Local contractors in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) clashed with the Minister of the FCT, Nyesom Wike, on Monday over alleged unpaid contract bills said to total about N5.2 billion.
The aggrieved contractors staged a protest at the minister’s residence, demanding immediate payment for jobs they claimed to have executed over the past two years.
Some of them alleged that their individual outstanding payments ran into hundreds of millions of naira, appealing to Wike to meet them directly to understand their plight.
One of the contractors, Okeke Benardine, told the press,
“We’ve done jobs with the FCT over the years. When the minister came, he paid some of us. But most of our liabilities are from the present administration. We have not been paid for almost two years now. All we are asking is for the minister to pay us. That is the essence of all this.”
He put the collective claim at N5.2bn, with his personal outstanding bill standing at about N270m. According to him, about 70% of the debt is traceable to 2023 contracts.
Another contractor, Adebola Benson, alleged he was arrested after sending a text message to the minister seeking clarification on the delayed payments.
“Like in my case, I was arrested because of this matter. I sent him a text, asking why we are having this issue. The next thing I saw was a police officer calling me. I do not know why the police did that,” he said.
During the protest, contractors carried placards with inscriptions such as “Hon Minister Wike, please kindly authorise our payment, we can hardly take care of our families” and “Hon Minister Wike, please extend your kindness to us by authorising indigenous contractors’ payment.”
FCTA Responds
The FCT Administration, however, swiftly dismissed the claims, insisting that Minister Wike never awarded contracts worth N5bn to any local contractors.
In a statement, Wike’s Senior Special Assistant on Public Communications and Social Media, Lere Olayinka, said:
“No contract was awarded to any of the local contractors by the FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike. If they have documents showing award of contracts by the Minister, they should produce them.”
Olayinka explained that Wike inherited a debt of about N10bn for minor procurements from previous administrations. According to him, the liabilities were cleared in two tranches—over N5bn in December 2023 and another N5bn in January 2024.
He added that three months later, new claims amounting to N15bn surfaced, which later dropped to N8bn and now N5bn.
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“The question is: on whose authority were these contracts awarded? Those are the questions they have to answer first,” Olayinka stated.
The FCTA maintained that while Wike had honoured all inherited obligations, he had not issued new contracts under the disputed “minor procurement” scheme, raising doubts over the legitimacy of the contractors’ latest demands
