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FCT striking teachers demand sack of civil service commission chairman
The Joint Union Action Committee JUAC on Monday disrupted activities at the Federal Capital Territory Administration FCTA premises as they barricaded the FCT Minister’s gate in protest over unpaid salaries and allowances, the protracted strike by FCT Primary school teachers, and the non-payment of wage awards to health workers. The protesting workers also explicitly called for the sack of the Chairman, FCT Civil Service Commission, Emeka Ezeh.
The demonstrators effectively sealed the Minister’s office premises, preventing access for both entry and exit. Speaking to workers during the protest, JUAC President Rifkatu Iortyer knocked the FCT Administration over the non-release of overhead costs, neglect of retired staff qualified for promotion, and persistent discrepancies in salary payments.
“We cannot work when overhead is not released. We held a meeting with one of them and they say is overhead not for the directors? Is that true? Is it not for working? How can somebody as high-ranking as that say that overhead is for directors? It means they don’t even know. But I want them to know that from that overhead is what we use to work. It is a recurrent for office maintenance and other things that should be used for work. But we do not have it,” Iortyer lamented. She expressed particular frustration regarding career progression, stating; “My anger is more for our members who have retired when they are supposed to be in a particular cadre since 2024. They don’t even have a chance. If you were to be an Assistant Director and you retired in 2024, it means they have gone with your career progression. And so they stunted you, that is the end, even when you qualified.”
Highlighting the confusion surrounding salary payments, she added; “Do you understand your salary every month? Today, you see this amount. Next tomorrow, you see this amount. Me, I don’t know what my salary is, and so we do not understand.” The JUAC president further decried the administration’s failure to clear hazard allowance arrears for health workers and condemned what she described as an “unfair initiative” by the Chairman of the FCT Civil Service Commission for stopping workers’ salaries
“Health workers’ hazard arrears not paid. Our auxiliary staff, enforcement squad, those people at the mortuary, those people at the cemetery, their monies are not being paid. The letter for the stoppage of this salary was written on the 10th of March by the commission chairman. Is he supposed to give us those kinds of directives?” Iortyer questioned. And as you engage even auxiliary staff, there is a procedure. You let people know you want their salary to stop at so-so time. You don’t just abruptly stop people’s salary in this hard economy. Is that fair? That is the initiative of the Chairman and we don’t think it is right.”
Audu Akogwu, Chairman of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), FCT Chapter, declared his unequivocal support for the protesters, branding any workers who did not participate as “saboteurs” and “betrayers.” He criticized the suspension of overhead costs, revealing that “Staff buy paper before they work. They buy pen before they work.” Akogwu also took aim at the Minister, Nyesom Wike for allegedly failing to compel Area Council Chairmen to pay striking teachers and Area Council workers. He expressed skepticism about the release of bailout funds to the Chairmen.
“We are dying; FCTA workers are dying, no overhead. The Permanent Secretaries have been regulated to nothing, the Directors are dead. Staff buy papers before they work. They buy pens before they work. No promotion for 2023, 2024, and today we are in 2025. No training for any staff, how do you want productivity?” Akogwu queried. Addressing the prolonged strike, he said, “Primary schools are on strike, with local government workers, over a hundred days. Our children are on the streets, and you say you have given the local government bailout funds. The bailout funds you gave them, are they not accountable to you? As a governor, he was the one controlling the Local Governments in Rivers State. Why can’t he control the Area Councils here and put them on their toes to make sure they do justice to the bailout funds he gave them? That fund, I don’t trust it, because if he gave them, the Area Councils are not more powerful than the Minister himself,” he added.
Akogwu urged the Minister to intervene on behalf of FCT workers, warning that the protest served as a “warning.” He vowed to mobilize members of all affiliate unions to “shut down every FCT office” if their demands are not met.
“Whoever has ear to hear, should help us tell him to come to the aid of the workers. This is just a warning. First day, second and third day, that is our protest. From then, we are shutting down the whole office. I promise, I am going to mobilize all the TUC affiliates in Abuja. We are going to shut down every FCT office,” he concluded.
A new technology transfer agreement between the Nigeria–China Strategic Partnership (NCSP) and the Presidential Implementation Committee on Technology Transfer (PICTT) is expected to open more job opportunities, improve local skills, and expand access to advanced technology for ordinary Nigerians.
In a press statement reaching Vanguard on Friday, the MoU aims to strengthen industrial development, support local content, and create clearer pathways for Nigerians to benefit from China’s growing investments in the country.
PICTT Chairman, Dr Dahiru Mohammed, said the partnership will immediately begin coordinated programmes that support local participation in infrastructure and industrial projects.
Special Adviser to the President on Industry, Trade and Investment, Mr John Uwajumogu, said the deal will help attract high value investments that can stimulate job creation and strengthen Nigeria’s economy.
