Mirian Gom 
ABUJA, Nigeria – The President of the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD), Dr. Muhammad Suleiman, has rejected the Federal Government’s claim that it is releasing ₦11.9 billion within 72 hours to settle outstanding arrears owed to health workers, insisting that only about ₦500 million of the amount applies directly to resident doctors.
The Ministry of Health and Social Welfare had earlier announced the disbursement to address arrears including accoutrement allowances, amid a nationwide strike affecting services in 91 teaching and specialist hospitals.
However, speaking on Sunday, Suleiman said the funds represent long-standing entitlements owed to multiple categories of health workers — not a fresh negotiation outcome with resident doctors.
“It’s only ₦6 billion that was agreed to be released in the next 72 hours, not ₦11.9 billion,” he said, explaining that: ₦2.9bn is for accoutrement allowance (shared across all doctors),
₦2.4bn is for consultants’ non-clinical duty allowance, and ₦400m is for health workers’ COVID-19 arrears.
“Out of that ₦2.9bn accoutrement allowance, only about ₦500m affects resident doctors directly,” Suleiman stated.
He also criticised the handling of the dismissal of five resident doctors at the Federal Teaching Hospital, Lokoja, alleging the doctors were targeted for union activities and that NARD was not consulted on the review process.
Suleiman added that the strike is not solely about money.
“We have 19 outstanding demands. Many are administrative and require only a memo to fix,” he said, urging transparency regarding the government’s claim of 35,000 new health worker recruitments.
He, however, commended the Minister of Finance, Wale Edun, for responding promptly to the financial components of their demands.
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Oluwatobi Adu 
Chukwu Obinna 
Korede Abdullah 