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OPINION: Any ‘Appropriate’ Rites Of Passage For Yoruba Kings?

Published

4 months ago

July 22, 2025

By Suyi Ayodele

On June 24, 2025, when I wrote the column: “Recommending Oba Erediauwa to President Tinubu”, this is the response I got from one of the Benin Palace functionaries:

“Making mention of the year Oba Erediauwa reigned on the throne of his forebears is okay but making mention of the year ancestors were born whether accurate or inaccurate is a taboo in Benin. It’s a red flag. Thanks for espousing the past Oba’s good deeds. Thank u sir for your insight.”

How the Benin people hold on to their tradition, especially the sanctity and invincibility of the Benin throne baffles me. In my Yorubaland, it is a different ball game.

The Awujale and Paramount Ruler of Ijebuland, Oba Sikiru Kayode Adetona Ogbagba II, died on Sunday, July 13, 2025. The Awujale died? That statement itself remains eternally sacrilegious! Awujale cannot die. Oba Sikiru Kayode Adetona Ogbagba II can die and be buried, but the Awujale remains till the end of humanity!

If not for ‘civilisation’ itself, Oba Sikiru Kayode Adetona Ogbagba II cannot die or cannot be said to have died. Obas don’t die in Yorubaland. They simply go to sleep, or change form (pa ipò dà), or their pillar (pole) simply shifts (òpó yè) or goes to the rafters (oba w’ájà). Unfortunately, we are in the era of ‘civilisation’. Virtually every headline which announced the transition of the foremost traditional ruler read: “Awujale of Ijebuland, Adetona, dies at 91.”

I felt sad reading the different accounts of the passing of the Awujale on the pages of newspapers and on the internet. We know that with the advancement of social media and the rest of them, it will be difficult to keep such news from the public domain.

The feat, however, I dare say here, is doable. Anyone who doubts this can avail us with how many traditional and social media reported the transition of the Omo N’Oba N’Edo Uku Akpolokpolo Erediauwa, Oba of Benin, in 2016? It was an incident discussed in hushed tones until all the traditional rites of passage were fulfilled and the Benin Traditional Council (BTC) ‘broke’ the news to the world.

Let me quickly make these two confessions. I am an unapologetic purist on matters of Yoruba tradition. I also subscribe, and very strongly too, to Yoruba cultural Renaissance.

I make no bones about these two attitudes. My calling as a Christian has no influence whatsoever on these two stances. Any confusion? Can I lay claim to Yoruba tradition and still profess Christianity? My answer is as written in the Holy Writ: Mark 12:17. Check it out.

Nature has been very kind to me. It allowed me to spend a good number of my formative years in the countryside. I witnessed a lot of events far above my age almost from my cradle. I was also inquisitive as a child. I asked questions and got answers to my enquiries.

Curiosity equally made me to be part of certain happenings as a child. I mean events that could have, if not for Providence, caused me irreparable damage. I survived the risks and learnt good lessons. I got severely reprimanded on some occasions, and appropriate propitiations had to be made to the offended quarters on several other instances. Though on the escarp of rascally tendencies, I was still within permissible limits.

The gains of those years and events are the pride I have today to be able to differentiate between tradition and fatuity; between abomination (èèwò) and ‘civilisation’ (òlàjú). I also know, with recent developments in Yorubaland, that in not too long a future, the abominations we are piling up in the name of ‘modernity’ or ‘civilisation’ would lead to the extinction of our values as a race. That day is near when the traditional values that make us descendants of Oduduwa will be no more! This is not a curse.

There are two stories about two Yoruba obas that will probably go down with me to my grave. The two obas were or are appreciably close to me. One of them now belongs to the ages and the other still on the throne of his forebears. May the King’s horse graze long (kí eshin oba je oko pé), Àse! The two stories speak to the heart of the Yoruba kingship tradition, rites of ascension and passage, and the ethos and sanctity of the crown. Pity I dare not tell them openly here!

The headline above is a poser. I add yet another one to wit: Does tradition change? Before we answer this, can we ask: What is tradition all about? The simplest definition of tradition is that it is a concept embodying the customs, beliefs, ways and communal life of a people passed or transmitted from one generation to the other. This definition, a mixture of different definitions, presupposes that tradition is sacrosanct, inviolable, constant and one that comes with repercussions when observed in the breach. No doubt, this assertion can only make sense to my fellow ‘Ara-Ilu-Oke (people from the countryside).