NCSP Head of International Relations, Ms Judy Melifonwu, highlighted that Nigerians stand to gain from expanded STEM scholarships, technical training, access to modern technology, and collaboration across key sectors including steel, agriculture, automobile parks, and cultural industries.
The NCSP Director-General reaffirmed the organisation’s commitment to measurable results, noting that the partnership with PICTT will prioritise initiatives that deliver direct national impact.
The MoU signals a new phase of Nigeria–China cooperation focused on practical delivery, local content, and opportunities that improve everyday livelihoods.
EU regulators launched an antitrust investigation into Meta Platforms on Thursday over its rollout of artificial intelligence features in its WhatsApp messenger that would block rivals, hardening Europe’s already tough stance on Big Tech. The move, reported earlier by Reuters and the Financial Times, is the latest action by European Union regulators against large technology firms such as Amazon and Alphabet’s Google as the bloc seeks to balance support for the sector with efforts to curb its expanding influence.
Europe’s tough stance – a marked contrast to more lenient U.S. regulation – has sparked an industry pushback, particularly by U.S. tech titans, and led to criticism from the administration of U. S. President Donald Trump. The European Commission said that the investigation will look into Meta’s new policy that would limit other AI providers’ access to WhatsApp, a potential boost for its own Meta AI system integrated into the platform earlier this year.
EU antitrust chief Teresa Ribera said the move was to prevent dominant firms from “abusing their power to crowd out innovative competitors”. She added interim measures could be imposed to block Meta’s new WhatsApp AI policy rollout. “AI markets are booming in Europe and beyond,” she said. This is why we are investigating if Meta’s new policy might be illegal under competition rules, and whether we should act quickly to prevent any possible irreparable harm to competition in the AI space.”
A WhatsApp spokesperson called the claims “baseless”, adding that the emergence of chatbots on its platforms had put a “strain on our systems that they were not designed to support”, a reference to AI systems from other providers. “Still, the AI space is highly competitive and people have access to the services of their choice in any number of ways, including app stores, search engines, email services, partnership integrations, and operating systems.” The EU was the first in the world to establish a comprehensive legal framework for AI, setting out guardrails for AI systems and rules for certain high-risk applications in the AI Act.
Meta AI, a chatbot and virtual assistant, has been built into WhatsApp’s interface across European markets since March. The Commission said a new policy fully applicable from January 15, 2026, may block competing AI providers from reaching customers via the platform. Ribera said the probe came on the back of complaints from small AI developers about the WhatsApp policy. The Interaction Company of California, which has developed AI assistant Poke.com, has taken its grievance to the EU competition enforcer. Spanish AI startup Luzia has also talked to the Commission, a person with knowledge of the matter said.
Marvin von Hagen, co-founder and CEO of The Interaction Company of California, said if Meta was allowed to roll out its new policy, “millions of European consumers will be deprived of the possibility of enjoying new and innovative AI assistants”. Meta also risks a fine of as much as 10% of its global annual turnover if found guilty of breaching EU antitrust rules.
Italy’s antitrust watchdog opened a parallel investigation in July into allegations that Meta leveraged its market power by integrating an AI tool into WhatsApp, expanding the probe in November to examine whether Meta further abused its dominance by blocking rival AI chatbots from the messaging platform. The antitrust probe is a more traditional means of investigation than the EU’s Digital Markets Act, the bloc’s landmark legislation currently used to scrutinize Amazon’s and Microsoft’s cloud services for potential curbs. Reuters
The spouses and children of billionaires inherited more wealth in 2025 than in any previous year since reporting began in 2015, according to UBS’s Billionaire Ambitions Report published on Thursday. In the 12 months to April, 91 people became billionaires through inheritance, collectively receiving $298 billion, up more than a third from 2024, the Swiss bank said. “These heirs are proof of a multi-year wealth transfer that’s intensifying,” UBS executive Benjamin Cavalli said.
The report is based on a survey of some of UBS’s super-rich clients and a database that tracks the wealth of billionaires across 47 markets in all world regions. At least $5.9 trillion will be inherited by billionaire children over the next 15 years, the bank calculates.
Most of this inheritance growth is set to take place in the United States, with India, France, Germany and Switzerland next on the list, UBS estimated. However, billionaires are highly mobile, especially younger ones, which could change that picture, it added. The search for a better quality of life, geopolitical concerns and tax considerations are driving decisions to relocate, according to the report.
In Switzerland, where $206 billion will be inherited over the next 15 years according to the bank, voters on Sunday overwhelmingly rejected 50 per cent tax on inherited fortunes of $62 million or more, after critics said it could trigger an exodus of wealthy people.
Switzerland, the UAE, the U.S. and Singapore are among billionaires’ preferred destinations, UBS’s Cavalli said. “In Switzerland, Sunday’s vote may have helped to increase the country’s appeal again,” he said. Reuters
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