By Felix Durumbah, Abuja
Following failure to reach meaningful agreement with its about 40,000 staff members over the latter’s demands for improved service conditions, authorities of Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) will see offices shut from Monday, 19 January, 2026 as the workforce kick off an indefinite strike.
FCTA is headed by Minister of Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Barrister Nyesom Wike,whose gate the workers plan to lock immediately the industrial action starts.
From Tuesday to Thursday this week, the workers’ umbrella Joint Unions Action Committee (JUAC), led by its president, Comrade Rifkatu Iortyer,had been locked in series of talks with FCTA management over the workers’ demands.
A source at the meetings told People&Politics on Thursday night that “no headway was made” at the talks, signalling the possibility of full bloom strike thereafter.
To make government’s commitment even more suspicious, multiple sources said, the government team was led the Head of Service, Mrs Nancy Sabanti Nathan, who was described as “a civil servant who may not have the necessary liver and leverage to put a foot down to the highers-up and demand the Administration satisfies the workers’ legitimate demands.”
Last week, JUAC issued a seven-day ultimatum to the authorities,which expired this week, seeking positive action on the workers’ demands or face a possible indefinite strike. Last year, the workers had embarked on a three-day protest at FCTA headquarters located on 1 Kapital Road, Area 11, Garki, Abuja to press home their demands for better service conditions.
Among their demands this week are non-payment of owed four months’ arrears of President Bola Tinubu’s Wage Award which was okayed by the President to cushion socioeconomic hardship in the wake of government’s removal of fuel subsidy in 2023; retirement of some Directors and Permanent Secretaries who were granted tenure extension having long attained mandatory retirement age -an act JUAC stressed, violates the Public Service Rules (PSR); and lack of statutory training and retraining of staff.
They also indicted Wike and his lieutenants for allegedly rigging the last promotion examination by scoring about 7000 participating workers very low and declared 2000 as having passed the tests, in a bid to avoid payment of promotion arrears; release of six months statutory overhead cost to enable Directors/Heads of Departments properly deliver service to FCT residents; and many others.
At a media briefing today, Comrade Iortyer disclosed that the strike will begin from 12 am on Monday.
She added that all staff, including those of FCT College of Education, Zuba, as well as FCTA-owned senior secondary schools, will join the industrial action.
She accused the Administration of “breach of trust, inaction, and deliberate demoralization” of its workforce through a plethora of unresolved grievances.
In an address titled ‘A Plethora of Festering Issues’, the labour leader unfurled an 11-point indictment of the FCTA authorities, fingering them for alleged financial malfeasance, system failure, and acts of bad faith against staff members.
Particularly painful to the workers was the alleged non-remittance of pension and National Housing Fund (NHF) deductions, which Iortyer described as capable of jeopardizing their future, calling it a “serious breach of trust and a threat to the future security of our members.”
She added: “We say no to the deliberate mass failure of the 2024 promotion exams with the intention of not paying promotion arrears,” labeling the process as a system “designed to fail and demoralize our members.”
“It is on this note that I declare an indefinite strike action from Monday, January, 2026.”
Mum’s the word from FCTA authorities, as of press time.
*PHOTO CAPTION: Wike.
