Lara Adejoro
Doctors under the aegis of the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors have described as insensitive the Federal Government’s threat to deduct seven days’ pay from doctors’ salaries for going on strike to demand the rescue of their colleague kidnapped in December 2023.
The Vice President II of NARD and Chairman of the NARD Medical Education Committee, Dr. Kefas Wida, who spoke to The PUNCH on Sunday, added that doctors were unmoved by the pay deduction threat.
The resident doctors had recently embarked on a seven-day warning strike to demand the rescue of their colleague, Dr. Ganiyat Popoola, who was kidnapped almost nine months ago at the National Eye Centre, Kaduna.
In response, the Federal Government expressed disappointment at the doctors’ decision, stating that they would lose seven days’ pay.
However, in an interview with our correspondent on Sunday, Wida, a NARD leader, said, “As you all know what we stand for, we don’t blink when it comes to what we pursue, and we are not negotiating it. If removing from our salary will make us have our colleague back, which was the reason why we went on strike, we see this as the least sacrifice we can make to ensure that our colleague is back. Because for us, what is the whole salary to the life of our colleague? We do not see that as important.
“The life of our colleague is more important than the amount of money they are going to remove from the salaries of the doctors. Is this demand too much to ask for the life of somebody who is in agony and daily pain because she is a doctor?
“So you can see how insensitive this government is. Instead of addressing the main issue, they are trying to see how they can threaten us with the ‘no work, no pay’ policy. But I can assure you, our members don’t care.
“At the end of the day, if that can be done, then we can succeed in bringing back our colleague. We are far more satisfied than having our salary removed and having our colleague back. It is not something that we would have any regret for.”
Wida added that the association would not back down on its demand.
“Before we went on the strike, we knew those threats from the government. We are ready to pursue all our demands, we are ready for this,” he stated.
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