Cross River NMA suspends strike, gives govt. 2 weeks to rescue member

The Nigeria Medical Association (NMA), Cross River chapter, has suspended its strike embarked upon on July 16, after the abduction of one of its members, Prof. Ekanem Ephraim.

This was disclosed by Dr. Felix Archibong, Chairman of NMA chapter after an emergency general meeting by the association on Saturday in Calabar.

Archibong said that they gave the state government two weeks to rescue their colleague after which they would meet again to review the actions of government, to determine the next line of action.

“Following a letter of appeal from Gov. Bassey Otu, advice of the national president of the association and for the sake of many of the citizens who are suffering, we have suspended the strike to give government time to rescue our member.

“This action has been carried out despite the fact that our member has not been released; however, if any of our member is kidnapped again, we will go back to strike.

“We are appealing to security agents to step up and maintain the momentum that has been established in the last few weeks, which has reduced cases of kidnapping in the state,” he said.

Speaking further, the chairman said the association prayed that the abducted doctor was returned alive but if the opposite happened, there should be modalities by the government for necessary closure of the matter.

He said this would be to allow the family to mourn the deceased and for the government to do the necessary thing for those she had left behind.

He called on members of the public with valuable information that would lead to the rescue of the abducted neurologist to come forward as the governor had placed a bounty of N5 million on the kidnappers.

Prof. Ekanem Ephraim, a Neurologist with the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital (UCTH), was abducted on July 13 from her residence in Calabar by kidnappers who pretended to be patients.