‘I believe in dialogue’ — sultan appeals to resident doctors to call off strike

Sa’ad Abubakar, Sultan of Sokoto, has appealed to members of the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) to call off their ongoing strike and embrace dialogue.

Resident doctors across the country had embarked on strike on August 2 over “irregular payment of salaries”, among other issues.

Efforts of different stakeholders, including President Muhammadu Buhari and the house of representatives, to ensure the doctors call off the strike has not yielded the desired result.

The National Industrial Court, in a ruling on a suit filed by the federal government, had asked the resident doctors to return to work.

But the striking doctors faulted the court’s ruling, and vowed to appeal the order.

Speaking on Friday at the opening ceremony of the 20th conference of the Association of Pediatric Surgeons of Nigeria (APSON) in Sokoto, the sultan appealed to the doctors to respect the court order to resume work in the interest of the nation.

According to NAN, Abubakar advised the doctors to involve elder statesmen, traditional rulers and other stakeholders to engage the government in dialogue.

“I’m a firm believer in dialogue. Let me ask you, as a doctor, you took the Hippocratic Oath to save live; how will you feel when your patients die because you are on strike?” he queried.

He said strike should be the last option in resolving industrial conflict, especially for medical workers whose responsibility had to do with saving lives.

Chris Ngige, minister of labour and productivity, had also recently appealed to resident doctors to resume work.

“I want to appeal to NARD for them to reconsider their position, get back to work tomorrow or next and then come back again for discussions. We have so many things to discuss,” the minister had said.