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Let us answer the question on whether tradition changes or not. The simple response from this end is that tradition doesn’t change. What changes is the people that practise or observe any given tradition. They change as time changes.

For instance, there is a tradition that is universal to humanity, the gender tradition. Irrespective of the place of birth, a child is either given birth to as a male or a female. Why is the issue of gender generating controversy now all over the world? Or why, for example, is the African continent resisting the LGBTQ+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer or Question+) concept?

The answer is here. The tradition of humanity is that human beings are created in the structuralist lens of binary opposition of plus (+) male and minus (-) female. Any departure from that tradition is an abnormality. While the times we are in have changed considerably, ‘civilisation’ crept in and ‘modernity’ has taken the lead in our outlook, the majority of human beings find the concept of LGBTQ+. repulsive.

This is why the today’s Yoruba modern kings and their promoters, who believe that we must mix and dilute our long-standing culture with the ‘civilisation’ of the West, ‘so as to remain relevant in the global village the world has become’, will never accept any of their children to be LGBTQ+.

Their ‘civilisation’ ends with the distortion and destruction of the African beliefs. Christianity is not an African thing. Islamic religion was a donation from the Middle East. We only embraced them and talked down on our African belief system. But when the West says a child born as a boy can decide to be a girl or combine both sexes, we shout “abomination!”

We can bury our obas in the Islamic way because the Kâbíyèsí lived and died a Muslim. A Yoruba oba can kneel before a pastor and his head anointed with oil during anointing service at a church programme because before becoming an oba, Kâbíyèsí was “a devout Christian.” We chorus ‘an oba has the right to practice any religion and be buried according to his religion’. That is ‘civilisation’; the world has changed, and we cannot live in the past, we posit in justification. Good and fine.

But the same world is also changing to accept LGBTQ+ concept. Why do we still frown at that? Why do we still hold on to the ‘old tradition’ of male and female genders? How many proponents of ‘the-world-has-moved-on’ can hold the hands of their daughters, walk down the aisle and hand her over to another girl as h(is)er wife? Before you shout èèmò (inconceivable), know that that is what Lesbianism is all about; it is the ‘civilisation’ that the world has moved into!’

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As if announcing the transition of Oba Adetona on the pages of newspapers was not enough, in less than 24 hours after his departure, the oba was interred. That was strange, very much unlike Yoruba culture of obas’ rites of passage. What happens to the tradition of sitting the transited oba on his throne for some days as handed over to us by our forebears? I witnessed that with the Oba of my town and some other high chiefs in the community, including close relations who occupied esoteric titles! Maybe Ijebu people don’t have such tradition.

Just as we were about to shout Káree Omo Kaaro oojirebi (what is this, children of Oduduwa), African Indigenous Religion (AIR) adherents, who showed up to perform the rites of passage for the transited oba were chased away by the security men deployed to prevent the ìsèse adherents from performing their rites!

The reason advanced for such a sacrilege is that Oba Adetona lived and died a Muslim and elected to be buried a Muslim in accordance with the extant laws of Ogun State which allows obas such liberty! Fine enough. But there are issues.

I have followed most of the arguments for and against what happened to the ìsèse people at the funeral of Awujale Adetona. The question I want an answer to is: at the coronation of Awujale Adetona from November 1959 to the final presentation of staff of office on January 14, 1960, did the transited monarch go through any ritual, rites and other indigenous initiation ceremonies? Kâbíyèsí Adetona Ogbagba II answered this question himself, 15 years before he departed.

Awujale Adetona wrote “Awujale: The autobiography of Alaiyeluwa Oba S. K. Adetona Ogbagba II” in 2010. The 275-page book was presented to the public on May 4, 2020. That was some 50 years and four months after Kâbíyèsí ascended the throne of Awujale of Ijebuland. The first chapter of the book is on the sub-head: “The road to the coronation.”

From pages 2-24, Oba Adetona detailed the processes he went through before he was eventually crowned the Awujale on January 14, 1960. On Page 2 for instance, he wrote: “The àbídàgbà are the sons born while an Oba is on the throne and are the ones, who by Ijebu CUSTOM, can succeed to the throne as Obas. That is why certain RITUALS have to be performed for them, which involves beating the GBÈDU (royal drum). The other sons born before the oba ascends the throne DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHTS TO OBASHIP (all emphases mine).” That is the Ijebuland tradition as penned down by Oba Adetona after 50 years on the throne.

