Nigeria’s fragile healthcare system faces fresh disruption as the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) announced a five-day nationwide warning strike, beginning Friday, September 12, 2025.
The industrial action, confirmed in a statement late Thursday, will run until Tuesday, September 16, following a marathon National Executive Council (E-NEC) meeting that stretched from Wednesday into the early hours of Thursday.
Agbor Affiong, General Secretary of NARD’s Federal Capital Territory chapter, said the decision was unanimous: “All centres have been directed to inform their hospital managements accordingly.”
The strike comes against the backdrop of ongoing walkouts by resident doctors in Abuja and Oyo State, and just days after NARD’s 10-day ultimatum to government agencies expired without resolution.
At stake are a raft of demands: immediate payment of the 2025 Medical Residency Training Fund, arrears from the long-delayed 25–35 percent salary structure review, 2024 accoutrement allowances, specialist allowances, and long-standing backlogs. Doctors are also pressing for restoration of recognition for West African postgraduate certificates, as well as the issuance of membership certificates by Nigeria’s postgraduate medical college.
NARD President Osundara Zenith has repeatedly warned that public hospitals are on the brink—hampered by erratic power supply, downgraded qualifications, and poor remuneration. The situation is compounded by welfare disputes in Kaduna and unresolved issues facing doctors at LAUTECH Teaching Hospital, Ogbomoso.
If carried out as planned, the strike will cripple services across the country: operating theatres, emergency rooms, intensive care units, specialist clinics, laboratories, and even district hospitals will be hit.
Medical practitioners and health analysts warn that the shutdown could push an already strained system closer to collapse. Nigeria’s public hospitals are reeling from chronic underfunding, brain drain, and aging infrastructure. For patients, the timing is dire: each disruption means cancelled surgeries, abandoned wards, and yet another reminder of the human cost of governance failures.
