{"id":1661,"date":"2025-11-03T12:51:42","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T12:51:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/developerscohort.com\/gracious\/?p=1661"},"modified":"2025-11-03T12:53:21","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T12:53:21","slug":"doctors-dispute-fgs-n11-9bn-payout-strike-continues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/developerscohort.com\/gracious\/2025\/11\/03\/doctors-dispute-fgs-n11-9bn-payout-strike-continues\/","title":{"rendered":"Doctors dispute FG\u2019s N11.9bn payout, strike continues"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The President of the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors, Dr. Muhammad Suleiman, has faulted the Federal Government\u2019s claim that it is releasing N11.9bn within 72 hours for the payment of outstanding arrears and allowances to doctors and other health workers across the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Suleiman, who spoke exclusively with The PUNCH on Sunday, said only about N500m of the said amount is meant for resident doctors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare had on Saturday announced in a statement signed by its Deputy Director and Head of Information and Public Relations, Alaba Balogun, that the government would release N11.9bn for the payment of arrears, including accoutrement allowance, as part of measures to address the welfare concerns of doctors and restore industrial harmony in the health sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ministry\u2019s statement came amid a nationwide strike by resident doctors, who on Saturday withdrew their services across 91 federal and state tertiary hospitals over unpaid arrears, delayed allowances, and other welfare-related issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, reacting to the ministry\u2019s claims, Suleiman said both the 25\u201335 per cent arrears and the accoutrement allowance are longstanding entitlements that date back over two years and belong to all categories of health workers, not just doctors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe 25\u201335 per cent arrears have been pending for over two years and belong to all cadres in the health sector, including those in the Ministry of Health, its agencies, and even administrative staff. The total bill for that review was supposed to be N48bn, but government said it\u2019s N41bn. In August, they released N10bn; two weeks ago, another N10bn; and last week, N21.3bn, totaling N41bn. Out of that, the portion that goes to all doctors is about N11bn, and resident doctors get less than N10bn since we are about 60 per cent of all doctors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s only N6bn that was agreed to be released in 72 hours, not N11.9bn. I don\u2019t know where they are bringing N11.95bn from. We don\u2019t know any N11.9bn. What we agreed with the Federal Government is that N2.9bn will be released within 72 hours for accoutrement allowance, and even that accoutrement is for all doctors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOut of that N2.9bn, about N500m is coming to resident doctors. Another N2.4bn is for consultants non-clinical duty allowance, and N400m is for other health workers as COVID-19 arrears. So the total is about N6bn, not N11.9bn,\u201d Suleiman explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He insisted that the accoutrement allowance was not a new intervention, but an old entitlement owed to doctors,not just resident doctors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSome of these arrears have been there for over two years; it\u2019s not peculiar to doctors alone. It covers everyone in the health sector, including administrative staff,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He accused the ministry of generalising payments to create the impression that government had met all of NARD\u2019s demands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFrom what I know, only about N500m of what is being released affects resident doctors directly,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the dismissal of five doctors at the Federal Teaching Hospital, Lokoja, which the ministry said was under review by a government-appointed negotiator, Prof. Dafe Otobo, the NARD President noted that the association was not consulted and had no knowledge of the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t know the professor they mentioned. We don\u2019t know the criteria he is using or the documents he has been given. Those five doctors were all union leaders. They were targeted because of their union activities,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He added that the association had only requested the reinstatement of the affected doctors, not litigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t want to litigate the issue. We only asked the Ministry of Health to reinstate them. Even the ministry admitted that some of them were terminated without due process, yet they are talking about review again. There are more questions than answers,\u201d Suleiman said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also challenged the ministry\u2019s claim on recruitment figures, demanding transparency and accountability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey said 20,000 health workers were recruited last year and another 15,000 this year. They should give you the breakdown of how many are doctors, how many are nurses, and where are they now? Those are the pertinent questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe ministry should address the root issues raised by the association. That press release tries to make doctors look ungrateful and greedy, as if all we want is money. But our issues go beyond financial matters. We have 19 outstanding demands, many of which are administrative and can be resolved with a single memo,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Suleiman, however, commended the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Wale Edun, for his swift response to the financial aspects of the doctors\u2019 grievances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI must appreciate Mr. Wale Edun. He took charge immediately, and issues on his table are being addressed. But the Ministry of Health is a different story. Their language and attitude show they\u2019re not genuinely interested in resolving these problems,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The NARD president appealed to President Bola Tinubu to intervene in the matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are calling on the President to speak to those in the Ministry of Health. Just as he directed the Minister of Finance to handle his side of the problems, we are pleading that he ensures the health ministry genuinely engages us and resolves the issues on their table,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The President of the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors, Dr. Muhammad Suleiman, has faulted the Federal Government\u2019s claim that it is releasing N11.9bn within 72 hours for the payment of outstanding arrears and allowances to doctors and other health workers across the country. Suleiman, who spoke exclusively with The PUNCH on Sunday, said only about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1662,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-healthwise"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/developerscohort.com\/gracious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/developerscohort.com\/gracious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/developerscohort.com\/gracious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/developerscohort.com\/gracious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/developerscohort.com\/gracious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1661"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/developerscohort.com\/gracious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1661\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1664,"href":"https:\/\/developerscohort.com\/gracious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1661\/revisions\/1664"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/developerscohort.com\/gracious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/developerscohort.com\/gracious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/developerscohort.com\/gracious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/developerscohort.com\/gracious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}