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The only occasion, Oba Adetona recalled that something outside the Ijebu “CUSTOM” was observed in the installation of an Awujale was on page 4, where he told the story of how in 1915, a certain prince, Adekoya Ogbérégedè, a.k.a. Eleruja, usurped the throne by chasing Oba Ademolu Fesogboye from the palace just after three months of Fesogboye’s installation.

To regain the throne, Awujale Fesogboye, and other Ijebu elites, Oba Adetona recalled , “ran to Reverend James Johnson (aka holy Johnson) in Lagos to intervene with the colonial authorities…Reverend Johnson agreed to intercede only on two conditions however -one, that Ademolu, who was a Muslim would convert to Christianity; and two, that he must agree to be anointed at his coronation.” The narrator said that the conditions were met and Oba Ademolu was reinstated nine months later in 1916, and he reigned from that date to 1925 when he joined his ancestors.

The more detailed rites of ascension for Awujale Adetona are contained on pages 20-24 of the book. The last paragraph of page 20 states how “the Odis (ààfin attendants) embarked on the various rituals that would lead to my installation as Awujale of Ijebuland…”. He went ahead on page 21 to cast aspersions on the “rituals”, some of which he noted were shrouded in “secrecy” to “extort money from the public, just as their fathers did before them”, as “they DELIBERATELY made the RITUALS look very mysterious…”

The concluding sentences of this paragraph, especially when he submitted “…people themselves should be creating the traditions and customs according to their needs”, betray the author’s bias against the TRADITION and CUSTOM which gave him the throne he occupied for 65 years! These opinions he expressed after 50 years on the throne and all the controversies surrounding his preference for his Islamic religion above the TRADITION and CUSTOM that enthroned him make the whole idea a huge suspect!

But the opinions above notwithstanding, Awujale Adetona, on pages 22-24 gave graphic details of all the RITUALS he went through, the rivers he crossed, and how he was carried on the back of the Elese of Ilese to cross the Owa Stream “as CUSTOM had (mark the tense) that my feet must not touch the water…”

Oba Adetona, as Awujale-designate, agreed to pass through the rituals, custom and tradition. However, five decades on the throne, he opted to discard the processes and at his funeral rites, those same set of people who carried him on their back to cross the Owa Stream (possibly the Ijebu stream of life) were chased away like common dirty mendicants! This is what ‘civilisation’ has done to us.

Awujale Adetona was interred in his private residence. Do the people of Ijebuland have the tradition that a new Awujale must visit the graves of his forebears at his coronation? If yes, will the gates of Awujale Adetona be opened to accommodate that rite of ascension when the time comes? Or will it be, as the monarch penned: “As far as I am concerned, I do not see any VALUE in continuing to cloak the rituals in a MYSTICAL veil?” To answer these posers, let us take a recourse to Ifa as I conclude.

There is an Odù Ifá that is the equivalent of the injunction given in Mark 12:17 by Jesus Christ. The Ifá verse is called Ogbè Móhunfólóhun (give to a man what belongs to him). When a Babalawo says: “Ohun t’Owá ni ti Owá (What belongs to Owá -king of Ilesha – is his); ohun t’Oòrè ni t’Oòrè (what belongs to Oòrè -king of Òtùn Ekiti- is his), Ogbè móhunfólóhun (Ogbè -name of the Ifá client – give to a man what belongs to him), what he is saying is as replicated by Jesus’ submission: “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

The message should be clear. Enough of chichidodos on Yoruba thrones. If the people’s TRADITION and CUSTOM are too ‘uncivilised’ and of ‘no value’, leave the crowns for those who will honour our tradition!

News

OPINION: Aso Rock And Kitoye Ajasa’s Lickspittle Press

Published

8 hours ago

November 16, 2025

Editor

By Festus Adedayo

President Bola Tinubu did the unexpected last Wednesday. He attended the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE) Conference 2025. It was the very first for any Nigerian president. Quite absurdly, the watchdog, the Nigerian press, willingly moved into the tiger’s buba – the lair – for deliberation on its welfare. Ayinla Ade-Gaitor, the Iganna, Ìwájòwà LGA of Oyo State-born Apala musician of the 1970s/80s fame, equally wondered at this quixotic equation. My compatriots, can a tiger and a dog cohabitate in the same lair? – “K’ájá ó dúró, k’ékùn ó dúró, ńjé yíó seé se, èyin alárá wa?” Ade-Gaitor asked in his melodious Iganna-flavoured voice.

