Former Nigerian President, Olusegun Obasanjo, has advised the federal government to introduce strong incentives and supportive policies to stop the mass exodus of doctors and other healthcare professionals from the country, widely referred to as the “Japa” syndrome.
Speaking on Tuesday at the inauguration of the Yeriman Bakura Specialist Hospital in Zamfara State, Obasanjo emphasized that improved infrastructure alone cannot solve the challenges in the nation’s healthcare sector.
He noted that retaining trained medical personnel requires more than renovated hospitals and modern equipment — it demands deliberate investment in human capital.
“For hospitals, especially when many Nigerians who have been trained as medical personnel are ‘japa-ing’, which is going out of the country, looking for better conditions, how do you hold them here? You have to give them a bit of incentive,” Obasanjo said.
“You need the right environment and that is the refurbishing, renovation but you need the right equipment and then you need the personnel,” he added.
This call comes amid growing concern about Nigeria’s deepening brain drain in the medical field. At the May 2025 Annual Delegates Congress and General Meeting of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) in Katsina State, NMA President Prof. Bala Audu revealed that over 15,000 doctors have left the country in the last five years.
He lamented that the migration has caused a severe shortage of professionals, resulting in a situation where a single doctor now attends to as many as 8,000 patients.
