Governor Charles Chukwuma Soludo, you promised a renaissance cutting edge hospitals, improved welfare, a state where public service would mark your legacy. But resident doctors’ warning strike at COOUTH, Awka, that began 12:00 noon on 11 September 2025 lays bare the hollowness of those promises.

 

The Facts:
The doctors demand immediate payment of the Medical Residency Training Fund (MRTF), promised since January 2025 under the Soludo administration, yet never delivered in full.

 

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They seek full domestication of that fund so that it isn’t subject to ad hoc whims, implementation of the revised CONMESS salary structure, payment of arrears and allowances (specialist, teaching, rural posting, accoutrement), recruitment to meet staff deficits, and urgent repair of infrastructure and safety systems.

These are basic, non negotiable obligations of governance. And yet, under your watch, they remain unmet.

 

Broken Promises & Past Engagements Ignored:

Multiple meetings, ultimatums, and formal engagements since early 2025 have yielded no meaningful remediation. National Association of Resident Doctors issued a deadline (10 days) in early September; nothing materialized. Was it neglect? Incompetence? Political theater? Ofcourse just like every other sectors in the state.

 

Funding without Follow through:

The MRTF was promised, referenced, budgeted but not paid. Salary structures revised on paper, but allowances omitted. Funding exists, but execution is absent. This is not a fiscal issue alone; it is administrative bankruptcy in the soludo government.

 

Infrastructure & Workforce Decay:

Hospitals run without adequate equipment, erratic power, minimal safety conditions. Specialist doctors understaffed; rural postings empty. The result: outpatient clinics canceled, elective surgeries postponed, and future specialists’ training thrown into chaos.

 

Security Lapses as Health Policy Failure:

Kidnapping, violence, insecurity across Anambra: these are not fringe problems. They stifle health workers’ ability to commute, scare away investors whose capital could improve hospitals, and erode morale. Soludo’s administration has allowed insecurity to become part and parcel of the healthcare crisis.

 

Governor Soludo cannot claim ignorance. These issues have been in public, well documented, raised repeatedly in public and private fora.

The strike is not just a doctors’ protest; it is a public indictment. Every cancelled clinic, postponed surgery, and patient stranded in pain is a pure case of administration neglect and total leadership failure.

 

What IKUKUOMA /IYOM will Do

Immediately release all owed MRTF funds and arrears. Publicly publish the amounts and payment timeline.

• Domesticate the MRTF with legislative backing so that future governments cannot treat it as disposable.

• Enforce the revised CONMESS salary structure fully, no more promises without pay.

• Recruit urgently to meet recommended staff ratios in every department.

• Fix infrastructure: ensure reliable power, safe theatres, working equipment.

• Address security across the state guarantee doctors’ safety and patients’ access.

 

Governor Soludo, your reign will be judged by more than rhetoric indices or economic grammar. It will be judged by the sick whom you neglected, the doctors you undervalued, and the citizens you compelled to suffer. The COOUTH warning strike is a mirror held to your administration, and what it reflects is negligence, broken promises, and a betrayal of your most fundamental duty.

 

Ndi Anambra deserve health, dignity, and leadership with backbone. The time to act is not tomorrow. The time is now.

 

Emmanuel Chukwuebuka