NATION IN CRITICAL CONDITION: THE SHAMEFUL ABANDONMENT OF NIGERIA’S HEALTH SECTOR BY ITS LEADERS

 NATION IN CRITICAL CONDITION: THE SHAMEFUL ABANDONMENT OF NIGERIA’S HEALTH SECTOR BY ITS LEADERS

By Tijjani Sarki – Good Governance Advocate and Public Policy Analyst

July 20, 2025


It is with deep sorrow and patriotic anguish that I write not merely as a concerned citizen, but as someone who has long advocated for good governance and functional public institutions. Nigeria, a nation endowed with intellect and resources, is now gripped by a crisis graver than inflation or political instability. It is a crisis of conscience marked by systemic neglect and abandonment of our healthcare sector.


From health posts in remote villages to tertiary hospitals in our cities, the decay is both staggering and shameful. Teaching hospitals once bastions of medical excellence now struggle with outdated equipment and a lack of basic diagnostic tools. Institutions meant to train future medical professionals have become shadows of themselves, stifled by chronic underfunding and mismanagement.


Our medical personnel doctors, nurses, and lab scientists bravely serve in deplorable conditions,erratic power supply, dry taps, dilapidated infrastructure, and disgracefully low wages. And yet, they persist. They save lives within a system that barely values theirs.


The gravest betrayal, however, lies with our leaders. Rather than invest in local health systems, they shamelessly rush abroad for treatment often for minor ailments funded by taxpayers. As ordinary Nigerians perish in poorly equipped wards, public officials recline in foreign hospitals, insulated from the consequences of their neglect.


Two Nigerian presidents have died in overseas hospitals, along with numerous governors and top officials a tragic irony that underscores a universal truth, no amount of distance or dollars can shield anyone from the consequences of a healthcare system they refused to build.


What kind of leadership abandons the very institutions it is mandated to protect? How does a president justify foreign treatment while doctors at home strike over unpaid wages? How does a governor find comfort abroad while patients in his state die for lack of oxygen or syringes?


To compound the tragedy, many of these foreign hospitals are staffed by Nigerian doctors and nurses skilled professionals who were forced to leave due to poor conditions at home. These are the very people we should have retained to heal our nation, now serving elsewhere with dignity and respect. Imagine if our leaders had inspired them to stay.


This trend is not only irresponsible it is immoral. Medical tourism by public officials is less a necessity than it is a symptom of deliberate neglect and institutional arrogance. It insults every Nigerian who has lost a loved one to our failing health system and highlights a broken social contract.


This must end.


I call on the Nigerian government to:


1. Ban medical tourism for public officials elected or appointed except in extraordinary cases and only with approval from an independent medical board.



2. Audit all public spending on medical tourism over the past 20 years and make the findings public.



3. Invest massively in the rehabilitation and modernization of all federal and state-owned medical institutions, starting with teaching hospitals.



4. Mandate public officials to use local healthcare services for themselves and their families to set an example of leadership.



5. Implement reforms and incentives to retain and attract back Nigerian medical professionals working abroad.




We must build a Nigeria where healthcare is a right, not a privilege. A Nigeria where presidents and the public share the same hospitals. A Nigeria where doctors are celebrated, not driven out. A Nigeria where no one is forced to choose between survival and citizenship.


Because in the end, it is not only our health sector that lies in critical condition but the moral integrity of our leadership. And unless we resuscitate that conscience, Nigeria will remain a nation bleeding silently.


Tijjani Sarki

Good Governance Advocate and Public Policy Analyst

July 20, 2025

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