Doctors’ Strike: NMA Intervenes As Ngige Meets Stakeholders

Minister of labour and employment, Chris Ngige, has said the leadership of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) has waded into the industrial face-off between the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) and the federal government.

Ngige stated this yesterday after a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa.

According to him, he will be leading a federal government delegation to meet all the critical stakeholders in the medical sector in Abuja today.

He insisted the government would go ahead to invoke the “no work, no pay” charter on the striking doctors describing the NARD’s resumed strike as illegal and injurious to the nation at a time the country was battling with the third wave of the coronavirus pandemic.

According to him, it was illegal for the doctors to have embarked on the strike without giving adequate notice to the government even as he dismissed the NARD’s claims that it merely resumed a suspended strike.

On the invocation of the “no work, no pay” charter, Ngige said the matter had already been taken to the Industrial Court for adjudication recalling that such was applied on members of Judicial Staff Union of Nigeria (JUSUN) and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).

The minister also said that doctors’ demands were not only directed at the federal government just as he disclosed his readiness to confer with the governors on the matter through the Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF).