Daniel Otera
For over 90 days, thousands of primary school pupils in Nigeria’s capital city have remained out of school due to a protracted deadlock between the Area Council Chairmen and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Administration over the implementation of the new ₦70,000 national minimum wage.
On Monday, social media activist Martins Vincent Otse, popularly known as VeryDarkMan (VDM), took matters into his own hands. He staged a protest at the official residence of the FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, arriving with school children in uniform and conducting a symbolic classroom session at the Minister’s gate to draw attention to what he called “a forgotten crisis.”
VDM’s satirical lesson had the children reciting the alphabet with pointed political jabs: “S for Suegbe, T for Tinubu, W for Wike.”
The industrial action, which began on 24 March 2025, is being led by the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), demanding the implementation of the recently approved ₦70,000 minimum wage.
However, the six Area Councils in the FCT Abaji, Abuja Municipal, Bwari, Gwagwalada, Kuje, and Kwali have so far failed to comply.
As of 23 June 2025, the strike has persisted for 80 school days (excluding weekends and public holidays), disrupting education for tens of thousands of children in government-run schools across the capital.
According to data from the Federal Capital Territory Universal Basic Education Board (FCT-UBEB), the FCT is home to over 550 public primary schools, including nomadic institutions, catering to an estimated 215,000 pupils. The prolonged closure raises serious concerns not only about education access but also about child welfare—particularly in low-income communities where public schools are the only available learning option.
In response to the stalemate, FCT Minister Nyesom Wike announced in May that the administration would withhold 10% of the statutory allocations meant for non-compliant Area Councils.
In a press statement issued on 12 May 2025, the Minister described the Chairmen’s failure to pay the new wage as “embarrassing,” noting that he had previously authorised the release of funds.
“I have limits; I cannot sack them because they are elected,” Wike said. He added that a committee would be set up to oversee direct payment of teachers’ salaries, bypassing local councils where necessary.
However, weeks later, there is no visible outcome from that announcement, and the strike remains unresolved.
Addressing protesters on Monday, Bitrus Garki, Mandate Secretary of the Area Councils Services Secretariat, said the wage implementation “remains largely the responsibility of the Area Councils.”
He acknowledged that the FCT Administration had intervened “multiple times” and stated that discussions were ongoing with stakeholders including the NUT, Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), and traditional leaders.
But he could not offer a timeline for resolution:
“This is multifaceted and involves stakeholder collaboration… I can’t say when this will end.”
Unimpressed by the assurances, VDM issued a seven-day ultimatum, warning that further protests would follow if the teachers’ demands were not met.
“If they don’t do anything and the children are not back in school, we’ll have to come with more students,” he declared.
He also announced plans to extend the protest to include primary healthcare workers, who have similarly been denied the new minimum wage.
“It’s just for Wike to see. We are not fighting him,” VDM said. “Maybe he has forgotten… He’s stressed. He nearly fell from the plane. He’s preparing for the 2027 election but has forgotten the children.”
VDM’s theatrics may have grabbed headlines, but the broader crisis is deeply structural.
According to UNICEF, over 18 million children in Nigeria are currently out of school, with 10.2 million of them at primary level. Despite free basic education policies, attendance in northern Nigeria lags significantly behind national averages only 53 per cent of children aged 6 -11 regularly attend school.
The FCT has historically outperformed other northern states in literacy and enrollment. Yet, this prolonged strike may reverse hard-won gains, especially in underserved communities.
Education experts have warned that disruptions of this scale could trigger higher dropout rates, widen learning gaps, and weaken Nigeria’s future workforce undermining efforts to build inclusive and resilient national development.
VDM’s protest may have been part spectacle, but the image it produced pupils learning alphabets on bare asphalt outside the home of Nigeria’s capital administrator delivers a chilling message:
education has left the classroom, and no one has brought it back.
