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• Presidency backs tougher penalties for attacks on medical personnel
The Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) on Tuesday indicated that its planned nationwide strike may be suspended after a three-hour intervention meeting convened by the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
The meeting brought together senior officials of the Federal Government, including the Ministers of Labour, Health and Finance, the Director-General of the Budget Office, the Accountant-General of the Federation, and officials overseeing cash management and the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS).
Emerging from the meeting, NARD President, Muhammad Suleiman, told State House correspondents that the discussions produced concrete agreements on several contentious issues, including salaries, promotions, allowances and welfare concerns that had prompted the strike ultimatum.
“Today, I can tell you, our matters are solved,” he said.
According to him, the association had secured commitments tied to specific implementation timelines and praised Gbajabiamila for repeatedly intervening in disputes involving resident doctors.
“This is not the first time the Chief of Staff has intervened in matters relating to resident doctors in this country. About six or seven years ago, when he became Speaker, it was the first opportunity he had to intervene, and he has always intervened. Whenever he came into our issues, our matters were solved,” he said.
According to Suleiman, one of the immediate resolutions concerned welfare issues at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), including meal-related entitlements.
“Timelines have been agreed upon by various agencies of government on salary and promotion areas. We are talking about the meal issue at LUTH, we are talking about a week for implementation. We have agreed on a figure. We have agreed on numbers,” he stated.
The NARD president also disclosed that the Federal Government had issued a standing directive aimed at ending persistent delays in the payment of house officers’ salaries.
“We also talked about house officers, so that they don’t have to wait a whole month before they get the previous month’s salaries. In fact, he has given a standing order that before the 10th of every month, salaries of house officers must be paid,” he said.
On the unresolved Collective Bargaining Agreement between NARD and the Federal Government, Suleiman said the Presidency had instructed the Ministries of Labour and Health to fast-track negotiations so that agreed provisions could be reflected in the 2027 budget cycle.
“The conversations have been very, very robust,” he added.
A major aspect of the discussions focused on the growing incidence of violence against health workers. Suleiman said the association presented data showing that 31 doctors and more than 20 other health workers had been assaulted in the last 10 months.
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“Today we have agreed. The Ministry of Health is going to release directives to their hospitals to beef up security and create safe spaces. The Ministry of Health is going to engage the public in public education for health workers not to be assaulted,” he said.
He further revealed that the Chief of Staff had undertaken to push for legislative measures that would make attacks on health workers a more serious criminal offence.
“The Chief of Staff has taken it upon himself to introduce legislation so that the National Assembly can come in with something that will make assault on health workers an aggravated offence. We are very glad with that. We think it will send the right signal that health workers should not be assaulted,” Suleiman stated.
Addressing the long-running dispute over hazard and specialist allowance arrears, Suleiman explained that the problem originated about seven years ago when resident doctors were paid only 40 per cent of their accrued entitlements.
While acknowledging that the Tinubu administration corrected the shortfall in February 2026, he said a backlog covering 19 months from July 2024 remained unpaid.
Asked to disclose the amount involved, he declined.
“Don’t push me to mention amounts on TV. We actually had a figure, but when we looked at the reality today, the actual figure, it came down,” he said.
“We thought it was a humongous amount. Now the reality is the numbers are much lower, so it’s much more reasonable. It’s much more affordable for government,” he added, noting that the Budget Office would provide a definitive payment schedule.
Despite expressing optimism, Suleiman stopped short of announcing an outright suspension of the proposed strike, insisting that the decision rests with NARD’s National Executive Council.
“I can’t stand here and tell you I have called off a strike. What I’ll do, I have the utmost confidence that what he (Gbajabiamila) has done today has moved the needle to a very large extent to have solved our matters, and we’ll wait for more,” he said.
He added: “I have National Executive Council members. I will have a conversation. I have to report all of this back. We sit down. We take a decision. The point is, the person that called us for this conversation has never failed resident doctors. That is what I am emphasising.”
The intervention came less than two weeks after NARD threatened to commence a nationwide indefinite strike on August 10 over unpaid salary arrears, welfare concerns and other unresolved issues affecting doctors in teaching hospitals and specialist health institutions across the country.
The strike notice was issued following the association’s National Executive Council meeting in Gombe State, where members reviewed the implementation of previous agreements reached with the Federal Government and resolved to proceed with a Total and Comprehensive Industrial Strike if their demands were not be met before the deadline.
