While Nyesom Wike, the minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), was inaugurating the Giri District Road in Abuja, one of the several he has been unveiling, civil servants stormed his office on Monday to demand better service.

Members of the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) and the Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA) under the Joint Union Action Committee (JUAC) said that the Wike administration had been marginalising them.

Musa Istifanus, JUAC’s vice president, told FIJ on Monday that the minister has refused to release overhead costs, which are used in the day-to-day running of the government agencies in the FCT, for months.

He explained that as a result, most of the offices lack simple office items such as ink, paper and other tools that are required for their continued operation.

“We have been marginalised by the FCT minister. Since he came into FCT, so many things have not been happening. We have issues of promotion, and we have issues of overhead. Since December last year, overhead has not been paid,” Istifanus told FIJ.

“Overhead is the money for the day-to-day activities of every office. In most of the FCT offices, you will not see paper, you will not see ink to print anything, everyone is stranded in the whole of FCT.”

Furthermore, Istifanus said that Wike has also refused to address the ongoing industrial strike by the public primary school teachers of the FCT. He said, “The primary school pupils are still at home, while their teachers are yet to be paid.”

The union leader stated that the FCT’s executives do not respect anyone, and they act like they are untouchable. He added that this also includes Emeka Eze, the chairman of the FCT Civil Service Commission, whose office was recently created.

“The FCT chairman does not respect anybody. Even his appointees are like that. They feel they are people you cannot touch or talk to,” JUAC’s vice president told FIJ.

“We have been to the FCT Civil Service Commission office; they feel they are untouchable and there is nothing we can do to them. The only thing is to converge and let the whole world know what is happening in that place.”

In some of the pictures and videos from the protest seen by FIJ, JUAC members held posters demanding the domestication of the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS) and the removal of Eze as the chairman of the FCT civil service commission.

The union is also asking the FCT to stop deducting the National Housing Fund (NHF) from their salaries, return primary school pupils and teachers to their classrooms and pay health workers’ hazard allowance arrears, among other demands.

Meanwhile, since June 10, Wike has been launching different infrastructural projects in the FCT. The Giri District project marked the 13th one. (Foundation For Investigative Journalism)