversial ex-governor’s latest assignment as FCT minister, where he has turned Abuja into a ‘construction yard.’ Not minding the many pillories he has had to receive from the media owing to his bohemian traits, Wike has a vivacious spirit for undertaking infrastructural strides, as showcased by his tenure in Rivers State. He does this with much grit and elan.
However, the neglect of basic health and education needs of the vulnerable people by the Area Councils and tacitly by the FCT Administration in allowing the health workers and teachers’ strikes at that basic level to fester interminably, no matter the intervening constraints, amounts to sheer turpitude.
To allow the hapless pupils and workers to continue to remain at home does no credit especially to Wike, who was dubbed recently as “Minister of Infrastructure” by a national newspaper owing to his peerless performance, signposted by the sheer mélange of projects he has executed within just two years as FCT minister.
This was a minister who earmarked 17 days for President Bola Tinubu to commission the miscellany of completed projects within two years. Some of the projects are top notch. They are verse road and building infrastructure that include the famed three-phased, six-lane dual carriage way (with a park lane on either side, making it eight lanes altogether) Arterial Road N5. This road project starts from the Central Business District and courses through the International Conference Centre, the NPC Towers and traverses through Wuse District in Phase 1.
The road is said to continue through Utako and Jabi District in Phase 2 and up to Dape and Gwarinpa Districts in Phase 3. It also includes the resurfacing of 189 roads covering 57 kilometers of roads within the Abuja city center and six roads in each of the FCT Area Councils, among many others.
President Tinubu was so impressed by Wike’s impact within just two years of his tenure that he openly enthused during the commissioning of one of the projects: “I congratulate the FCT Administration for keying into our vision of developing the nation’s capital to a level comparable to that of the world’s top capital cities.”
Indeed, Abuja city centre can now arguably compare in beauty with New York — after which the original Master Plan was patterned — and some other world-rated cities. The aesthetic and picturesque trappings of Abuja have improved tremendously. The city is now a luminous sight to behold, especially at night, as it glitters like the constellation of a million stars.
However, while the Abuja nouveaux riches are basking in their idyllic abode and literally savouring the luscious taste of power, some segments of the working but vulnerable population in the federal seat of power are whingeing and literally begging to be given their legitimate entitlements. Why should this be happening under a FCT Administration that has spent multi-billions providing essential infrastructure?
How come the hitherland of the FCT is being given the short shrit and left out of ‘Mr. Project’s’ electrifying fervour? Why are the strikes allowed to drag on for this long? A case of the usual insensitivity to the plight of the poor? Would the conundrum have been allowed to drag this long if it affects children of the rich?
The Chairman of FCT NLC, Dr. Stephen Knabayi, who said the union would shut down the FCT after this Thursday over the unresolved labour issues, explained that the move was to draw the attention of the FCT Administration, so it could address the Area Council workers’ and other lingering strikes.
Other unresolved issues, according to the labour leader, include the non-implementation of 25 per cent and 35 per cent salary increases and the N35,000 wage award, among other benefits.
The root of the crisis, according to reports, could be traced back to a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed on December 11, 2024. That agreement, brokered by the FCT Administration and endorsed by the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), the Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE), and the NLC, outlined a phased implementation of the ₦70,000 minimum wage effective from January 2025; the payment of at least five months’ salary arrears and a commitment by Area Councils to allocate 50% of their Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) to fund these obligations.
Although a tripartite implementation committee, chaired by the Minister of State for FCT, Dr. Mariya Mahmoud, was established, none of the components of the MoU had been executed till date. The NLC chairman, who described the development as “very unfortunate”, said that the Area Council chairmen have left the union with no option but to shut down the FCT.
He recalled that the union had on June 13 issued a seven-day ultimatum to the FCT Administration to address the demands of the teachers, health workers and other Area Council workers. The ultimatum, he said, followed the resolution of the executives of the joint unions of the NUT, NULGE and the National Association of Health Workers (NAHW).
Knabayi revealed that even though the ultimatum had expired on June 20, the union had to backpedal to allow President Tinubu to complete the inauguration of projects executed by the FCT Administration, as part of activities to celebrate his second year in office.
