2027: Prioritise payment of local contractors, APC group charges Tinubu, Finance, Works Ministers

 

The National Forum of APC Young Professionals (NFAYP), on Sunday, told President Bola Ahmed Tinubu led Federal Government, to intensive effort in clearing up the outstanding debts owed the indigenous contractors in Nigeria.

This was, even as, the Forum also cautioned the Ministers of Finance, Mr. Wale Edun; Works, Engr. Dave Umahi and the Accountant-General of the Federation (AGoF), Mr. Shamsedeen Babatunde Ogunjimi; against placing premiums on the foreign contractors above their local counterparts.

 

The call is coming on the heels of the protracted faceoff between the Federal Government and the Indigenous Contractors in Nigeria.

 

The last quarter of the year 2025 witnessed a lot of protests from the contractors over unpaid debts of the already executed and commissioned projects contained in the 2024 budget.

 

The Contractors, barricading the main entrance to the National Assembly and Ministry of Finance for weeks, were demanding payment of over N4tr debt owed them in the projects they executed the previous year.

 

In a statement signed Sunday evening by the National Chairman, Engr. Lukman Adejobi, and Secretary, Dr. Godwin Lukas, the National Forum of APC Young Professionals bemoaned the inability of the Federal Government to fulfill its promises, despite series of interventions and commitments.

“Despite the interventions of the National Assembly in October and the Presidential Committee set up by our dear President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in December, 2025; the Ministers and Attorney-General of the Federation have refused to clear the arrears.

 

“They made some payments but to a large extent, over N2tr is still outstanding, according to our findings. This non-payment of debts owed indigenous contractors is seriously affecting us politically, aside the economic aspect of it”, the Forum posited.

 

The statement further stressed the insincerity on the part of the Federal Government to fulfill its obligation to the local contractors, most of whom, the Forum alluded, took loans before executing the contracts, saying, it has greatly weakened their credit profile and rendered some companies bankrupt.

 

“We the Members of National Forum of APC Young Professionals (NFAYP) find this very harmful to our economy. It also portrays the tendency of affecting the outcome of the 2027 general elections, which our party stands a good chance to win across the board.

 

“What the Ministers and Attorney-General don’t know is that, these local contractors have families and friends who are politically exposed. Some of them are also grassroots politicians by themselves and have the right to support any candidate in the coming elections. But if you don’t pay them the money owed, how can they be happy with the party APC? How can they mobilize for 2027? What if they decide to work against the APC for what the Ministers and Attorney-General are doing to them?

 

“We have sounded this warning severally. You are complaining of lack of funds and said you have appropriated the sum of N1.8tr in the 2026 budget, to clear outstandings of the 2024 capital projects executed by indigenous contractors; but you are paying foreign contractors, how do you want their local counterparts to feel?

 

“You have forgotten that these same local contractors would be the ones to stand for you tomorrow during elections. No foreigner can decide any vote during elections in Nigeria. If we don’t treat our own right, we would be the ones to suffer the consequences when the time comes”, the Forum added.

 

The Forum subsequently called on the Federal Government to take desperate steps to urgently attend to the obligations owed the indigenous contractors, while calling on the contactors to shelve their planned protests this January and give the Federal Government a little more time, to enable the outstandings of 2024 budget cleared.