Tinubu urges Fashola to sack striking doctors

Former governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, on Wednesday advised his successor, Governor Babatunde Fashola, to sack striking medical doctors.

The Medical Guild, the umbrella body of doctors working in the state’s hospitals, went on strike on February 5 over the refusal of the Fashola administration to implement the Consolidated Medical Salary Scale.

But Tinubu told a gathering of Christian leaders in Lagos that the strike was motivated by unnamed politicians. Tinubu also stated that it would be foolhardy for the state government to yield to the demands of the doctors, noting that instead, it should employ new doctors.

The ex-governor, while speaking on the call by the doctors for the reinstatement of a former the Chairman of the Medical Guild, Dr. Ibrahim Olaifa, recalled that the guild’s leader was employed during his administration based on the recommendation of the then governor of Oyo State, Dr. Lam Adesina. Tinubu said he would not condone Olaifa violating the rules of his employment.

He said, “Those people make me angry, there is no point holding a dialogue with them again. Sack them and recruit other doctors.

“We have provided conducive environment for them to work and yet they are still not satisfied. It is not compulsory you work for the state government; if you are not comfortable, you can go to the Federal Government that pays more or other private establishments.

“We are not going to reinstate him (Olaifa) because the moment you subject the authority given by the constitution to blackmail, you are finished.”

Fashola, on his part, explained that the crisis had lingered not because the state government refused to increase the salary of the doctors, but due to their insistence that the state administration must implement the CONMESS fully.

“The doctors are not complaining about the environment where they work. We have provided a conducive environment, with well equipped facilities for them to work with. But they are insisting that we pay what the Federal Government is paying its own doctors.

“Lagos has more doctors than the federal Government. We have increased the salaries of the doctors to 75 per cent and what that implies is that the most junior doctor in the state today has his salary increased from N110,000 to N170,000 while a consultant now has his salary increased from N300, 000 to N700,000,” he added.

He put his monthly salary as the governor of the state at N850,000 while other members of the State Executive Council were not earning above N500,000. He flayed the doctors’ request for the reinstatement of Olaifa, adding that the situation was being politicised as the doctor in question was presently running for the House of Representatives on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party in Oyo State.

When contacted on the telephone, the Secretary-General of the Lagos Medical Guild, Dr. Saheed Olajide, said, “The strike has no political undertone. I don’t believe Tinubu said so because he is a respected person.

“He could not have come out to say that. However, we are professional doctors, they are politicians. They should not link the strike with politics.

“What we are asking for is our welfare. There was a mutual agreement, part of which was that our leader (Olaifa) should be reinstated. They agreed to reinstate him before we called off the last strike but they have not done so.

“If the governor is saying Olaifa is a member of the PDP, he should check his records. Olaifa is running under Accord Party in Oyo State, not the PDP. We are not politicians and we are saying is that government should do what is right.”

The Punch