[Governor Fashola of Lagos State]
Democratic Peoples' Alliance (DPA) has urged the Lagos Government to pay doctors their withheld salaries and end the ongoing strike by the state's branch of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA).
Doctors employed in Lagos-owned hospitals began striking last week to push demands for a refund of salaries seized by the government after they honoured a strike called by their national body.
"This particular strike should never have happened and it should be quickly resolved before the Lagos State Government suffers the indignity of national NMA calling out all the state chapters to join in a nationwide sympathy strike as they have threatened. Lagos State should simply pay up and move on," DPA said in a statement by Director of Publicity, Felix Oboagwina.
DPA, however, commended the government for recently resolving the grievances of magistrates and cattle and food merchants that had led to strikes by operators in the two sector. But the party warned that the government must honour and implement all agreements reached with associations in the two sectors.
On the ongoing strike by the Lagos Branch of NMA, DPA said withholding doctors' salaries was vengenful, ill-advised, insensitive, undemocratic and rash.
"How does a democratic government punish workers for heeding a national call to demand better equipment and working conditions in their sector? It is draconian and smacks of a throwback to the Military era," DPA lamented.
According to DPA, the government had shown a penchant for mishandling simple industrial disputes and allowing them to degenerate into full-blown crisis.
"It should have been clear to authorities that selectively enforcing a no-work-no-pay rule in a national strike would draw the ire of the victims. Lagos must stop this habit of wielding the big stick and treating its employees like half-witted kids. The simple rule for industrial harmony is to sit down and talk. The government should learn to pick its fights. There are some fights the discerning mind knows from the onset you cannot win. This is one of them; because universally, workers enjoy a fundamental right to strike without fear of discrimination or victimization," DPA said.
Urging Alausa to act quickly, the party reminded the government that doctors' withdrawal of services meant unnecessary suffering and death to casual OPD and emergency patients.
"It is simply insensitive for the government to allow citizens go through the ordeal of hospitals without doctors because for majority of the people, government hospitals represent a first line of defence," the party said.
Although the party commended the government's efforts in meeting the infrastructural needs of the state's health sector, DPA said authorities had to devote more attention to meeting the human capital needs of the sector as well.
DPA believes the spate of strike actions in Lagos State underscored the government's weak underbelly of bad human and crisis management.
But the party urged food merchants to honour their own side of the bargain and ensure the lowering of food prices to reflect the Lagos government's resolve to withdraw agricultural taxes erstwhile levied on foodstuff entering the state.
The party however urged police authorities, who were also fingered as precipitating the crisis, to liaise with other states in order to halt the extortion of food sellers at roadblocks.
"These people risk their lives and limbs to transport cattle and foodstuff from the hinterlands to Lagos . Rather than punish them for their enterprise, the government and security and traffic agencies should encourage them by guaranteeing that they travel seamlessly," DPA said.
Felix Oboagwina
Director of Publicity, Lagos State DPA
