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Former governor of Ekiti State, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, has urged the Federal Government to urgently improve the remuneration, working conditions, and career prospects of health professionals to avert a deepening healthcare crisis.
Speaking at the convocation lecture of the Federal University of Health Sciences, Ila-Orangun (FUHSI), Osun State, Fayemi also advocated structured bilateral agreements requiring foreign nations recruiting Nigerian health professionals to contribute to the cost of training their replacements.
Delivering the lecture titled: “Rethinking 21st Century Specialised Medical University in the Nigerian Context: Are the Challenges Surmountable?”, the former Minister of Solid Minerals stressed that Nigeria cannot continue bearing the financial burden of training medical experts only for wealthier nations to harvest them without compensation.
Fayemi highlighted the severity of the crisis, revealing that over half of the 50 pioneer medical graduates from Ekiti State University (EKSU) employed by his administration in 2019 have since migrated abroad.
“The reasons are not mysterious: better remuneration, better working conditions, clearer career prospects, and wider opportunity. It is difficult to fault individuals for pursuing fulfillment when the system at home offers little hope or stability. But it is also unfair to the Nigerian state, having trained health workers at subsidized rates… to lose them to societies where their products did not enjoy such free tertiary education,” Fayemi said.
Cautioning against coercive policies or restrictive legislation to curb the exodus, the former Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) noted that freedom of movement is constitutionally guaranteed.
“As a democratic country, we cannot wall in graduates. A country that can only keep its health workers by compulsion will hold them without ever keeping them,” he said.
Instead, Fayemi called for ethical international recruitment frameworks, pointing to Nigeria’s stance at the Africa Health Workforce Investment Forum in Accra, where the nation advocated for destination countries to invest in training health workers in source nations.
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To achieve sustainable local retention without compulsion, Fayemi proposed a four-point plan:
Competitive Compensation: Upgrading basic salaries and allowances.
Functional Facilities: Ensuring reliable power supply and modern medical equipment.
Clear Career Ladders: Expanding residency and fellowship slots for professional growth.
Targeted Incentives: Providing housing, vehicle allowances, and postgraduate training priority for doctors serving in underserved rural communities.
Warning that the exodus now affects senior academics and trainers, Fayemi cautioned that Nigeria risks losing its capacity to train future specialists.
“When the exodus reaches the pipeline that produces our specialists, we are no longer merely losing doctors; we are losing the capacity to replace them. We must stop treating the departure of a health worker as a private matter. It is a brewing national crisis, and we must not wait until it blows up in our faces,” he warned.
