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| NLC President Joe Ajaero |
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has thrown its full weight behind the indefinite strike by Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) workers, hailing it as a “necessary and heroic” stand against rampant workers’ rights abuses.
In a fiery statement released Friday, January 23, 2026, by NLC President Joe Ajaero, the union pledged “very strong solidarity” to the striking workers, organized under the Joint Unions Action Congress (JUAC).
Ajaero slammed the strike’s trigger as a “vicious cocktail” of neoliberal assaults, administrative impunity, and systematic rights violations by FCTA management and its political bosses. Consultations with JUAC leaders exposed a “deliberate assault on the working class” in the nation’s capital, pure “capitalist exploitation and bureaucratic oppression,” he charged.
The NLC has now called on all affiliate unions to join the fray, declaring: “Your struggle is our struggle.”
“The case of Wage abuse was well established. The illegal withholding of five months’ wage award and promotion arrears is not an administrative lapse but a brazen denial of workers’ legitimate earnings, a direct attack on their livelihoods and a violation of the constitutional guarantee of remuneration,” the statement reads.
The union leader alleged that the FCTA failed to remit pension contributions and National Housing Fund deductions since May 2025.
“The non-remittance of pension contributions since May 2025 and National Housing Fund deductions is an act of economic sabotage against both active and retired workers, condemning them to a destitute old age. This is capital accumulation by dispossession, plain and simple. It is unacceptable,” the statement said.
“The intimidation of staff, including bans on phone usage and incarceration of workers, is fascistic tactic designed to cripple workers’ solidarity and silence dissent, in utter contempt of constitutional rights and international labour conventions.”
The labour body thus announced an escalation of the industrial action, directing all its affiliate unions in the FCT to fully align with the strike.
The NLC also directed workers to mobilise to the National Industrial Court on January 26, where the court will hear a suit filed by the FCTA and Nyesom Wike, FCT minister, challenging the strike.
The NLC president warned the FCTA management and political leadership that “the patience of the working class is exhausted,” adding that failure to resolve the dispute would lead to further escalation.
“To the workers of the FCTA, NLC says: Your struggle is our struggle. Your victory will be a victory for every exploited worker in Nigeria,” the statement said.
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