The Joint Union Action Committee JUAC on Monday disrupted activities at the Federal Capital Territory Administration FCTA premises as they barricaded the FCT Minister’s gate in protest over unpaid salaries and allowances, the protracted strike by FCT Primary school teachers, and the non-payment of wage awards to health workers. The protesting workers also explicitly called for the sack of the Chairman, FCT Civil Service Commission, Emeka Ezeh.
The demonstrators effectively sealed the Minister’s office premises, preventing access for both entry and exit. Speaking to workers during the protest, JUAC President Rifkatu Iortyer knocked the FCT Administration over the non-release of overhead costs, neglect of retired staff qualified for promotion, and persistent discrepancies in salary payments.
“We cannot work when overhead is not released. We held a meeting with one of them and they say is overhead not for the directors? Is that true? Is it not for working? 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 from that overhead is what we use to work. It is a recurrent for office maintenance and other things that should be used for work. But we do not have it,” Iortyer lamented. She expressed particular frustration regarding career progression, stating; “My anger is more for our members who have retired when they are supposed to be in a particular cadre since 2024. They don’t even have a chance. If you were to be an Assistant Director and you retired in 2024, it means they have gone with your career progression. And so they stunted you, that is the end, even when you qualified.”
Highlighting the confusion surrounding salary payments, she added; “Do you understand your salary every month? Today, you see this amount. Next tomorrow, you see this amount. Me, I don’t know what my salary is, and so we do not understand.” The JUAC president further decried the administration’s failure to clear hazard allowance arrears for health workers and condemned what she described as an “unfair initiative” by the Chairman of the FCT Civil Service Commission for stopping workers’ salaries
“Health workers’ hazard arrears not paid. Our auxiliary staff, enforcement squad, those people at the mortuary, those people at the cemetery, their monies are not being paid. The letter for the stoppage of this salary was written on the 10th of March by the commission chairman. Is he supposed to give us those kinds of directives?” Iortyer questioned. And as you engage even auxiliary staff, there is a procedure. You let people know you want their salary to stop at so-so time. You don’t just abruptly stop people’s salary in this hard economy. Is that fair? That is the initiative of the Chairman and we don’t think it is right.”
Audu Akogwu, Chairman of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), FCT Chapter, declared his unequivocal support for the protesters, branding any workers who did not participate as “saboteurs” and “betrayers.” He criticized the suspension of overhead costs, revealing that “Staff buy paper before they work. They buy pen before they work.” Akogwu also took aim at the Minister, Nyesom Wike for allegedly failing to compel Area Council Chairmen to pay striking teachers and Area Council workers. He expressed skepticism about the release of bailout funds to the Chairmen.
“We are dying; FCTA workers are dying, no overhead. The Permanent Secretaries have been regulated to nothing, the Directors are dead. Staff buy papers before they work. They buy pens before they work. No promotion for 2023, 2024, and today we are in 2025. No training for any staff, how do you want productivity?” Akogwu queried. Addressing the prolonged strike, he said, “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 himself,” he added.
Akogwu urged the Minister to intervene on behalf of FCT workers, warning that the protest served as a “warning.” He vowed to mobilize members of all affiliate unions to “shut down every FCT office” if their demands are not met.
“Whoever has ear to hear, should help us tell him to come to the aid of the workers. This is just a warning. First day, second and third day, that is our protest. From then, we are shutting down the whole office. I promise, I am going to mobilize all the TUC affiliates in Abuja. We are going to shut down every FCT office,” he concluded.
