Three weeks after local contractors of Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA), owed about N5.2billion by the Administration, penned an open letter to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu over their plight, they claim no word has come to them yet from Aso Villa on the vexed matter.
The contractors also claim that the payment bill is for public welfare contracts given, procured, executed and certified for payment in the life of the administration of current FCT Minister, Barrister Nyesom Wike. These include jobs in school and hospital equipment, furniture in Minister’s conference room, drainage and others.
However, they remain downcast that the Minister failed to pay up even as they alleged that he has ordered the settling of some fresh contracts of higher total monetary value “in which he has special interest.”
Spokesmen of the contractors’ body, Association of Indigenous Contractors of FCT, Malam Jamilu Gwandu and Chachul Manasseh, told journalists in Abuja today that they were dismayed by the apparent lack of response by the Presidency to their open letter, published in a national daily, and other initiatives they undertook to draw President Tinubu’s attention to wade into the raging matter.
According to them, they want the president to order Wike to pay them, stressing that their families have been ground in the dust of roiling poverty due to the indebtedness since last year.
Gwandu expressed worry that him and his colleagues appear to have been abandoned by both Aso Villa and the Minister “whereas we are not criminals,but law abiding citizens duly and dutifully contributing our bit to the development of FCT and the nation.”
Manasseh added:”These are legitimate contracts given to us by FCTA, through its Secretariats, Departments and Agencies (SDAs), duly procured, executed, completed excellently, certified, but which, for still unknown reasons, the Honorable Minister, Barrister Nyesom Wike, just refused to pay us.
“Worse still, he refused to meet with us, despite our best and most diligent efforts through his Chief of Staff and Head of Service, FCTA to meet with him. Assurances by these ranking officials that the Minister would see us, have been futile.
“We are responsible family persons. Our families are presently suffering unbearably,avoidably. Children’s school fees cannot be paid and many of our kids have been chased away from school on account of this.
“Our landlords have evicted some of us shamefully while quit notices have been served on others.
“Many of us have developed high blood pressure and are regularly hospitalized because we took bank loans to execute the contracts; now with the attendant unbearable pressure and huge threats from our creditors,blood pressure has shot up to even unmanageable levels. We must not be allowed to die.
“As our father, the father of the nation, we, once again, humbly appeal to president Tinubu to step in and order the FCT Minister to pay us. Our families have no hope of celebrating the oncoming festivities, including New Year’s Day, except our amiable president gives this order to the Minister.”
The contractors have been locked in a battle with Wike over the contract payment matter. It would be recalled that on Tuesday, July 23, 2024, and August 13,2024, the contractors, apparently pushed to the wall, embarked on peaceful protest outside the gates of FCTA, but were tear-gassed on the latter date by police personnel allegedly acting on the Minister’s orders.
On September 29,2024, one of the contractors was arrested,also allegedly on the Minister’s orders, for, according to the open letter written by the group, sending “a Save Our Soul (SOS) WhatsApp post to the Minister, humbly pleading,in the softest of tones, that he be paid even as he described the dire economic situation the prolonged non-payment had plunged his entire family.”
