Striking Resident Doctors N5,000 Hazard Allowance Against N1.24m Senator’s Newspaper Allowance X-rayed (NARD)

As earlier repotted by candidreporters.com, that on April 1, members of the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) embarked on an indefinite strike to protest their poor remuneration and conditions of service, just five months after their last strike in September.

Latest investigation revealed that Nigerian doctor gets N5,000 as monthly hazard allowance while senators are paid 248 times higher (N1.24 million) to buy newspapers monthly.

When the fresh strike was first announced, Uyilawa Okhuaihesuyi, president of the association, accused the federal government of failing to meet their demands, most of which were contained in an earlier agreement.

He had said the doctors are demanding: “Immediate payment of all salaries owed to all house officers including March salaries (regardless of quota system) before the end of business on the 31st of March 2021; immediate payment of all salary arrears including March salaries for our members in all Federal (GIFMIS platform) and State Tertiary Health Institutions; upward review of the current hazard allowance to 50 percent of consolidated basic salaries of all health workers, as well as payment of the outstanding COVID-19 inducement allowance especially in State owned-tertiary institutions.”

The industrial action has grounded activities in some hospitals across the country, at a time when Nigeria is fighting the COVID-19 pandemic that has killed more than 2,000 people out of the 163,000 infected.

Okhuaihesuyi confirmed that for all the risks they face fighting COVID-19, all the doctors get as hazard allowance is N5,000 ($13 at the current official exchange rate).

Agwu Nnanna, the immediate past president of NARD at the Federal Medical Centre (FMC), Lokoja, told correspondence that the money is next to nothing, when the actual risks the doctors face are considered.

“That you get infected today, maybe you get infected with hepatitis, N5,000 cannot even help you buy a drug that you need to take care of yourself and protect yourself. If you put this in context with the economic realities of the country, with how things are, you find out that even the little salaries cannot take care of your needs,” he said.

In direct contrast, each senator gets as much as N13.5 million as running cost covering all their allowances, while a member of the house of representatives get N8.5 million for same.

This is notwithstanding that 83 million Nigerians are living in poverty, while the country’s unemployment rate hit a new record high at 33.3 percent in fourth quarter of 2020.