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•Task NASS, Nigerians to resist dictatorship, disruption in healthcare
By Enyeribe Ejiogu
A group, Patriotic Medical Laboratory Scientists, PMLS, has raised alarm over the proposed Medical and Dental Practitioners Bill 2026 (HB. 2695) and the MLSCN Amendment Bill 2026 (HB. 2701), describing them as “the most coordinated legislative attack ever attempted against the autonomy, stability, and future of Nigeria’s healthcare sector.”
PMLS in a statement signed by Olaoluwa Adeleke, who is the Publicity Secretary, Lagos State Branch of the Association of Medical Laboratory Scientists of Nigeria (AMLSN), the group said: “The bills are not reforms, but a grand scheme to concentrate power in the hands of one professional group at the expense of national interest, scientific progress, and public safety.”
The group warned that the bills are driven by the same group of professionals who positioned themselves over the years as Ministers of Health, Health Commissioners, Chief Medical Directors, Medical Directors and beneficiaries of all the juicy positions and privileges in the health sector.
PMLS noted that despite decades of mismanaging the sector through greed, abuse of power, corruption, impunity, tyranny, and unchecked dominance, the people who had occupied the aforementioned positions were now “pushing laws that would destroy the entire system in their insatiable quest for more power, control, and lawlessness, stressing that the proposed amendments are not only “unethical, but dangerous for national health security.”
While pointing out key concerns, the group explained that the amendments if passed into law would make the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN) to become a “Super-Regulator.”
The statement explained further: “The MDCN Bill introduces an unprecedented clause giving the doctors’ council power to the exclusion of any other person or body.
This would place MDCN above all other health regulators, namely Medical Laboratory Science, Pharmacy, Nursing, Radiography, Physiotherapy, and even the Ministry creating a dictatorship within the health sector.
“The bill seeks to give MDCN power to regulate histopathology, cytology, clinical chemistry, haematology, microbiology, parasitology immunology, virology, genetic testing and personalised medical laboratory. These areas are already legally regulated by the MLSCN Act Cap M25 LFN 2004.”
The group said the amendments would amount to direct violation of court processes, stating: “There are several NICN judgments and multiple pending cases at the Court of Appeal affirming the MLS autonomy. Legislating around these cases is a direct attack on the judiciary.”
PMLS equally kicked against what the group described as dangerous changes to MLSCN Board. According to the group, the MLSCN Amendment Bill introduces a representative of the MDCN on MLSCN’s board, six non-professionals controlling a scientific regulatory body, total appointment control by the Minister, a chairman who does NOT have to be a Medical Laboratory Scientist. These changes, the group said, would effectively politicise and hijack MLS regulation.
Continuing, the group said: “The bill wrongly reintroduces the obsolete term “Medical Laboratory Technologist,” which Nigerian law abolished in 2003 when the IMLT Act was repealed.”
Noting that the proposed amendments represent a power grab instead of a health reform, the group asserted that certain vested interests within the NMA, pathologists, and CMDs were attempting to use the Executive and National Assembly to regain the control they previously lost in the National Health Act debates, multiple court defeats and failed attempts in the 9th Assembly.
PMLS highlighting the dangers of the amendments to Nigeria, the group warned that the bills would destroy regulatory balance, erode professional autonomy, undermine diagnostic reliability, promote corruption and professional dictatorship, reverse decades of progress in healthcare delivery, create a toxic, unworkable system where one profession dominates all others.
This, the group said, “is not in the interest of Nigerians, but in the interest of those who have captured the health sector for decades.”
On the way forward, the Patriotic Medical Laboratory Scientists called for: “Immediate deletion of all sections conflicting with the MLSCN Act; total removal of MDCN presence from the MLSCN Board, respect for court processes currently pending at the National Industrial Court of Nigeria (NICN) and Court of Appeal; alignment with global best practices in laboratory governance, protection of regulatory independence for all health professions and rejection of engineered clauses designed to impose professional domination.”
According to PMLS, Nigeria cannot progress under a system where one group seeks absolute control, driven by greed, selfishness, and abuse of power.
The group urged the National Assembly, the Presidency, and the Nigerian public to resist the bills and protect the integrity of the health sector.
