FCT Strike: Two Teachers' Unions, Opposite Orders

The Nigeria Labour Congress FCT Council declared an indefinite strike across the Federal Capital Territory on Oct. 7, 2026, broadening it to FCT Administration workers including private-sector staff. NLC's stated trigger was the lapse of a seven-day ultimatum to FCT Minister Nyesom Wike; the union's listed grievances include the failure to meet workers' demands, the "illegal redeployment" of senior directors, a "controversial vacancy clause causing career stagnation," the withdrawal of redeployment and demotion letters for Education Secretariat directors, and the exclusion of 2025-eligible teachers from promotion exams.

A week on, attendance registers are open in FCT schools, Wike's no-work-no-pay directive is in force, and the two unions nominally representing the same secondary school teachers are telling members opposite things.

The split is the story

ASUSS — the Academic Staff Union of Secondary Schools — held an emergency meeting and told secondary school teachers, principals, vice-principals and education officers to report to work and keep academic and administrative duties running. Its chairman, Comrade Julius Ogundiran, says secondary teachers stayed in classrooms, calls the strike ill-timed, and notes ASUSS wasn't consulted before industrial action was called. ASUSS operates independently of the NUT (TUC affiliate versus NLC affiliate).

Then there's the NUT FCT Wing, chaired by Comrade Knabayi S. Adalo, with secretary Margaret Jethro. Per Adalo, they call the no-work-no-pay policy unconstitutional, illegal and unenforceable, leaning on Section 40 of the 1999 Constitution, the Trade Unions Act and ILO Conventions 87, 98 and 151, and arguing Section 43 of the Trade Disputes Act only bites on illegal strikes. Adalo told members to refuse signing the attendance registers, warned principals and headteachers that compliance is personal, and said the council met its legal requirements before striking.

So the FCTA has two union channels giving contradictory direction to one workforce. Pick either, and you're exposed to the other.

What's actually being fought over

The strike centers on the FCTA's vacancy clause conditioning teacher promotions and the redeployment of Education Secretariat directors. ASUSS's line is that the vacancy requirement is statutory under the Public Service Rules and that redeployment sits inside management's statutory powers; it wants those disputes settled by dialogue. Adalo's side frames the redeployment as employer provocation that caused the dispute.

The promotion mechanics explain the temperature. Circulars for the 2025 and 2026 promotion exercises were issued in September 2026 under the FCT Civil Service Commission, including a 2026 Computer-Based Test. ASUSS says the strike threatens those exams and wants members to sit them per the published timetable — an urgency that sits awkwardly with a grievance list that includes teachers excluded from the exam.

Enforcement and the numbers

Wike's circulars went out Sunday and were reported Monday, directing the six Area Council chairmen to apply no-work-no-pay. The FCT Head of Civil Service, school principals and headteachers were ordered to open daily attendance registers. Nobody in the reported material disputes that the directive exists; the fight is over what it can legally apply to.

On service loss, the reported material says school operations are down and FCT public services disrupted, with pupils and guardians in Gwagwalada, Asokoro and other parts of the FCT out of classrooms. It also reports that all schools, hospitals, offices and government establishments in the FCT closed, with enforcement committees set up to monitor compliance and the union assuring no victimization during the strike. Those are status descriptions, not counts — no attendance rate or closure tally is established in the material.

Where it sits

Wike rejects the strike rationale, maintains the welfare issues were resolved or are being addressed, and says director appointment matters are unchanged. The union side says it issued a Sept. 8 ultimatum to the FCTA and got nothing that answered it. No settlement is anticipated on the reported material. Teachers' next pay grade stays pending, and the attendance register keeps collecting names.

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