But at the 21st NGE Annual Conference (ANEC) 2025 held in its lair – the Aso Rock State House Conference Centre in Abuja – the tiger and the dog became so giddy after clinking wine glasses, so much that they both shared titivating embraces. They had both been soused to their eyeballs. When it was time for the tiger to speak, clanking its incisors menacingly and magisterially, with recent blood dripping from its lips and caked blood stuck round its nose, this strange incest reminded me of Sir Kitoye Ajasa.

Ajasa (1866 – 1937) was a Nigerian lawyer from the Saro family migrants of Dahomey, present-day Benin Republic. He was however conservative, pacifist and a lackey of the colonial authorities. While the likes of Herbert Macaulay fell out with the British rulers over their insistence that British rule was self-serving and a little in the interest of the natives, Ajasa thought otherwise. He believed that national progress could only be made if Africans were subservient to and cloned European ideas and institutions. He was an apologist of the British government, believing that criticising it was counter-productive. His reasoning was that, grovelling before white-haired, long-nosed, pink-skinned men who called themselves salvationists, was the guarantee for development.

To achieve this persuasion, Ajasa became a newspaper founder. Of course, his Nigerian Pioneer newspaper, founded in 1914, the year of Nigeria’s birth, invited so much reproach. He deliberately founded it as counterpoise to the radical Lagos Weekly Record newspaper of John Payne Jackson that was a thorn in the flesh of the colonialists. Ajasa’s brand of journalism frowned upon anti-government polemics as other papers of the time did. In return, the people of Lagos extremely distrusted it. In 1923, Ajasa wrote that his newspaper “existed in order to interpret thoroughly and accurately the Government to the people and the people to the Government”. In fact, he was a known confidant of Sir Frederick Lugard, the colonial Governor-General, and the general belief was that the Lugard government funded his Nigerian Pioneer newspaper. In its stories and editorial comments, the newspaper provided staunch support for the colonial government’s measures and cynically attacked people and organizations that were thorns in the flesh of government.

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To demonstrate their opprobrium for Ajasa’s leaflet, the Nigerian Pioneer newspaper, the people scoffed at it on the newsstand. To Ajasa’s contemporaries, his lickspittling was bothersome. They could not fathom his boot-licking attitude and openly disdained his Nigerian Pioneer as “the guardian angel of an oligarchy of reactionaries”.

Ajasa’s newspaper itself became more or less the unofficial bulletin of the colonial government. It publicly mocked nationalists who fought for development and in a particular case, in the 1916 Lagos water rate protest against the colonial government, Ajasa labeled agitators like Macaulay ‘radicals.’ In 1921, with the help of Alimotu Pelewura, leader of Lagos Women’s Association, the powerful market women’s group, who at her death in 1951, was succeeded by Abibatu Mogaji, Macaulay again led a major protest on this agitation. To Ajasa, the colonized natives must fully adopt European ideas and institutions as expressway to national progress. He was in the Nigerian parliament till 1933 and shortly after 1937 when he died, the Nigerian Pioneer died.

So, when on Wednesday, President Tinubu urged the Nigerian media to “report boldly, but do so truthfully; critique government policy but do so with knowledge and fairness. Your aim must never be to tear down, but to help build a better society,” my mind told me that that fluid and racy speech was for the klieg. In actual fact, the president wanted Kitoye Ajasa-reincarnates for journalists, an Ajitóoba-phlegm-eater – media conscripts who would blind their eyes to government’s wobbly feet at national parade. Just as Kitoye Ajasa did for Frederick Lugard and the British colonial lords.

Since Lugard, the Kitoye Adisa-kind press had always been the preference of governments thereafter. Ever since the establishment of the Nigerian Daily Times on June 1, 1926 and even prior, the Nigerian press and Nigerians themselves had always been thirsty for adversarial journalism as a weapon of combating the colonial government. Since then, the Nigerian media’s treatment of news became binary: it was either they were for the people against government, or against the people, but in romance with government, like Kitoye Ajasa’s.

