KDSG has reacted to the strike notice by health workers, stating that it will not bend to blackmail. The Ministry of Health will ensure that health facilities run and provide services to the public, with the support of willing workers who must be offered every assistance... 
KDSG rejects the strike threat and will regard persons who fail to show up at their assigned places of work as having forfeited their employment. Every health worker that is willing to work is required to sign the register at the Ministry of Health or their facility of deployment
To declare strike action amidst the Covid-19 pandemic is naked blackmail, based on the mistaken assumption that KDSG will reward irresponsible conduct with surrender. KDSG will not be misled into granting health workers a special status amongst public servants...
... The consequences of concessions made along such lines by previous governments have created a sense that some public servants are more precious than others.
KDSG will not be browbeaten by strike action into excluding health workers from the sacrifices being made by other public servants who are donating 25% of their salary to fund the provision of palliatives for low-income, poor & vulnerable persons that are impacted by the lockdown
The government noted that it is instructive that the strike action was announced on the same day that many health workers were showing evidence on social media of the N450,000 they had received as April 2020 incentive.
Health workers are being paid Occupational Safety Initiative as follows:
1.High risk staff are receiving a compensation of N15,000 per day.
2.Medium risk staff are receiving N10,000 per day.
3.Low risk staff are receiving N5,000 per day.
1.High risk staff are receiving a compensation of N15,000 per day.
2.Medium risk staff are receiving N10,000 per day.
3.Low risk staff are receiving N5,000 per day.
KDSG is also paying a monthly incentive of 10% of net pay to every health worker in its hospitals and primary health centres. In addition, KDSG has paid premiums for insurance package for health workers that raises the death and disability benefits to N5m and N2.5m respectively
The insurance package also includes payment of N100,000 per day for 10 days to health workers who get infected with Covid-19.
The salary deductions introduced in April 2020 apply to everyone who works for KDSG, from the Governor to the most junior civil servant with a take-home pay of more than N50,000 monthly. It does not favour or discriminate against any professional group in the public service
This comprehensive show of solidarity applies to everyone employed by the government, and therefore does not exclude health workers.
KDSG regards the other demands made as mere smokescreens to cover the first one. Asking the state government to treat the over 11,000 persons working in the health sector as frontline staff and pay them as such is not a serious request.
