The Minister of State for the Federal Capital Territory, Mariya Bunkure, may have contributed largely to the four-month-old primary school teachers’ industrial action which has kept pupils at home, documents seen by THE WHISTLER have shown.
Primary school teachers in the FCT have been on strike for nearly four months now, making it impossible for final year pupils to write the Common Entrance Examination into the Junior Secondary School.
It is uncertain whether the pupils would be required to write a special common entrance exam or be compelled to repeat the class.
Area council workers including nurses/midwives also joined the strike to demand implementation of the New Minimum Wage and other arrears owed them.
Documents seen by THE WHISTLER showed that the FCT minister of state had brokered a deal in February where it was agreed that all the demands of the teachers and other area council workers would be implemented.
A three-day meeting held with the Minister of State for FCT, FCT area council chairmen, the Nigerian Union Teachers and the National Union of Local Government Employees in February had resolved that the New Minimum Wage of N70,000 be paid to primary school teachers and all area council staff members beginning from February this year.
The resolutions were reached on 17th February on the basis of which an initial general strike action declared on 13th February was called off.
The minister, according to the resolutions of the meeting, had also promised to ensure the immediate implementation of the other demands of the teachers and council workers which included the 40 per cent Peculiar Allowance and the 25 per cent/35 per cent salary increases for primary school teachers and area council staff.
Payment of primary school teachers’ promotion and annual increment arrears were also to be implemented based on the agreed template of March 18, 2022.
More importantly, the resolutions, which were signed by the minister and all the six area council chairmen, NUT and NULGE, stated clearly that the unions would resume the strike if the resolutions were not implemented.
“The failure of the area councils to implement the agreement accordingly will leave the unions with no option but to immediately resume the suspended strike action,” item seven of the resolutions stated.
But nothing was done to ensure the resolutions and other agreements reached with the unions were implemented to prevent another strike, which has now stretched to four months.
However, the office of the minister told THE WHISTLER that what led to the strike were strictly issues within the jurisdiction of the area councils, and even though there was an agreement brokered by the minister, there was little she could do to push for implementation.
Austine Elemue, spokesperson for the minister, told THE WHISTLER that the Supreme Court judgment, which gave autonomy to the local governments, has made it impossible for the minister or anyone else to tamper with LG allocations.
“Yes. There was an agreement but there’s little the minister can do; you cannot interfere with local government allocation. If other states are doing it, the FCT is not doing it. So, there’s a limit to which the FCT Administration can go in pushing for implementation because it’s strictly an area council issue,” he said.
Speaking further, he also absolved the area councils from blame, saying the allocations they get are not enough to meet the unions demands which included areas of previous years.
“I’m not speaking for the area councils, but the money the workers are demanding is huge, and the money going to the area councils these days are not enough to offset what the workers are demanding.
“These are not recent debts, they’re debts of so many years. The money the unions are asking cannot be cleared in two or three months, it will take a period of time. I know these and the unions are also aware. I have sat down with area council chairmen to discuss these issues,” he added.
But asked why the area councils are still unable to pay the N70,000 New Minimum Wage, he admitted there was an agreement to that effect.
“Yes, there was an agreement to that but I don’t really know what happened that they failed to pay,” he said.
Union officials who spoke to THE WHISTLER in confidence said council chairmen had told them during negotiations that they did not receive enough allocation as promised by the minister.
“The chairmen said they don’t have enough money to pay,” said a NULGE official in a chat with THE WHISTLER. “They said the allocation they received from the FCT was not enough to pay minimum wage.”
While it may be true that IGR and the gross statutory revenue coming to the area councils may not be big enough to offset all areas owe workers, there are indications that the area councils may also be negligent in prioritizing teachers and workers welfare.
The budgets presented by the six area councils for 2025 showed them spending more money on overheads and capital projects than on personnel.
For instance, the Bwari Area Council passed a budget of N27.7bn, comprising N20.2bn for capital expenditure and N7.4bn for recurrent expenditure.
In the breakdown seen by THE WHISTLER, under recurrent expenditure, personnel cost is N3.38bn while overhead is N4.1bn
The Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC) passed a budget of N25.651bn comprising a recurrent of N11.857bn, representing 46.23 per cent, while N13.793bn, representing 53.77 per cent, is for capital expenditure.