Resident Doctors at the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH) in Enugu State have vowed to continue indefinitely with the 10-month-old strike they embarked on.
A communique issued at the end of an emergency meeting of the Association of Resident Doctors (ARD) in the hospital and made available to newsmen in Ibadan yesterday, disclosed this.
The communiqué, which was jointly signed by the ARD President, Dr. Ugwuoke Ifedinso, and General Secretary, Dr. Ndiokwelu Chibuzo, also urged President Muhammadu Buhari to prevail on management of the hospital to accede to the doctors’ requests of disheartening Teaching Allowance Arrears, advancement arrears, 2 months relativity arrears, all outstanding update and exam refunds and capitations due to ARD UNTH.
Meanwhile, workers of Abia State Polytechnic, Aba, including academic and non -academic staff, have resolved to boycott the institution’s second semester examinations scheduled to start today over non-payment of five months salary arrears. Based on what was gathered, the academic staff union of the polytechnic held a meeting on Wednesday last week, where they directed their members to stay out of lecture halls on Thursday and Friday.
Consequently, the union in a memorandum, officially notified the management that it was going to ensure that the second semester examinaions slated for today, will not hold, citing the inability of the state government and the management of the institution to pay five months’ salaries owed them as reason.
Acting Rector of the institution, Professor Uche Ikonne, confirmed to newsmen that the workers of the polytechnic were owed five months salary arrears, which he attributed to the N2 billion loan the institution obtained from a first generation bank through the last administration.