BY DAVID ADUGE-ANI

The Resource Centre for Human Rights and Civic Education (CHRICED) has issued a seven-day ultimatum to the minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Barrister Nyesom Wike, to end the ongoing primary school teachers and area council workers strikes or resign.

The executive director, Dr. Zikirullahi M. Ibrahim, who issued the ultimatum in Abuja, expressed profound outrage at the continued strike action by the primary school teachers and the area councils’ workers across the six area councils of the FCT, which has persisted since March 24, 2025, now entering its fourth month.

Ibrahim said the strike stems from the outright failure of the area council chairmen to implement the tripartite agreement of December 2024, which he said, mandated the payment of the N70,000 minimum wage and the clearance of long-standing salary arrears.

He said the refusal by the six area council chairmen to honour the unions agreement amounts to a betrayal of public trust and a blatant violation of workers’ rights.

He said it was as a result of such impasse, that 607 public primary schools and 239 Primary Healthcare Centres (PHCs) in the FCT have remained closed.

“And this dereliction of governance has plunged the FCT’s most vulnerable populations; children, pregnant women, the elderly, and the poor into a state of crisis,” he said.

“In a country where 10.2 million children are already out of school and with a maternal mortality rate of 512 deaths per 100,000 live births, the implications are catastrophic,” he added.