Abuja hospitals woke to silence where there should have been life-saving noise: fewer rounds, empty clinics, and anxious relatives pacing corridors. On Monday morning the Association of Resident Doctors in the Federal Capital Territory (ARD-FCT) began a seven-day warning strike, demanding immediate fixes to what they call a collapsing FCT health system — and they made it clear: “No fix, no work.”
In a communique issued on Monday morning, ARD-FCT President Dr George Ebong and his executive team described the FCT health sector as a long-standing systemic failure that “requires comprehensive and immediate reform.”
Frontpage gathered that doctors are under unbearable strain, constantly shuffling between departments amid severe staffing shortages.
Many facilities are starved of functional equipment, with X-ray machines lying idle for years, and dialysis patients turned away due to consumable scarcity.
The Urgency
Imagine a patient in need of emergency imaging turned away because radiology cover is thin. That’s not hypothetical, resident doctors say this is daily reality in Abuja hospitals, where manpower gaps and unpaid incentives are turning public hospitals into danger zones. The strike is a desperate attempt to force action before more lives are lost.
What The Unions Want — Short, Non-negotiable List
1. Immediate payment of outstanding allowances and unaccounted deductions.
2. Filling of critical manpower gaps (no new employment in many units for years).
3. Transparent, time-bound roadmap from FCT and FG to implement reforms to working conditions and residency training funding.
The Political And Policy Fault Lines
This strike exposes more than hospital mismanagement, it exposes choice.
For years the country has talked about reforms and “healthcare investment,” yet frontline doctors say empty promises have been the norm.
When authorities delay payments, postpone hirings, and treat committees as substitutes for cash and staff, the result is predictable: healthcare weakens and strikes become the painful language of negotiation. The Abuja walkout is a symptom of policy deprioritization, not just bureaucratic incapacity.
What The Federal Government And FCT Must Do
Words won’t stop a hospital blackout. The government needs a three-part emergency package, and fast:
1. Show the money (within 72 hours): a verifiable payment of outstanding allowances into an escrow or monitored account so unions can confirm receipts.
2. Immediate targeted hiring & re-deployment: emergency short-term contracts for critical units (ICU, trauma, radiology) while a fast-track recruitment plan is published.
3. A transparent timeline and independent monitor: publish a binding timetable for reforms, with a civil-society or judicial monitor to prevent another “committee stall.”
If the state refuses these concrete steps, temporary fixes will fail and anger will harden — making larger, longer strikes far more likely.
The Bitter Truth
Healthcare is not an abstract budget line. It is the last social contract between citizens and state. When resident doctors — the doctors who run our wards and operate on our mothers and children — refuse to keep working because the system is collapsing, that is not politics.
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That is a national emergency. The real controversy is not that doctors strike — it’s that it took this long for the country to notice the rot.
If the government treats this warning strike as a PR problem to be papered over, Nigeria will pay with lives—and with trust that may never come back.
This isn’t the FCT’s first run-in with strike action.
In May 2025, resident doctors undertook a three-day warning strike over the mass dismissal of 127 health workers, which they called “inhumane and illegal”, resulting in partial concessions by the administration.
Likewise, in January, hospitals in Abuja were forced to scale down operations following another ARD strike triggered by unpaid salaries, arrears, and stalled promotions.
The strike disrupted patient care until payment commitments were made.
