Index to Nigerian Newspapers

The National Association of Resident Doctors, NARD, at exactly noon yesterday, made good its threat as members complied with the indefinite strike order issued by the National Executive Council, NEC, on Tuesday night.NARD embarked on the strike, despite the intervention of speaker of the House of Representatives, Abbas Tajudeen, who met with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on Tuesday night, urging him to wade into the matter, with a view to addressing the issues at stake.Although the Federal Government said it was already looking into the demands of the striking resident doctors towards effecting a speedy resolution, NARD said the government was yet to call them for a meeting, insisting that government’s response would determine how long the strike would last.As of 12:30 pm when Vanguard visited some of the affected tertiary health institutions in Lagos yesterday, the doctors had left their consulting rooms, as only consultants and student doctors were attending to a few patients that were caught unawares by the industrial action.While most of the patients who spoke to Vanguard said they had already been attended to before 12 noon, others bemoaned the fact that they were not able to beat the time of the strike and were asked to come back next time.“We know the peculiarities and the dangers in the declaration of strike. But, I am sorry that this is the only language government understands.”

The House of Representatives Ad-hoc Committee has questioned the Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board (JAMB) over alleged lopsided employment. The committee demanded the agency to submit a list of all staff employed between 2015-2023 and criticized the lack of adherence to public service regulations. The committee found that JAMB employed 300 staff from 2015 to 2023 without advertising, shortchanging many Nigerian citizens based on their employment records. The Registrar of JAMB, Professor Ishaq Oloyede, explained that the board followed federal character principles in the job recruitment exercise conducted from 2015 to 2023. He stated that the board had obtained a waiver from relevant agencies to employ staff to replace those that had left. The alleged lopsided employement was due to the need to fill vacancies in over 40 offices across the federation. The committee has taken oral testimonies from Messers Babamasi Jalo, Abdulraziz Azara, Musa Ibrahim, and two other victims of employment racketeering by former Desk Officer Haruna Kolo. Kolo collected N1.2 million from Jalo for IPPIS capturing and asked him to look for other persons for salary payment. The House Committee insists that Kolo, the Director of IPPIS in the Office of Accountant-General of the Federation, and other accused persons must appear unfailingly before the probe panel.