FCT doctors paste posters, demand re-instatement of sacked colleagues
Resident doctors in Abuja appealed to President Olusegun Obasanjo to direct the FCT administration to reinstate their sacked colleagues.
The FCT administration sacked 4,515, workers including 603 health personnel of whom 83 were doctors last October.
The administration said the sack was in line with federal government's public service reforms.
The sacked health sector employees comprised 405 junior, 183 senior and 11 management staff.
The resident doctors made their appeal through posters which they pasted on walls of the 16 office blocks at the Area 11 FCT secretariat.
Some of the posters read: ``Medical doctors offer selfless services to humanity.
They are underpaid for the quantum of services they render to humanity.
``Their number in Nigeria is a far cry from the international standard and recommendation.
``They leave this country every day for greener pastures abroad. They are the endangered species in Nigeria.''
The posters which regretted that the FCT administration had ``prematurely retired some doctors'', also said ``some were prematurely retired without justification, while the FCT is still employing new ones.''
The posters noted that some of the doctors were in their 30s, and had put in between five and eight years in service.
The doctors appealed to well-meaning Nigerians and the general public to intervene by appealing to Mr President to direct the FCT administration to reverse the action and recall the sacked doctors.
Contacted, the Senior special assistant on health and environment to the FCT minister, Dr Shuaibu Yakubu-Kurfi, said the doctors should not be taken seriously.
``Do not mind them. Most of them only know how to complain rather than dedicate themselves to their work.
``I can tell you that their posters are meaningless because our decision on the sack remains irreversible,'' he said.