“By Tuesday, I will invite them back. If they become recalcitrant, there are other things I can do. There are weapons in the Labour Laws, I will invoke them. There is no work, no pay.

“Their employers have a role also to keep their business afloat, to keep patients alive. They can employ local doctors. We won’t get there but if we are going to get there, we will use that stick.”

The minister added that the Federal Government would review the current hazard allowance of N5,000 in five weeks’ time without disclosing the proposed figure.

He said, “It is the last NMA President Faduyile that called my attention that the hazard (allowance) was ₦5,000. I raised it with the Finance Minister and the Vice President in the Economic Sustainability Meeting.

“The new hazard allowance will be done in the next five weeks. It is in the Memorandum of Action that we signed. Immediately after the Easter break, I will convene a meeting to look at it holistically.”

Before the doctors began the strike, government had on Wednesday night signed a memorandum of action with them.

The agreement was signed after a seven-hour meeting between the government side and the leadership of NARD at the office of the Minister of Labour and Employment.

However, the strike was effective in hospitals despite the agreement and efforts by the National Assembly as well as the Ministry of Labour and Employment to prevent it