𝐃𝐨𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐬 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐩𝐮𝐭𝐞 𝐅𝐆’𝐬 𝐍𝟏𝟏.𝟗𝐛𝐧 𝐩𝐚𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐜𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐦, 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐮𝐞𝐬

The Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) has rejected the Federal Government’s claim that ₦11.9 billion will be released for unpaid allowances, saying the figure is exaggerated and misleading.

NARD President, Dr. Muhammad Suleiman, said on Sunday that only about ₦6 billion was actually approved for payment, and of that amount, resident doctors will receive only about ₦500 million.

According to him, the ₦6 billion covers different categories of health workers — ₦2.9 billion for accoutrement allowance, ₦2.4 billion for consultants’ non-clinical duty allowance, and ₦400 million for COVID-19 arrears.

“The so-called ₦11.9 billion is not accurate. What we agreed on was ₦6 billion, and resident doctors will get just ₦500 million from that,” Suleiman explained.

He noted that most of the money being discussed are old arrears, some dating back more than two years, and not new benefits for doctors.

Suleiman accused the Health Ministry of trying to give the impression that all NARD’s demands had been met, even though the strike across 91 hospitals is still ongoing.

He also criticised the ministry for reviewing the dismissal of five doctors in Lokoja without involving the association, insisting they were unfairly targeted for union activities.

On government’s claim of recruiting 35,000 health workers in two years, he demanded a clear breakdown of how many are doctors and where they were posted.

Suleiman, however, praised the Minister of Finance, Wale Edun, for acting quickly on financial issues but said the Ministry of Health was “slow and uninterested” in solving the main problems.

He appealed to President Bola Tinubu to personally intervene, saying, “Just as he directed the finance minister to act, we need him to tell the Health Ministry to genuinely work with us to end this crisis.”