*Frustrated Employee Rates Wike, Makes Comparison With Past FCT Ministers
By Felix Durumbah, Abuja
Office activities in the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) have been paralyzed since early in the morning today following an indefinite strike by the about 40,000 workforce who are demanding improved conditions of service.
A visit by People&Politics to the 1 Kapital Road, Area 11, Garki, Abuja headquarters of FCTA showed a ghost town.
Bereft of the usual daily hustle-bustle akin to a beehive, what were instead on ground were members of the FCTA Joint Unions Action Committee (JUAC) Strike Compliance Taskforce and several security personnel in vehicles who patrolled the area outside the entry gate of FCTA Minister, Barrister Nyesom Wike, and his lieutenants.
Notably, Wike himself and his officials obviously kept away from office -at least, throughout the period of the newspaper’s situation observation from morning till press time.
JUAC President, Mrs Rifkatu Iortyer, was seen leading some members of the compliance team, issuing directives, and generally organizing things to ensure a peaceful industrial action.
Asked to react, a JUAC member and Chairperson, FCT chapel of Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Comrade Ngozi Ufomba, told People&Politics that the compliance to the strike call has been perfect.
“I can tell you that it’s 100%. No staff member is here. They all complied. No official is here.
“The compliance team has visited even far flung FCTA agencies like DOAS (Department of Outdoor Advertising and Signage) in Jahi and several other FCTA agencies, and staff have duly complied,” she said.
The employees are unhappy with the Wike administration over unfulfilled statutory welfare needs.
These include non-payment of approved fiscal overheads to Heads of Departments and Directors for six months of 2025; lack of staff training and retraining; illegal extension of the civil service tenures of some Permanent Secretaries and Directors beyond the mandatory retirement age in direct violation of Public Service Rules (PSR); a ‘rigged’ promotion exercise that failed majority of staff, thus enabling the authorities to dodge the payment of promotion arrears to staff; non-payment of allowances to gardeners; non-payment of President Bola Tinubu’s Wage Award arrears for about four months; and many others.
Mrs Iortyer had listed these in a statement about two weeks ago, wherein she issued a seven-day ultimatum to the Administration to pay up or face a crippling indefinite strike.
Though in its first day, the staff members are determined to see the strike to a logical end.
A male staff member told People&Politics:
“We’ll not go to office. We’ll stay home till Wike and his team do the needful for us.
“Our demands are legitimate and statutory. We’re not beggars asking him to do us a favour. It is our right to enjoy all those items that we demand. There is no entitlement mentality here; these items are as of right.
“Wike must pay up in full. Many of us are old staff members here and have served under several past Ministers. To me, he’s the worst in terms of staff welfare.
“To think that he’s the first Christian Minister of FCT.
“Some of our far North Muslim colleagues in office are now mocking us; most past Muslim Ministers of FCT may often engaged in favouritism in posting staff to some sensitive areas, but they never denied the rest of us trainings,even foreign trainings, overheads, and any other thing that should come to us as of right.”
There has been no press statement or official reaction on the part of the FCTA authorities even before the strike began.
…More daily updates coming till the strike ends.
*PHOTO CAPTION: JUAC President, Mrs Iortyer, addresses journalists in front of FCTA… today.
