Lara Adejoro
The Joint Health Sector Unions and the Assembly of Healthcare Professionals have issued a 15-day strike ultimatum to the Federal Government.
The unions announced plans to commence a nationwide industrial action from midnight on Friday, November 14, 2025, if their long-standing demands are not met.
The planned strike, if implemented, is expected to disrupt medical services and academic activities across the country, as JOHESU represents several key unions including the Medical and Health Workers’ Union of Nigeria, Nigerian Union of Allied Health Professionals, Senior Staff Association of Universities, Teaching Hospitals, Research Institutes and Associated Institutions, and the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions.
JOHESU has been in ongoing negotiations with the Federal Government over issues related to salary disparities, welfare, and working conditions compared to doctors under the Consolidated Medical Salary Structure.
The union’s primary demand has centred on the adjustment of the Consolidated Health Salary Structure, which has been pending for more than a decade.
In a letter dated October 30, 2025, and addressed to the Minister of Labour and Employment, JOHESU accused the Federal Government of failing to honour the Memorandum of Understanding signed with the union on October 29, 2024, which was aimed at fast-tracking the adjustment of the Consolidated Health Salary Structure.
The letter, jointly signed by JOHESU’s Chairman, Kabiru Minjibir, and its National Secretary, Martin Egbanubi, stated that despite multiple assurances, including personal intervention by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in 2023, the Federal Government has failed to implement the agreed adjustments.
JOHESU expressed frustration that promises made by government representatives were continually hinged on the yet-to-be-convened Presidential Committee on Salaries, which has not met since August 2023, despite several assurances from the Federal Executive Council. The union made this known in a statement made available to our correspondent on Monday by Egbanubi.
“This flagship demand has become one which carries the longest ever timeline of over 12 years, probably in labour history, despite the reality that the High-Level Body of the Federal Government came up with the template for implementation, and the report has since been submitted to the Presidential Committee on Salaries since 2022. I
“n 2025 alone, at conciliation meetings, the FG has promised and failed to deliver on timelines agreed for the PCS to be convened on four different occasions.
“The climax of the FG’s insensitivity to address this welfare issue of JOHESU members, which has been a flagship demand since 2014, was the embarrassment and discriminatory treatment of JOHESU National Representatives at a supposed tripartite meeting on Wednesday, 29th October, 2025, at the Federal Ministry of Finance, where JOHESU was invited alongside the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), National Association of Nigeria Nurses and Midwives (NANNM), and the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD),” it stated.
“After exercising patience to allow the presiding chairman and Minister of State for Finance to entertain the challenges of NARD, which was on the verge of a strike, the Honourable Minister of State, Dr. Doris Uzoka-Anite, refused all entreaties to allow any representative of JOHESU to make submissions, which is most antithetical to relationship management and rules of engagement in industrial relations,” it stated.
JOHESU noted that its continued show of understanding to the Government, and its empathy toward consumers of healthcare who may suffer when over 85 per cent of healthcare workers in the value chain of the health sector go on strike, has never been reciprocated by the Federal Government.
“This leaves us with no choice but to now take our destiny in our hands; with this development, to resume the suspended strike action of 30th October, 2024, which is exactly a year today.
“Consequently, we hereby issue a 15-day ultimatum effective from Friday, 31st October, 2025. From the above, if the Federal Government fails to resolve and approve, through a circular, the adjustment of CONHESS, at the expiration of this ultimatum, all JOHESU members shall withdraw their services across health facilities nationwide with effect from midnight of Friday, 14th November, 2025,” it concluded.
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