Joint Health Sector Unions Declare Nationwide Industrial Strike
The Joint Health Sector Unions (JOHESU) and the Assembly of Healthcare Professional Associations (AHPA) have declared an indefinite nationwide strike, starting from midnight on November 14, accusing the federal government of “long delay, inaction and outright disregard” for a twelve-year demand to adjust the Consolidated Health Salary Structure (CONHESS).
The decision was announced on Friday at the Medical and Health Workers’ Union of Nigeria (MHWUN) National Secretariat in Abuja, following what the union described as a unanimous resolution of its Expanded National Executive Council.
JOHESU said that all its affiliate unions: MHWUN, Nigeria Union of Allied Health Professionals (NUAHP), Senior Staff Association of Universities, Teaching Hospitals, Research Institutes, and Associated Institutions (SSAUTHRIAI), and Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions in Nigeria (NASU), would withdraw services from all Federal Health Institutions beginning midnight of November 14, 2025.
It directed workers in the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory to “immediately serve their government’s 15-day notice in line with relevant provisions of the labour laws,” and assured state councils of full national support.
In a statement at the end of the meeting signed by the National Chairman of JOHESU, Comrade Kabiru Minjibri, the unions said it was necessary to “intimate our members in health institutions across the country and members of the public about the declaration of Trade Dispute in the Health Sector” and to highlight outstanding issues between the Federal Government and the unions.
The union said several correspondences had been sent to relevant ministries, departments, and agencies since the suspension of its last strike on June 5, 2023, which took what it called “the personal intervention of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu
JOHESU stated that despite signing a Memorandum of Understanding with the Federal Government on October 29, 2024, after a seven-day warning strike, “there has been no positive response from the Federal Government on some of these issues despite assurances during subsequent meetings with relevant MDAs.”
The union described the current situation as “worrisome and unacceptable,” stressing that government inaction had left them with no alternative.
The union emphasised that the core of the dispute remains the non-implementation of the High-Level Body (HLB) Committee report on the adjusted CONHESS, which was submitted to the Presidential Committee on Salaries and Wages in 2022
According to JOHESU, this demand has remained unresolved since January 2, 2014, when the government implemented a parallel adjustment for the Consolidated Medical Salary Structure (CONMESS), “in violation of the Collective Bargaining Agreement that established the two salary structures in the health sector in 2009.”
The statement lamented that “nothing has been done by successive administrations to redress this infraction,” adding that even after President Tinubu received a two-man JOHESU delegation in June 2023 and offered assurances, the demand was still ignored.
Source: NATION
