Resident Doctors Threaten Indefinite Strike After Ultimatum Expiration
By Hajara Abdullahi
The National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) has threatened to embark on an indefinite strike following the expiration of the 30-day ultimatum it issued to the Federal Government.
In an interview with journalists on Monday in Abuja, NARD President, Dr. Muhammad Suleiman, directed all doctors in federal and state tertiary institutions to halt service delivery from November 1, 2025, until the government addresses their demands.
He revealed that Nigeria, which had over 20,000 resident doctors a decade ago, now has less than 11,000, with 9,000 at the federal level, 500 at the state level, and 1,500 in the private sector.
“You cannot find a permanent secretary, a director, a minister, a member of the House of Representatives, a senator, even a member of the House of Assembly or a councillor at the ward level that is owed this way. But then, essential workers like health workers and teachers are being owed these allowances,” he said.
Dr. Suleiman explained that the federal government could avert the planned strike by assuring the union that doctors’ salaries would no longer be paid three weeks after other civil servants had received theirs.
“If you give us the signal that the collective bargaining agreement will be rounded off within a week or two, so that we begin to go into the implementation process; if you sit down and talk about addressing the entry level of doctors into civil service, why downgrade it?” he queried.
He added that doctors simply want to return to their hospitals, wards, and clinics to attend to patients but emphasized that receiving their salaries and allowances as agreed should not be too much to ask.
“We are doctors who just want to go back to our hospitals, wards, and clinics to see our patients. But while we are doing that, it’s not asking for too much to just collect our salaries and allowances. We are not asking for new things. These are things we have agreed. No one will come and tell you that what they are asking for is illegitimate,” he added.
NARD had earlier suspended its warning strike on September 14, 2025, following deliberations at its last Annual General Meeting held in Katsina, where the association extended the initial two-week ultimatum to 30 days to allow the federal government time to address their grievances.
Meanwhile, Nigerians continue to grapple with the rising cost of healthcare services, with thousands dying from curable diseases due to years of neglect and underinvestment in the health sector—an issue that has also triggered massive brain drain, leading to the migration of thousands of doctors and other medical personnel.
