The President of the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors, Dr. Mohammad Suleiman, has revealed that the association’s National Executive Council has outlined specific conditions that must be met before the ongoing indefinite strike can be suspended.
Suleiman explained that the NEC has reduced its demands to seven major issues requiring urgent government action.
Speaking in an interview with The PUNCH on Friday, he noted that although three conciliation meetings were held, during which 19 items were agreed upon, the government has failed to implement any of the resolutions, apart from the partial payment of the 25–35 per cent allowance.
NARD began its nationwide strike on November 1, 2025, leading to widespread disruption in healthcare services as around 11,000 resident doctors across 91 teaching hospitals withdrew their services over long-standing issues such as unpaid allowances and poor working conditions.
The situation worsened on November 15 when the Joint Health Sector Unions also embarked on an indefinite strike, heightening concerns about patient welfare and overall hospital stability in several states.
Suleiman said, “We had three conciliation meetings. We agreed on all 19 items. In fact, everybody agreed that all of them needed to be solved, and there were timelines for solving them.”
He explained that the NEC has now identified seven core demands that must be urgently addressed for the strike to be called off.
These include reinstating the dismissed Lokoja doctors, releasing the Professional Allowance Table, paying promotion arrears, clearing outstanding salaries in certain hospitals, implementing the upgrade for doctors who passed their Part I exams and meeting entry-level requirements, enforcing the specialist allowance, and resolving the Membership Certificate issue.
He stated, “NEC said when the government sorts these out, we will come back again and suspend this strike. That is where we are now.”
Suleiman emphasised that deadlines were agreed upon during negotiations, particularly the previous Friday.
These deadlines covered actions such as compiling promotion arrears, documenting salary arrears in affected hospitals, issuing a directive to the Accountant-General on upgrade matters, and providing clarification from the Head of Service regarding the revised entry level for doctors, which had been downgraded from CONMESS 3 to CONMESS 2.
He added, “Today is Friday, one full week after the deadline, and those compilations have not even been forwarded to the Minister of Finance or the Budget Office. The Head of Service has not clarified. We still don’t have an update on the Professional Allowance Table. Even the two-week extension granted on some issues has now expired without any progress.
“The Lokoja issue we agreed on—two weeks from November 6—expired yesterday (Thursday). The report has still not been submitted. No demand has been fully met, except for the 25–35 per cent allowance, which itself remains incomplete. We all agreed that 40 per cent of our members have not received that money.
“We agreed that the remittance payment report would be released by IPPIS as of last Friday. This is Friday of the following week, and the report has still not been generated. As for the accoutrement allowance for those on the Government Integrated Financial Management Information System, we compiled the list, but it has been very problematic, with cases of double payment.”
