Striking doctors have been asked to tell the National Industrial Court (NIC) why the no-work-no-pay rule should not be applied against them by their employers.

President of the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD), Dr. Uyilawa Okhuaihesuyi, confirmed the association has been put on notice by the labour court.

Okhuaihesuyi told The Nation: “The Ministry of Labour gave us a court subpoena today (yesterday) filed by Senator Chris Ngige. They are asking us why they should not apply the no-work-no-pay.

“We are to respond to their subpoena on Monday at the Industrial Court in Abuja. We will watch and follow the due process.”

The association’s chairman in charge of Communication and Communique, Dr. Julian Ojebo, said: “The only thing we want to tell Nigerians is that we have been subpoenaed and we have informed our legal counsel. By Monday at 10am, we will go to court.

“We know we have followed all the due processes according to the Trade Dispute Act and we are very positive that we are fighting for the good of our people. We have been starved for the past five years, and we have had different memoranda; memorandum of understanding, memorandum of terms of settlement, memorandum of action, and we don’t know whether now they want to tell us a memorandum of implementation.

“The truth is we have been subpoenaed – myself, the President, the First Vice President, and the Secretary-General. We are the representatives at this very moment for the NARD.

“We just want our members and Nigerians to know that we are not backing down because we are very sure that victory will be ours, seeing that we followed all the guidelines that exist in law.

“We are also telling our members not to relent because we have been suffering for the past five years and nothing will deter us currently.”