NMA threatens strike over Kidnap of colleague

The Cross River Branch of the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA) has threatened to embark on strike from Monday Jan. 8, 2018 over the kidnap of a member, Dr. Usang Ekanem. Unknown gunmen in Calabar abducted Ekanem on Dec. 26, 2017.

At an emergency meeting held in Calabar yesterday, state Chairman of NMA, Effiong Mkpanam said that members have suffered series of abduction from kidnappers recently and nothing has been done.

He said, “As we address you today, it is with grief that we make public the fact that a senior medical practitioner and one time chairman of NMA has been in the kidnappers den for ten days and counting. The NMA in Cross River hereby instructs all its members, both in public and private medical facilities, University of Calabar Teaching Hospital, Federal Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Institutional Hospitals, General Hospitals, Mission Hospitals and others that they are to observe a total and indefinite withdrawal of services to members of the public until such a time that our colleague is safely released by his captors and measures taken to forestall future occurrences.”

“It is noteworthy that in 2017, within Calabar alone, five doctors and three of their dependents/family members were kidnapped at various locations’’, he lamented.

The NMA Chairman called on Ayade and all the relevant security agencies to urgently intervene in the matter.He further said that the kidnappers had earlier established contact with the family of the victim and demanded for a ransom of N100million before reducing it to N20million.