Since the Muhammadu Buhari government, the Nigerian media has operated under a very precarious situation. Its first blow was economic. As Eze Anaba, the editors’ president said, the Nigerian democracy, resilient through the ages, is currently under the bayonet of “insecurity, economic hardship, misinformation, and declining public trust in institutions, (as well as) government officials’ intolerance, sometimes, to freedom of the press.” The gravamen of Anaba’s speech can be found in his quip that “editors must therefore defend the sanctity of truth, insist on transparency, and hold power to account — not as adversaries of government, but as constructive partners in the pursuit of national progress.”

In what would look like a systematic but gradual decimation of the Nigerian press, governments have since 1999 corroded its powers. The ostensible aim is to ensure that the Nigerian press barks but bites seldom. For those who can recall, the battle to wean Nigeria of military rule was largely fought on the pages of its newspapers. The press literally yielded its space for democracy activists to make use of it for their campaign for democracy. In the process, many journalists were sacrificed. Many were jailed and maimed. Bagauda Kaltho of The News signposted the clan of journalists who paid the ultimate price, in anticipation of liberty for Nigerians today. The newspaper press was so formidable that both Generals Ibrahim Babangida and Sani Abacha had to roll out tanks to extinguish its irritating flame. At the end of the day, the Nigerian press was largely responsible for the rout of military rule in Nigeria and its replacement with civil rule.

By 1999 when Nigeria returned power to civilians, the Nigerian newspaper press was still blistering. Its armaments were still potent and practitioners retained their energy which seemed to be bursting at its seams. Not long after the commencement of the Fourth Republic, the newspaper press made public examples of the carried-over rots of Nigeria’s governmental dysfunctionality. One after the other, even at a time when its tools were analogue, the press made mincemeat of public officers who, as it was later revealed, were evil doppelgängers of what they claimed to be in public. Salisu Buhari, the young Kano State legislator, who became Speaker of the House of Representatives, had his bubble burst. So also did Evan Enwerem. But for his street craftiness, the man who is the Nigerian president today would have been drowned by that hyper-ventilating press energy of the early 4th Republic.

The press of this period’s investigative acumen was top-notch and it could compete with any newspaper press anywhere in the world. My haunch is that, alarmed by the enormous power at its disposal and the system-purifying but dirty people-destroying powers within its grips, governments since 1999, either deliberately or otherwise, perfected plans to castrate the deadly watchdog of the Nigerian press. Today, they have made a huge success of this engagement. The success is such that, the wily politicians in agbada, babariga and Ishiagu can thump their individual chests that the battle to rid the Nigerian governance space of the irritancy of the Nigerian press, which the military, with their tanks and artillery, couldn’t achieve in decades, were effortlessly executed by them.

Today, the Nigerian newspaper press has been so mercilessly drubbed that it is barely existing. Gradually, an underground and sustained shellacking was waged on it and what is left is its decimated carcass. Many of Nigeria’s erstwhile matador press houses, where the warriors who fought military rule to a standstill operated from, are desecrated and abandoned. Their print-runs are caricatures of those noble eras when they proudly bore the tag “mass” in their media operations. Governments after governments since 1999 would seem to have deliberately jerked up costs of running newspapers to the league of what you needed to procure nukes. The newsroom has emaciated so terribly that you would imagine it was afflicted by a weight-pining cancer.

Last Wednesday, I reckon that the tiger was happy that the watchdog had been finally castrated, can bark and cannot bite. It lay prostrate by its feet with a begging bowl. All those ills that plague the Nigerian media today, itemized by Anaba, the League’s president, are physical manifestations of a conquered press whose conquest is a product of gradual decimation. The graveyard of the print media is luxuriant with lofty memories.

Thanks to the broadcast and social media which have both taken over the “mass” in print journalism’s erstwhile “mass media” pedigree. But for them, the Nigerian press would have today been a totally conquered battlefield. The watchdog must have entered the tiger’s lair last Wednesday, believing that the tiger’s smiles approximated its love for it. Truth be told, in the eyes of its newly acquired tiger friend, the press is a gourmet meal it has prepared for the dining table. Odolaye Aremu, Ilorin’s talented bard, once explained the danger in that emergency dalliance. “Adìye òpìpí” is the Yoruba name for a featherless hen which, in stature and outlook, bears striking resemblance to a hawk. The bard warned this hawk-lookalike hen to be wary of its newfound friendship with this carnivore, lest its entrails end in the belly of the raptor. Perhaps deceived that, being a media owner himself, like Odolaye’s òpìpí hen, the president is one of them, the Nigerian press, like this mistaken hen, would realize its folly too late when its flesh ends inside the hawk’s belly.