“We had to extend the ultimatum because of Tinubu’s movements to inaugurate the FCT executed projects. Members of the union will take over the streets of Abuja as soon as Tinubu concludes the inaugurations, hopefully on July 3.”
The NLC chief lamented that it was very unfortunate that up to this moment, nothing concrete had been done to address the lingering welfare issues in the Area Councils.
At this stage, we implore the FCT minister to intervene decisively and end the impasse once for all. Of course, it has been acknowledged, even by the NUT chairman in FCT, Mr. Abdullahi Shara, that Wike had made several efforts to resolve the crisis. The efforts included the recent release of N4.1 billion to the Area Councils to support the payment of minimum wage to the workers.
The minister, in addition, announced in a statement on Monday, May 12 that his administration would start withholding 10 percent of the Internally Generated Revenue(IGR) of the Area Councils over their failure to implement the new minimum wage for primary school teachers, health workers and council workers, a development which has led to the ongoing strikes.
Wike expressed disappointment that despite his intervention and directive for funds to be released to the councils, the teachers’ and other strikes have continued, disrupting academic and other activities across the territory.
He said he had engaged with the Council Chairmen at the commencement of the strikes to understand the reasons for their inability to pay, adding that he directed that funds should be released to them to facilitate the payment of the new minimum wage. He described the continued strikes as embarrassing.
“I have limits; I cannot sack them because they are elected. Therefore, I have taken the step to withhold 10 percent of their Internally Generated Revenue (IGR),” the minister said.
To address the crisis, Wike disclosed that a committee will be set up to ensure that funds released by the FCT Administration are paid directly to the affected teachers and others, bypassing the Area Councils if necessary.
On their part, the chairmen of the Area Councils had, in a press conference on May 13, urged the primary school teachers and other council workers to call off their ongoing strikes. Mr. John Gabaya, Secretary of the FCT Chapter of NULGE, who addressed the journalists, particularly appealed to the primary school teachers to return to the classroom in the interest of their pupils, pending the conclusion of negotiations over the crisis.
Parents of some of the shut schools, who could afford it, have started scouting around for relatively affordable private schools for their children and wards. And controversial social influencer, Martins Vincent Otse, popularly known as VeryDarkMan, added a comical but symbolic gesture that mocks government’s insensitivity to the labour crisis last Monday when he gathered school children in uniform and organized a makeshift class in front of the Minister’s Gate, where he taught them the alphabets.
“S for Suegbe, T for Tinubu ….., W for Wike…..”, VDM voiced out, while the children chorused after him. He issued a seven-day ultimatum to the administration, after which they would resume the protest if the matter is not resolved by then.
He expatiated: “We have decided to give them a week. In the meantime, if they do not do anything and the children are not back in school, we will have to come with more students. We will invite students from the whole FCT to come. So we are giving a week, and hopefully, we will get a positive result.
“It is just for Wike to be seeing, we are not fighting him. Let him just see so that he will remember, maybe he has forgotten.”
We believe Wike can still do more. He should dip deeper into his rich bag of wits to mollify the striking workers and restore industrial sanity into the Area Councils. Even though he truly has no power to sack the council chairmen because they are elected, he can, for example, increase the percentage to be deducted from their allocations to be channeled directly to the workers as he plans to do.
The minister can, in addition, make more sacrifice towards untying the knot of the crisis by releasing more money to defray the workers’ total outstanding entitlements, which have ostensibly been the most knotty issue at stake. This will certainly thaw out the angry workers to call off the strikes and also prevent the looming shut down being planned by the FCT NLC.
Before releasing more money to the Area Councils, however, the minister should closely monitor how the N4.1 billion initially released has been spent to ensure that the next release will be judiciously used. This is in view of the striking workers’ allegation that many of Area Council chairmen have been engaging in profligacy as they preparing for their February, 2026 council elections.
The minister should also incentivize the Area Councils to implement the terms of the December 11,2024 MoU, which are also germane to putting paid to the recurrent strikes by the different trade unions in the councils.
In the final analysis, the Area Council administrations too should be prudent in their expenditures and prioritize their workers’ welfare to restore and sustain industrial harmony in their councils.
