Abuja Resident Doctors’ Strike – FCT and FG Must Immediately Meet Doctors’ Demands
FCT ARD STRIKE: FCT ADMINISTRATION AND FEDERAL GOVERNMENT MUST MEET THE DEMANDS OF RESIDENT DOCTORS IMMEDIATELY
The Campaign for Democratic and Workers’ Rights (CDWR) Abuja Chapter stands in solidarity with the Association of Resident Doctors Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja (ARD – FCTA) over their ongoing 7-day warning strike action, which commenced on Monday, September 8, 2025. The association had earlier issued an ultimatum to the FCT administration and the Federal government on September 1, 2025, warning that it would embark on a warning strike if its demands were not positively responded to. In fact, in July, the association issued a 3-week ultimatum to the government. This ultimatum in July was ignored, prompting the association to issue another ultimatum.
Despite this series of warnings and ultimatums, the FCT administration under the leadership of the FCT Minister Nyesom Wike and the Federal government made no effort to meet the demands of the resident doctors. This is a similar attitude shown to the FCT teachers, which made their strike action last for months. Of course, President Tinubu, Wike, and many top government functionaries do not utilize these public hospitals, nor do they have their children in the public schools. This is why we also call on the Nigerian working masses to support the strike action by ARD and ensure the demands are met. To be clear, we place the blame for this strike action at the doorstep of the FCT administration and the federal government, who have been given enough time to resolve this crisis, but chose to disregard the pains and demands of the resident doctors and put Nigerians at risk.
The resident doctors had stated that the FCT is ‘plagued by long-standing systemic failure’. This is true. Many of the doctors work under extremely difficult conditions. Today, many doctors have to work overtime due to a shortage of manpower and the terrible state of the hospitals. The demands of ARD FCTA centre on rehabilitation of the hospitals in Abuja, addressing the shortage of manpower, better working conditions for resident doctors and the payment of the owed salaries and allowances, underpayment of promoted staff and delayed promotion. We strongly believe that these demands are legitimate.
Nyesom Wike and the Tinubu government must not endanger the lives of residents of Abuja who are the beneficiaries of the services of resident doctors in Abuja. The demands of the resident doctors must be met immediately. We also call for improved funding of the entire health sector. Despite being important, the health sector continues to suffer from poor funding, causing inefficiency in the sector. The government has a responsibility to properly fund the health sector and rescue it from its present comatose state.
The Campaign for Democratic and Workers’ Rights (CDWR) calls on all unions in the health sector, the labour movement and pro-masses organizations to support the demands of FCT ARD. However, a united struggle of all unions in the health sector, labour movement and civil society organizations like the CDWR is needed to ensure proper attention is given to the health sector, and the demands of all the unions are met. For us, this must also include the demand to democratize the decision-making process in the health sector to involve the active participation of all workers through elected representatives of their union.
Samuel Sankara
CDWR ABUJA
(08137051249)
E-mail: [email protected]