The intervention of the Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives has resulted in the shelving of the proposed indefinite strike by the National Association of Resident Doctors of Nigeria (NARD).

The much publicised strike action, which was scheduled to commence Thursday, has now been suspended for one week.

The association on Wednesday held a meeting with Dogara, according to a statement issued by his spokesman Turaki Hassan in Abuja.

Dogara pleaded with the doctors to give the house one week to meet with the minister of health and find a way to address their demands while also to convince them to hold off on the strike on the basis that the country is going through difficult times, financially.

“It doesn’t matter what faith you profess, for instance, it is clearly stated in the Holy Bible that a labourer should be paid his wages even before his sweat dries.”

“I believe that as a responsible government we know this. It is not like we don’t know. But as to challenges facing you, these are not things that we had discussed before, I only heard through the briefings I was given.”

“I appeal to you to give us till next week when I hope we will be able to invite them and we will sit down together and iron out the issues.”

“Imagine a situation where all the resident doctors in Nigeria are on strike, what will happen to the people we represent? Democracy’s first promise is life, thereafter liberty, the third promise is the pursuit of happiness. And all of them rest on each other, if you don’t have life, then you cannot begin to talk of liberty, if you don’t have liberty then you cannot begin to talk about happiness.”

“So, ultimately, all the three hang on life. When there is no life, there is nothing, democracy is useless because a dead man doesn’t have liberty.”

“So for us, democracy itself is life and when you ignore sectors that provide these very essential services that support the health of our people, then we are even scouring democracy itself and its promises and so I agree with you entirely.”