Posted on: Fri 09-01-2026

The Joint Health Sector Unions (JOHESU) observes with deep concern the Federal Government's selective review of retirement age through the Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federal Government, favouring one cadre within the health sector. Healthcare delivery in Nigeria is multidisciplinary and requires equity, teamwork, and system efficiency.

The JOHESU posits, albeit responsibly, that it has been in the vanguard of pushing for the increase in retirement age of health workers for about 15 years now.

It has actually been our cardinal demand and subsequently a key ingredient of all eight (8) MoUs JOHESU signed with the federal government between 2014 and 2024.

When we started this agitation, the duo of the FMOH and other professional bodies in the Health Sector, which have now hijacked this benefit for physicians and very few, vehemently resisted it initially.

During the negotiations of the June 2023 strike between the FG-JOHESU, we drew attention to the phenomenon of retirement age in the ivory towers and affiliated institutes, which provided for an increase in retirement from 60 to 65 years for the staff of Universities and their affiliates, while Professors retire at the age of 70 years.

The JOHESU leveraged on this to demand an increase in retirement age for all health workers from 60 to 65 years, while Health Consultants will retire at 70 years like Professors in Universities, since the NCE had rejected the demand on 4 occasions, including as recently as December, 2025.

For posterity, JOHESU submits with modesty that it was at its instance that the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment mandated the FMOH to take the issue of an increase in retirement age to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu GCFR for a FEC intervention, which was eventually approved.

This JOHESU initiative became a subject of magic from the FMOH and the core physician groups immediately after President Bola Ahmed Tinubu GCFR and the FEC approved it.

The FMOH, through a manipulative committee, comprising a handpicked nominee of JOHESU, a member of NANNM, and 1 representative each of the NMA and MDCAN to cater for the interests of physicians, alongside the core representative of the FMOH, who in some instances were also Physicians was formed to push this agenda of selective increase in retirement age to cater for physicians and very few in the Health Sector.

The result of the committee of the FMOH was predictable, and that was how the illegitimate and discriminatory cliché of clinically skilled health workers was introduced, while the retirement age of 70 years made the sole prerogative of Consultant Physicians was not our minimum demand.

As far back as September 2025, JOHESU has written to the FMOH of its resolve to reject the mutilated spirit of the position of the FG-JOHESU MoU of June 4 2023, which made it clear that an increase in retirement age from 60 to 65 years was for all health workers and a 70 years celling for all health Consultants was our demand always.

The FMOH & SW has, unfortunately, consolidated an agenda of suppression and oppression of the non-physician cadre of health workers in our sector, in addition to plotting developments to scatter the cohesion of our membership, an aberration we have now vowed to stop.

No single cadre in healthcare can function independently without others because healthcare is a team-based concept. Any attempt ot selectively implement retirement age extension amounts to acts of discrimination, which is unconstitutional within the framework of the 1999 Constitution (as amended). Such acts also breach the norm in terms of fairness, equal opportunity, and justice for all.

The new retirement age circular destroys workforce morale as it will ultimately encourage early retirement and compelling premature exit of experienced personnel in the value chain of our health System. The government must appreciate that experienced personnel are the very epitome of institutional memory that can be relied on for value addition in care provisioning.

JOHESU, therefore, will clamour, albeit responsibly, for a retirement age circular grounded in unity, sustainability, and a people-oriented health system.

 

Prayer

Your Excellency, JOHESU responsibly and respectfully calls for an all-inclusive and non-discriminatory circular on retirement age from the HOCSF (to include all health workers and non-hospital-based staff working in the health sector) through a compelling and progressive amendment of the circular of December 31, 2025. It is on record that over 3 months ago, we drew the attention of the officer of HOCSF to the plots and schemes of the FMOH and its cohort to truncate our signed MoU at FML & E, including the representative of FMOH & SW, as explicitly stated above. In line with due process, we demand with honour a circular that is in alignment with the FG-JOHESU MoU of June 4, 2023.

 

Conclusion

Your Excellency, JOHESU upholds the spirit of fairness, justice and transparency to all citizens of Nigeria based on the oath of service declared by public officers in our country.

We therefore respectfully call and appeal to Your Excellency to mobilise the counsel of legal experts in dealing decisively on this subject matter and the plethora of other contemporary challenges manufactured by those in charge at FMOH in the last ten years in particular. While awaiting Your Excellency's kind and fatherly intervention to save the Health Sector, please accept the renewed assurance of our esteemed regards always.

 

Thank you very much, Your Excellency.

Signed

Comrade Kabiru Ado, Fnli

Chairman

 

Comrade Martin Egbanubi, Fnli

Secretary

---

---