Posts

Decamping From Clinical Medicine to Public Health: Nigeria's Intra-health sector Japa

Image
  The verb “decamp” is almost confined to political parlance among Nigerians, as it frequently adorns the headlines of media houses when they raise the alarm over the defection of politicians from one political party to another. It turns out, however, that major news outlets haven’t been led to investigate and create a sense of urgency on the need to control the cross-carpeting of a critical group of workers in one of the most essential non-political sectors of Nigeria’s landscape. Therefore, this article aims to shed light on a similar drift within Nigeria’s health sector, as well as the carrots being dangled by the receiving end (public health) that leave the donor entity (frontline clinical health) at the short end of the stick. I often hear colleagues in Nigeria tell me of their desire to exit clinical practice in search of “WHO-like jobs” (World Health Organization-type careers) that can take them around the world, attract them to conferences in beautiful hotels, earn fore...
3 comments
Read more

Quizzing your tribe & religion means Questioning our peace & unity

Image
  Happy 2025 Independence Day, fellow Nigerians. I had concluded this article a week ago and was searching for an appropriate image (not my usual picture) that would represent both its message and the significance of Nigeria’s Independence Day. Then, out of sheer coincidence, I stumbled on a message that read “I am a Nigerian. My tribe comes 2nd” at the back of a hooded white top of a fellow traveller at London Heathrow Airport en route Abuja on Friday, 26th September 2025. Gleefully, and like a man struck by love at first sight, I dashed to this torchbearer, who turned out to be Ambassador Otunba Adejare Adegbenro, to introduce myself and ask for his permission to take a picture - a request to which he passionately & humbly obliged before we exchanged contacts and boarded the plane to Nigeria. Of course, I had thought it fitting to dedicate my piece on Nigeria’s 65th Independence Day commemoration to discouraging a long-standing habit that unknowingly destroys our peace ...
Post a Comment
Read more

When Correction Is Left In The Hands Of Those Who Do Wrong

Image
  On Saturday, 30th August in Abuja, sometime between 14:30 and 15:150 hours, I was driving my car, returning from a nearby service station around Kaura Hotel and had just joined Oladipo Diya Road (Games Village-Gudu-Apo NEPA dual carriage way). I drove for less than 60 seconds to few metres before the traffic light at the junction of Kaura market and pulled over directly behind a slowly moving white-coloured Police patrol van conveying eight police officers to beckon on one of the roadside traders to replace my failing wiper blades. As three guys spontaneously wielded different windshield wipers and jostled in my direction in response to my earlier call, two police officers also ran towards my parked car to tell me “ Oga, we saw you beat the traffic light around American International School junction; so, you have to come down to talk or follow us to the station ”. Before I could say Jack Robinson, a female officer had reached for my passenger door in front, opened it and occupied...
Post a Comment
Read more

Electricity Subsidy of 4 Trillion Naira: Electrifying Sanity for 220 Million Nigerians

Image
  A close relative who recently relocated to the United Kingdom and resides in a region that is one-and-half-hours by road towards the East of the administrative & commercial capital, London, had conducted a self-audit of her power usage for me over the phone yesterday 31 st July 2025. For her two-bedroom apartment that has its kitchen-within-the living room setting, the last 30 days electricity bill (in summer – not a winter period where home heaters usually shoot up power consumption) amounted to £103 (one hundred and three British pounds). She could monitor it clearly on her home-installed meter. The three occupants of the modest house are 1 adult, 1 teenager adolescent and 1 pre-adolescent, who survive on 1 television, 1 plugged-in Wi-Fi device, 1 unit of a 4-phased electric cooker, 1 kitchen heat extractor, 4 mobile phones, 3 laptop computers, 14 light bulbs and 12 electric sockets. Assuredly, she reminded me that all these appliances do not connect to power at the same t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Nigeria Has 38 Healthcare Systems – Decentralization Is Their Lifeline

Image
  As I digested The Punch newspaper interview titled “ Nigeria Drifting into Unitarism, True federalism Way out”, which was   granted by   one of Nigeria’s legal icons and former President, Nigeria Bar Association, Chief Wole Olanipekun, OFR, CFR, SAN, and published on 25th June 2025, I couldn’t but mull over my book “DIAL 811: DEFT or DAFT?” published in 2022. Incidentally, I was privileged to have Chief Wole Olanipekun write the foreword of the book, which already pontificates our shared position on decentralization. Nevertheless, his recent media reflections bring this important conversation to the fore of national discourse in my professional sector - healthcare . It is worth noting that I coined “DIAL 811” as a relatable acronym for Decentralization Is A Lifeline for 811 federating units. When disaggregated, these 811 units are 36 States, 1 Federal Capital Territory and 774 Local Government Areas – all recognized by the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of ...
1 comment
Read more

The Food, The Hand, The Spoon: Assessing President Tinubu at Midterm

Image
  It was a tug of war between my intellectual and impartial faculties on one hand, and my political and parochial inclinations on the other hand to undertake a mid-tenure evaluation of the impact of the 4-year Presidential mandate officially handed to Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR on 29th May 2023. Over the past two weeks, the dailies have been awash with a flurry of self-declared scorecards such as the caption ascribed to Mr. President’s second anniversary speech by the Statehouse press team on 29th May 2025 - “ We have made undeniable progress ” - and some pre-anniversary briefings by his cabinet members. Going by the chant of his unapologetic double stroke of oil subsidy removal and foreign exchange unification, tax system reorganization, fiscal discipline and debt managements, President Bola Tinubu’s midterm speech reminded us of his administration’s unrepentant conviction that its daring economic reforms remain the silver bullet against Nigeria’s hyena-like financial adversa...
1 comment
Read more

Surplus Offers, Scarce Interests: Government Jobs for Nigerian Doctors

Image
  Happy workers’ day to all working Nigerians, fellow members of my medical profession as well as the political and bureaucratic movers & shakers of our national destiny. My growing concern for Nigeria’s healthcare system, now and in the future, reached a fever pitch recently when I learned of a dangerous reality that can shoot down the health of Nigerians and tip the country’s economic forecasting into the sea. If health is truly wealth, owing to the nexus between population wellbeing and national productivity, the disinterest of a critical mass of our health workforce in government jobs should stimulate a sense of emergency requiring at least a Presidential broadcast. When The Punch newspaper’s 8th April publication quoted that “ the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof Muhammad Pate, said over 16,000 Nigerian doctors have left the country in the last five to seven years to seek greener pastures in other countries ”, the odious fact was established w...
4 comments
Read more