Nigeria’s president, Bola Ahmed Tinubu has appealed to Labour Unions including the National Association of Resident Doctors, NARD to give him more time to address their grevances.
President Tinubu’s plea is coming less than twenty (24) hours after the National Association of Resident Doctors embarked on an indefinite industrial action following the federal government’s refusal to meet it demands.
NARD holds that the government must meet all it’s demands which have been kept pending for long before it would suspend the action.
Consequent upon the resident Doctors’ declaration of a strike action on Wednesday morning, Xclusiveloaded learns that the federal government is already attempting measures to immediately remedy the situation, one of which was a meeting held earlier between the leadership of the House of Representatives and some members of the striking doctors’ professional body, NARD.
Such meetings aim to provide solution to the existing problems. Could this have been one of them?
Led by the honourable speaker, Tajudeen Abas, the leadership of the House after the meeting, returned to the presidential villa to brief President Tinubu on the outcome of their engagement with the union.
It was after their meeting with the president that the speaker disclosed to newsmen at the presidential villa that the delay was due to the fact that the Federal Government was yet to roll out palliatives on the effect of subsidy removal of petrol because it doesn’t want to make mistakes.
Abas also explained that the president said because he was new in office, he would need time to evaluate all the issues that are being raised by workers because he is yet to be briefed.
“What he said is that he’s just coming on board. We should ask them and beg them to please give him a little more time.
“The things that they mentioned, he is completely unaware of them; he is yet to be briefed about all those issues.
“But from what he heard from me, he also advised that we should channel those issues to the Chief of Staff to look at one after the other.
“I believe in the coming days, some concerted actions will be taken.” Abas said.
Tinubu was sworn in as Nigeria’s president on June 12 2023 and has since then, spent less than three months in office.
But NARD amongst other trade unions, associations and professional bodies including ASUU, is one of the few agitators who expects the government to swiftly act on their plea as they say they have kept calm for too long and their members are disturbing – according to NARD president, Emeka Orji.
Speaking on the House of Representatives’ efforts towards finding a solution to the problem, Abas said:
“Sequel to the meeting we had with them, there were series of conditions that they gave, that we felt we need to share with the President,”
Recall that the federal government had pledged the sum of 800milion dollars sourced from the World bank to help cushion the effects of the high cost of living occasioned by the recent removal of subsidy by the president.
Meanwhile, Abass would be meeting with the resident Doctors again on Thursday to discuss the way forward.
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