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Atiku Calls on Resident Doctors to Shut Hospitals, Proceed on Strike
Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar has backed the planned nationwide strike by the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) over the federal government’s decision to halt the implementation of the revised professional allowance table (PAT).
The association on Saturday announced that its members would commence a nationwide strike scheduled to begin at 12am on Tuesday, April 7.
Shuaibu Ibrahim, the association’s secretary-general, said the action followed the federal government’s plan to discontinue the allowance framework earlier agreed with the doctors.
Reacting to the development in a statement posted on his X handle on Sunday, Abubakar said the association should not have to demand compliance with an agreement already reached.
The former vice-president described resident doctors as critical to Nigeria’s healthcare system, noting that they work under difficult conditions.
“The Federal Government signed a deal on the Professional Allowance Table, and now it wants to abandon it. This is not governance; it is betrayal,” he wrote.
“Our resident doctors are the last line of defence in hospitals that are already collapsing.
They work gruelling hours, in impossible conditions, for pay that insults their sacrifice. And now, the government seeks to take away the little that was promised?”
Abubakar urged the administration of President Bola Tinubu to address the outstanding issues affecting the doctors, including unpaid allowances and other entitlements.
He added that the continued exit of doctors from the country reflects a “failure of leadership”.
He called on the government to honour its agreement with the doctors to avert disruption in the health sector.
“The Tinubu administration must demonstrate commitment to the issues: 19 months of unpaid Professional Allowance arrears; promotion arrears gathering dust; a Medical Residency Training Fund stuck in bureaucratic limbo; and a government that treats its doctors as an afterthought and remains unconcerned as they flee the country in droves,” the former vice-president said.
“Every doctor Nigeria loses to the UK, Canada, or Saudi Arabia is a failure of leadership, not a failure of patriotism. You cannot ask people to serve a nation that refuses to honour its own word.
“I stand with NARD. Pay what you owe. Honour what you signed. Or explain to 200 million Nigerians why their hospitals will go dark on Tuesday.”
