The Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige, has described the demands of the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) in an ultimatum issued to the Federal Government as absurd.
Recall that on Saturday, NARD threatened to embark on strike if the government fails to meet its demands within two weeks.
The doctors are demanding an immediate increment in the Consolidated Medical Salary Structure to the tune of 200 per cent of the current gross salaries of doctors.
The body also condemned the bill seeking to mandate medical and dental practitioners to practice for five years before relocating abroad.
Speaking in an interview with Arise TV on Monday, May 1, Ngige said: “If the NARD who we have been managing their matter, we are giving them everything they want, including their Medical Resident Training Fund, we are paying them, even when in training, pay them a full salary, pay them all the allowances and you decided that we have not done enough.
“Like I said before, you have an option to go. It is left for the education ministry and the health ministry to fashion out what they can do.
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“You asked that a bill by one of the members of the House of Representatives be removed and that is one of the reasons you want to go on strike. How can the government tell a member who has done a private member’s bill, it is not even an executive bill, you now release it as one of the conditions of going on strike, that is absurd.
“The entitlements syndrome, the sense of entitlement is too much in this country and like I said earlier, you obey the law you look odd, you apply the law, you look odd or you are a wicked man,” he added.
