…Links FCT NLC chairman to ADC, says teachers’ strike is political blackmail
By Omeiza Ajayi, Abuja
The minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, has demanded action from the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC against the African Democratic Congress ADC vice presidential candidate, Rotimi Amaechi, over his remarks about President Bola Tinubu and his supporters.
Wike spoke on Friday in Abuja, shortly after a closed-door meeting with the chairmen of the six Area Councils and security operatives.
He said he had not heard that INEC had drawn Amaechi’s attention to his utterances.
“Many Nigerians have called INEC to sanction political parties and candidates or some politicians who, in their campaigns, incite the public or raise matters that are not issue-based. We have been told to go on campaigns based on issues. What are you going to do about the people attacking personality or insulting individuals? Up till now, I have not heard that INEC has been able to call or draw the attention of the vice presidential candidate of the ADC, Rotimi Amaechi, to this,” the minister said.
He also challenged the media to press the opposition for accountability instead of staying neutral in the face of what he called unsubstantiated insults against the president and his supporters.
Wike raised questions about projects during Amaechi’s time as governor of Rivers State, including a multi-million-dollar hospital, the state monorail, the sale of a state-owned gas turbine and a state-wide fumigation contract.
“I challenge him. Ask him the $10 million you paid to a Cuban company to fumigate Rivers State so there will be no mosquito bite. Up till now, mosquitoes have been biting Rivers people, including myself. Ask him, ‘The ₦68 billion monorail – where is the monorail?’ Ask him, Where is the $308 million with which you sold our gas turbine?” he said.
He warned that continued attacks on the president and his supporters would meet resistance from supporters across the country, particularly in Rivers State, and added that thieves and lunatics will not preside over Nigeria.
“If he continues along this line, it may be difficult for him to campaign in Rivers. And I want somebody to go and write it down. Because we will not take that. We will not,” he said.
On the strike declared by the FCT Chapter of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Wike described it as a politically motivated attempt to blackmail the administration. He said the FCT Administration had met all its obligations to local government workers and teachers.
“We want to state categorically and let it be known to the public that this so-called strike declaration is political, and we will not accept it. We will not accept it because there’s no basis for anybody to call for a strike. We don’t have any issue with anybody, either be it the area council, local education, primary authority, or secondary schools; we have no issues,” he said.
He announced the immediate implementation of a “no work, no pay” policy across all Area Councils.
The minister said major education bodies, including the Universal Basic Education Board (UBEB), had explicitly dissociated themselves from the strike because existing agreements were already being carried out.
He said the FCT NLC Chairman, Hon. Stephen Knabayi, was a candidate of the ADC in the last Area Council elections and warned against using industrial action for political gain.
“And you can see his interest trying to see that FCT is in crisis, and then he wants to use it as a political tool that FCT teachers are at home, and nobody is teaching students; how can you now come and vote for a government when the pupils are at home? We cannot accept that blackmail. We won’t accept it.
“I have told everybody, and I have told Labour, ‘Look, if you want to involve yourself in politics, you are free to, but then excuse yourself from the leadership of the union so you don’t politicise it,'” he said.
Wike also ordered a crackdown on unapproved beer parlours along the Guzape-Asokoro axis, directing that they be dismantled before they become security liabilities.
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