Resident doctors set to suspend planned strike after talks with Gbajabiamila

The Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors is set to call off its planned strike following a three-hour meeting with the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, at the Presidential Villa on Tuesday.

“Today, I can tell you, our matters are solved,” said NARD President, Dr Muhammad Suleiman, who revealed that the delegation and the Federal Government agreed to specific timelines for resolving outstanding salary, promotion and allowance disputes that had pushed the association to the brink of industrial action.

The meeting, convened by Gbajabiamila, brought together the Ministers of Labour, Health, and Finance, the Director-General of the Budget Office of the Federation, the Accountant-General of the Federation, and officials responsible for cash management and the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System.

Briefing journalists after the meeting, Suleiman said the association had secured firm commitments on nearly every outstanding issue, though he stopped short of formally announcing the suspension of the planned strike, pending consultation with the association’s National Executive Council.

“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,” Suleiman stated.

He added, “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.”

On the recurring problem of delayed salaries for house officers, junior doctors in their mandatory one-year internship, Suleiman said a standing directive had now been issued.

He said, “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.”

On the Collective Bargaining Agreement between NARD and the FG, Suleiman said the Presidency had directly charged the Ministries of Labour and Health to accelerate its completion, so that whatever terms are agreed can be captured in next year’s budget cycle for implementation.

“The conversations have been very, very robust,” he said.

Suleiman disclosed that the association had also raised the escalating pattern of violence against health workers, citing 31 doctors and more than 20 other health workers assaulted in the past 10 months alone.

“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 revealed.

He said the Chief of Staff will drive legislative reform on the matter.

“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,” he stated.

On the long-running dispute over unpaid hazard and specialist allowance arrears, Suleiman explained that the roots of the dispute date back roughly seven years, when the government began paying resident doctors only 40 per cent of their accrued allowances rather than the full entitlement.

He said the Tinubu administration corrected the shortfall in February 2026 but, in implementing the correction, did not cover the full seven-year backlog, leaving a 19-month gap dating back to July 2024 still outstanding.

Asked by our correspondent to specify the figures, Suleiman declined, saying, “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. 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 said, adding that the Budget Office was expected to provide a firm payment timeline.

Pressed on whether the planned strike had been formally called off, Suleiman declined to make the declaration unilaterally.

He argued, “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 would need to report back to NARD’s National Executive Council before any final decision could be communicated.

“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,” he said.

However, a source with knowledge of the meeting told our correspondent that NARD leadership had already privately assured Gbajabiamila that the planned strike would be called off, and that the Chief of Staff had insisted on an immediate resolution rather than a deferred one.

Tuesday’s meeting comes days after NARD threatened to embark on a nationwide indefinite strike from August 10 if the FG fails to address outstanding salary arrears, welfare concerns and other longstanding issues affecting its members.

The association announced the decision in a communiqué issued after its National Executive Council met in Gombe State, where it reviewed the implementation of previous agreements reached with the FG.

NARD, which represents doctors undergoing specialist training in Nigeria’s teaching and specialist hospitals, said the proposed Total and Comprehensive Industrial Strike would commence at 8 a.m. on August 10 unless its demands are met before the deadline.