Strike: FCT workers protest, indigenes head to court

Members of the Joint Union Action Committee of the Federal Capital Territory, on Monday, gathered at the gate leading to the office of the FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, to protest the non-payment of salaries to staff, the prolonged primary school teachers’ strike, and the payment of wage awards to health workers.

This comes as a civil rights group, the Assembly of Indigenous Youths of Abuja, filed a lawsuit against the FCTA and the six Area Councils, accusing them of violating the fundamental rights of primary school pupils and healthcare users in the territory.

The ongoing teachers and health workers strike in the FCT has extended more than 90 days.

The PUNCH previously reported that the President of the JAC of the FCT, Rifkatu Iortyer, had issued a statement on Thursday, mobilising affiliate unions to join a three-day protest from Monday.

The protest was to kick against the “blatant refusal of the FCT minister to address salient issues affecting staff.”

The teachers and Area Council workers have been on strike since March 24, 2024, over non-implementation of N70,000 minimum wage, non-payment of 25-month minimum wage arrears, 40 per cent peculiar allowance, implementation of 25–35 per cent salary increments, non-payment of N35,000 wage award, among others.

The workers also faulted the administration over the failure to pay overhead costs, discrepancies in salary payments and stagnating promotions since 2023.

Iortyer, who addressed workers during the protest, described the development as unfair.

“We cannot work when overhead is not released. We held a meeting with one of them and they said overhead is for the directors. Is that true?

“How can somebody as high-ranking as that say that overhead is for directors? It means they don’t even know.

“But I want them to know that it is from overhead that we work with. It is recurrent for office maintenance and other things that should be used for work. But we do not have it,” she said.

The President also lamented the failure of the administration to pay hazard allowance arrears of health workers, and the stoppage of workers’ salaries by the chairman of the FCT Civil Service Commission, describing it as an unfair initiative.

“Health workers’ hazard arrears are not paid. Our auxiliary staff, enforcement squad, those people at the mortuary, those at the cemetery, their money is not being paid. The letter for the stoppage of this salary was written on the 10th of March by the commission chairman,” she added.

The Chairman of the Trade Union Congress, FCT chapter, Audu Akogwu, declared support for the protesters.

She described those who did not join the protest as “saboteurs” and “betrayers”.

He faulted the suspension of overhead costs,

stating that workers had to buy their papers and pens to work.

Akogwu also faulted the minister’s failure to prevail over the Area Council chairmen to pay striking teachers and workers, adding that he doubted if there were payments to the chairmen.

“We are dying; FCTA workers are dying, no overhead. The permanent secretaries have been regulated to nothing, and the directors are dead.

“Staff buy paper before they work. They buy pens before they work. No promotion for 2023, and 2024, and today we are in 2025. No training for any staff, how do you want productivity?

“Primary schools are on strike, with local government workers, over a hundred days. Our children are on the streets, and you say you have given the local government bailout funds.

“The bailout funds you gave them, are they not accountable to you? As a governor, he was the one controlling the local governments in Rivers State. Why can’t he control the area councils here and put them on their toes to make sure they do justice to the bailout funds he gave them?

“That fund, I don’t trust it, because if he gave them, the area councils are not more powerful than the minister,” he said.

The chairman urged the minister to come to the aid of workers in the FCT, warning that he would mobilise affiliate unions to shut down all FCT offices.

“This is just a warning. The first day, second and third day, that’s our protest.

“From then, we are shutting down the whole office. I promise I’m going to mobilise all the TUC affiliates in Abuja. We are going to shut down every FCT office,” he added.

In the suit filed on Monday, June 30, 2025, at the FCT High Court, marked CV/2484/25, the Assembly of Indigenous Youths of Abuja said the prolonged shutdown of essential services had deprived residents — especially children — of their constitutional rights to life, dignity, education, and healthcare.

The group sought a declaration of the court that failure to provide education to the children for over 90 days amounted to a violation of their fundamental rights to life, dignity of persons, freedom from discrimination, and education as guaranteed under Sections 33, 34, 42 of the 1999 Constitution.

“A declaration that citizens of Nigeria who reside within the Six Area Councils of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja are entitled to the best attainable state of physical and mental health guaranteed by Article 16(1)(2) of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (Ratification and Enforcement) Act CAP A9 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004 and Section 33 of the Constitution of Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended).

“A declaration that the primary school children who reside within the Six Area Councils of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja are entitled to enjoy equality of rights of access to public property and services of education like their counterparts in the 36 states of the federation without iota of discrimination.

“A declaration that the failure to provide and maintain primary education within the six Area Councils for over 90 days without any hope of assumption of duty of the respondents constitutes a violation of the constitutional duty of the respondents, amounting to a violation of the primary school children within the Six Area Councils’ fundamental rights to life, the dignity of the person, freedom from discrimination, and education as guaranteed under Sections 33, 34, 42 of the 1999 Constitution and Articles 4, 5, 17(1), 18(3) and 19 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (Ratification and Enforcement) Act CAP A9, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004,” the suit read.

AOIYEO urged the court to issue an order directing the six Area Councils to immediately resume their constitutional duty to provide and maintain education in the territory.

It also sought a similar directive regarding healthcare services across all Area Councils, directing area councils to resume their duty to provide and maintain medical services across the area councils.