MDCAN president, Steve Oluwole while speaking with newsmen in Ibadan yesterday, urged the federal government to employ diplomacy to resolve all the outstanding issues with the striking doctors.
MDCAN said although it was restrained by the National Industrial Court (NIC) from participating in the strike, it would resist the threat of proscription, mass sack or any conceived threat of force by the federal government.
It noted that the assumption that its members, who were restrained by the court order, will capitulate was erroneous.
According to MDCAN, any threat against the workers will only aggravate rather than assuage the crisis.
"The threat of proscription of NMA is not just undemocratic, but should also be consigned to fiction," it said.
Oluwole stated that before the NMA declared the strike, MDCAN implored government to look professionally, but not politically at all the issues, regretting that there is little evidence that such had been done.
"The government appears not to have learned lessons from failed drastic measures of the 1970s that irreparably damaged the structure and psyche of the public service and of universities in Nigeria."
Oluwole, who said the ruling political elite are bent on destroying the health system, noted that "the annual medical bills alone, after retirement from office of political office holders, exceed 10 years take home pay of medical consultants".
He added that Nigeria belongs to all citizens and not to political office holders alone who now threaten the very fabric of the medical profession.
"In 1985 the President of the Federal Republic officially earned about five times the salary of a house officer. The salary of Ministers had equivalents in the University and Hospital systems. The salaries of political office holders today are largely unknown, have no equivalents in the Civil Service structure, but more strangely have no equivalents in the political structures of the United States and of European Countries. Nigerian public officers, who refer to themselves as political class, forget that the NMA participated in the struggle for the return of Nigeria to the democracy they have defaced, distorted, and redesigned for personal gain.
"The so described political class has become more equal than the rest in the Nigerian type of democracy. Allowances of some political office holders per month exceed years of total take home of medical consultants. The sarcasm of agents of government that should they print money to satisfy doctors shows insensitivity.
"Concerned public Officers, however, utilise public funds to maintain their private jets, purchase exotic cars, and keep countless mansions without the need to print money. They not only acquire whilst in office, but also acquire into the future," he said.
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