Nationwide Protest, As APC Led Government Threatens To Sack All Medical Doctors In The Country
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The National Association of Resident Doctors, NARD, has embarked on sit-at-home protest, despite the threat by the President Muhamamdu Buhari-led Federal Government to sack all Doctors, if the strike goes beyond Friday.
On Saturday morning, Gistlover.com gathered that the Resident Doctors dared the Buhari-led government to carry out the threat, by failing to call off the strike.
Recall, that the threat to sack all the Doctors was reached at a meeting held at the instance of the Minister of Labour and Productivity, Chris Ngige, with Executives of Nigeria Medical Association, NMA, on Wednesday.
The National Publicity Secretary of NARD, Ugoezi Asinobi, had reacted that the Doctors are used to that pronouncements by the government.
The Doctors are protesting the sack of some of their colleagues, non-payment of “skipping” entitlements, non-inclusion in the IPPIS platform, and non-payment of their salary arrears.
Following failure by the government to honour the agreement on payment of salary arrears, Adeolu said that the Association would meet late on Friday, to decide on next line of action.
“Since we held the meeting with the two Ministers, nothing new has happened. We were hoping that they will fulfill their end of the agreement, so that we can call off the strike and continue negotiations.
“But, up till now that I am speaking with you, nothing has happened; we are yet to be paid.
“After the meeting we had on Wednesday, an agreement was reached. Some of the agreements reached cannot be fulfilled immediately except one.
“That is for the Federal Government to pay the backlog of salary arrears owed Doctors across the country; it was agreed that these arrears would be paid latest on Thursday or Friday.
“With this in mind, we scheduled to hold a meeting on Friday, to discuss the next steps to take, in order to call off the strike, but to our dismay, we are yet to receive anything”, Adeolu said.
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