Any country of the world where the press and government are cosseted in such an amorous and adulterous relationship as we saw in Aso Rock last Wednesday has unilaterally tossed good governance out of its window. It reminds me of a paraphrase of a famous quote by US Supreme Court Justice, Hugo Black. Black wrote: “The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of the government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people.” But, when the press deliberately hands itself over to government, what then happens?

The Nigerian press today lives in The Wailers’ archetypal concrete jungle. In this jungle, though there are no physical chains around its feet, it is not free. Three young Jamaican boys, which included Bob Marley, had in 1973, in their ‘Catch A Fire’ album, sang about the melancholic life of a wanderer which the Nigerian press found itself living today. Glory lost, barely living and now captive in the hands of the state, those young Jamaican boys’ melancholy is a fitting description of today›s press.

The only way the Nigerian media can play its rightful role in the success of democracy, especially the success of the Tinubu government, isn’t by sucking up to people in power or being their lapdog. A century after Kitoye Ajasa played his groveling role to Lugard and British colonialists, history hasn’t forgotten him. It reserves a place for him till today. What will it say about us tomorrow?

News

Edo Dep. Gov. Idahosa Inducted, Bestowed With Rotary Premium Award

Published

19 hours ago

November 15, 2025

Editor

The Edo State deputy governor, Hon. Dennis Idahosa, has been bestowed with the Rotary Premium Award by the Benin Metropolitan Rotary Club, District 9141 in recognition of his humanitarian disposition.

In a statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Mr Friday Aghedo, the deputy governor was accorded this recognition when the humanitarian organization visited his office to induct him into the club

Idahosa expressed appreciation for the recognition and promised to continue to contribute his best for the betterment of the society and humanity.

“When I was growing up, my prayer to God, was Bless me so that I will be a blessing to the world,” he stated.

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He noted that the recognition was in no doubt, a call for higher responsibilities.

Rotary President, Hon. Elizabeth Ativie who gave reasons for the award and investiture, maintained that the induction was based on Idahosa’s humanitarian disposition which is in line with Rotary Club’s doctrine of service above self, humanitarian and community.

“This is a reflection of where your heart is,” she told Idahosa.

The Assistant District Governor of the Club, (AG) Samson Olayiwola of Zone 20, D 9141, later decorated Idahosa with the “Rotarian pin,” the recognized logo of the Rotary Club worldwide.

This was in addition to the presentation of a certificate of membership and embroidered with a sash that uniquely identifies Idahosa as a member of the “RC Benin Metropolitan District.”

News

Doctors’ Strike Continues As NARD Demands Fair Deal, Better Pay

Published

21 hours ago

November 15, 2025

Editor

The Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) has called on the Federal Government to immediately conclude a long-delayed Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), as their indefinite strike entered its 15th day on Saturday.

It also demanded a review of the outdated Consolidated Medical Salary Structure (CONMESS).

In a statement posted on X on Saturday, the union said: “Dear Nigerians, Doctors Deserve a Fair Deal! For long we’ve waited for a Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), a simple, written promise that ensures fairness, clear work terms, and proper pay. But the government keeps delaying, while doctors face rising costs and crumbling morale.

“We demand the immediate conclusion of the CBA and review of the outdated CONMESS salary structure.”

The strike, which began earlier this month, has affected 91 hospitals nationwide, including federal teaching hospitals, specialist institutions, and federal medical centres, disrupting medical services across the country.

NARD said the union’s 19-point demand list is reasonable and necessary for the welfare of doctors and patients.

The list includes the payment of arrears under the CONMESS salary structure, disbursement of the 2025 Medical Residency Training Fund, prompt payment of specialist allowances, recognition of postgraduate qualifications, and improved working conditions.

The union stressed that these measures are essential to sustain doctors and maintain a functional healthcare system.

President Bola Tinubu has also directed the Ministry of Health to immediately resolve the strike, noting that the government is addressing the doctors’ demands.

Despite the directive, NARD said delays in finalising the CBA and reviewing salaries have continued to demoralise doctors, many of whom face rising living costs while providing critical medical services.