The Children at the School Gate: An Appeal for the Forgotten Ones in the FCT Strike
By Ameh Abraham
Yesterday, I met two young Girls at a family gathering. They were public secondary school students. And they were visibly worried. Their greatest concern was not about mathematics or the upcoming WAEC examinations. It was about the ongoing strike by FCT public school teachers that has kept them at home for days now. As we spoke, their eyes drifted toward the house of the neighboring flat, whose children attended a private school nearby. The children walked past us in neat uniforms, the same way they would walk through the gate of their school without obstruction.
“They are going to learn,” one of them said quietly. “We are just here.”
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I have tasted both systems, public and private. So I understood their pain not just as a feature writer, but as someone who has felt the sting of educational inequality firsthand. When they asked me to pray for the situation to be resolved, I did not object. Prayer is a comfort. But my informed, policy-minded self knew the truth: prayers alone will not reopen these schools. Only leadership, dialogue, and a genuine commitment to the welfare of both teachers and children will.
This piece is not about assigning blame. It is an appeal, a plea to everyone with the power to act, to remember the forgotten ones at the heart of this crisis.
The Current Reality: Over 340,000 Children at Home
Let us put the numbers in perspective. According to Plan International Nigeria, more than 340,000 children across the FCT’s six Area Councils are currently out of school due to the indefinite strike that began on April 20, 2026. This is not a small disruption. This is a full-blown educational emergency.
The Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), FCT wing, declared the strike after what they describe as “continued silence” from authorities on legitimate demands. These demands include:
- Non-implementation and payment of 25% and 35% salary increments.
- Non-implementation and payment of 40% peculiar allowance.
- Promotion arrears and unfilled vacancies.
- Stagnation in career progression.
A comment on a Sahara Reporters post by a teacher listed the grievances painfully: “40% peculiar allowance, 25% increment, 35% increment, 35k wage awards, bags of rice, promotion arrears, promotion implementation, upgrading, annual increment, pension non-remittance, etc.”
Another teacher, Adam Manseer, wrote: “Teachers are not slaves. We have endured enough neglect and broken promises. If peaceful appeals had worked, it would never have come to this. Don’t criticize the reaction while you ignored the cause.”
They are not wrong. Teachers have the right to demand what is owed them. In any civilized society, the people who shape young minds should not have to beg for their entitlements. The question is not whether their grievances are valid. The question is: at what cost to the children?
The Minister’s Intervention: A Step Forward, But Not Yet a Solution
To his credit, FCT Minister Nyesom Wike has intervened. On April 23, he met with NUT leaders and reportedly ordered the direct payment of outstanding allowances, even intercepting Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) allocations meant for Area Councils to ensure the funds are paid.
Wike expressed concern that continued strikes would have “devastating consequences on school children”. He noted that education is vital and that he had even set up a committee in July 2025 to harmonize outstanding entitlements. That committee submitted its report in August 2025, but it has yet to be made public.
The NUT leadership described the meeting as “fruitful,” but as of this writing, the strike has not been suspended. The union’s larger house needs to deliberate further.
This is the frustrating cycle: meetings are held, promises are made, committees are formed, reports are submitted, and then silence. Meanwhile, the children wait.
The Hidden Wounds: What Strikes Do to Young Minds
The Parents Teachers Association (PTA) in the FCT has called on the FCT Minister, to end the strike, warning of “serious adverse effects” on children. PTA Chairman Alhaji Usman Abubakar revealed a chilling reality: during an 18-week strike last year, some girls were impregnated while hawking on the streets because their parents, unable to afford private school, sent them to sell goods instead.
This is the hidden cost of industrial action in the education sector. It is not just about lost lesson notes. It is about vulnerability, to child labor, to abuse, to early pregnancy, to a lifetime of diminished opportunity.
Plan International Nigeria’s Country Director, Dr. Charles Usie, put it starkly: “Every day that children remain out of school due to unresolved institutional disputes is a day of lost learning, lost protection, and lost opportunity. While workers’ grievances must be addressed fairly and urgently, children must not continue to bear the highest cost of a crisis they did not create”.
The organization warns that the ongoing “strike and resume” cycle is creating a dangerous pattern of instability that undermines educational outcomes and the psychological development of pupils.
My Plea: For the Love of the Children, Do the Right Thing
I write this as someone who has walked both sides of the educational divide. I know what it feels like to be a child in a public school, watching your private school peers move ahead while you stay behind. I know the shame. I know the frustration. And I know that children should not have to ask a stranger to pray for them to return to class.
So here is my plea, as a fellow Nigerian who believes that no child’s future should be held hostage by grown-ups who cannot sort out their differences.
To the FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike:
You have shown leadership by intervening. Please do not stop there. Expedite the release of the committee report that has been gathering dust since August 2025. Ensure that every kobo owed to teachers is paid, not in installments, not in promises, but in full. You have the power to break this cycle. Use it.
To the Nigeria Union of Teachers:
Your grievances are legitimate. You have every right to demand what is yours. But I beg you: reconsider the indefinite nature of this strike. Is there a way to keep classrooms open while negotiations continue? The children in public schools are already at a disadvantage compared to their peers in private institutions. Every additional day at home widens that gap irreparably. Do not let the sins of the authorities become the permanent scars of the innocent.
To the Area Council Chairmen:
The minister has reminded us that primary school teachers’ salaries and allowances are your statutory responsibility. Step up. Account for the funds allocated to you. Show us that you are worthy of the trust placed in your offices.
To the Parents and Guardians:
I know your frustration. I know you are caught between supporting the teachers’ cause and watching your children fall behind. But please, do not let your children roam the streets during this period. Find ways to keep them learning, even if it is just reading a book at home. Their future depends on what they do with this lost time.
And to the Rest of Us:
Let us stop pretending that this is not our problem. The children affected by this strike will grow up to be our doctors, our engineers, our leaders, or our burdens. A society that tolerates the repeated shutdown of its public schools is a society that has made peace with its own decline.
Conclusion: Beyond Prayers
When the two young girls asked me to pray about the issue, I did. Silently, in my heart, I asked for wisdom for our leaders, patience for our teachers, and resilience for our children. But I also promised myself that I would write this piece, not as an attack, but as an appeal.
Prayer is powerful. But prayer without action is empty. The God to whom we pray also gave us brains to solve problems, hands to do justice, and voices to speak for the voiceless.
The children are watching. They are waiting. And they are asking a simple question: “Why can’t we go to school?” Someone in power needs to answer that question, not with excuses, but with a solution.