The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Abbas Tajudeen, is to meet with President Bola Tinubu to avert the planned strike action by the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD).
Abbas will be meeting with Tinubu to update him on the pending issues raised by NARD and appeal to the President to resolve the concerns.
The Resident Doctors were demanding a 200 per cent increase in their salaries and other associated allowances as well as payment of all salary arrears, implementation of a new salary structure, amongst others.
They had embarked on a five-day warning strike between May 17 and 21, 2023, to press home their demands, and also issued a fresh two-week ultimatum for the government to meet their demands.
However, at a meeting with the NARD leadership on Monday, the Speaker of the House of Representatives appealed to the Resident Doctors to give the parliament two weeks period to find solutions to the issues raised.
Abbas also announced the setting up of an ad-hoc committee to be chaired by the House Leader, Prof. Julius Ihonvbere, which will meet with all the stakeholders with a view to addressing the issues.
Abbas, therefore, charged the panel to swing into action immediately.
He noted that the 10th House was inaugurated a little over a month ago, and appealed to the Resident Doctors to see reason with the current leadership of the House and “give us a little time to address this matter.”
“I appeal to you to give us a little time. We just came in less than 50 days ago. Give us a little time to sort out these issues. We don’t have some stakeholders.
“Please, suspend your action by two weeks. I assure you that I’ll set up an ad-hoc committee on this matter today. I also want to assure you that I’ll meet with the President between today (Monday) and tomorrow (Tuesday) and brief him on what’s happening.
“I plead with you to talk to your members that we have intervened again, and that within two weeks, we’ll take all the necessary actions,”
Abbas said.
The leadership of the Resident Doctors, led by the National President of NARD, Dr. Emeka Innocent Orji, acceded to the Speaker’s appeal and said they would get back to their members on the Speaker’s position.
The meeting had in attendance the Permanent Secretary (Special Duties), Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Okokon Ekanem Udo; 1st Vice-President, NARD, Dr Nnamdi Ndi-Ezuma, among others.
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