The Nigerian Association of Medical and Dental Academics (NAMDA) has debunked the claim by Pastor Peju Oyemade on how much it would cost to train a medical doctor and dental surgeon in any of the nation’s universities.
In a statement signed by the NAMDA President, Dr. Nosa Orhue and the acting Secretary General, Dr. Shehu Abdulrahman, faulted Pastor Oyemade’s position that it cost N500, 000 to train a medical doctor and dental surgeon in the universities.
The NAMDA statement reads: “The claim that a medical doctor or dental surgeon is trained with n500, 000 in Nigeria: Pastor Peju Oyemade goofed!”
The union said its attention was drawn to what appears to be a deliberate misrepresentation of the cost of training medical and dental surgeons in Nigeria.
“The union would ordinarily not respond to such incompetent claim but for the purpose of providing genuine information to the public who might be deceived into believing it due to the podium this misrepresentation emanated.
“We wish to suggest to anyone who wish to educate himself or herself on this spurious claim to consider any of the following institutions or organisations; NAMDA, FMOH, FMOE, MDCN, NPMCN and teaching hospitals, for clarification.
“For the avoidance of doubt, training a medical doctor starts with a good primary and secondary school and with the almost absence of good basic public schools in Nigeria, the exorbitant rates in private schools is common knowledge whether in rural, semi urban or urban locations,” it stated.
The union leaders said every parent who has a child in the Nigerian medical schools is aware of the cost of training ranging from higher levies and tuition, cost of living, owing to a much longer stay in school per session to the cost of textbooks, bedside equipment like Stethoscopes, Diagnostic sets.
Both observed that with the high cost of medical textbooks, N500,000 as claimed by the pastor would not buy a quarter of the required medical textbooks even at the pre clinical stage, even if it is a public universities.
According to NAMDA, the story is expectedly different with private universities, which charge between N5million to over N10million as tuition fee per session excluding accommodation in some cases.
“We expected him to have done enough homework before preaching misinformation to his congregation and the public. Such misrepresentation from a notable man of God is capable of further clouding the already arrested interest of the various governments in Nigeria who may believe that they are already overfunding medical education when in actual fact the funding is dangerously abysmal. Being a pastor, the congregation and viewers could easily believe such an unverified claim. This is unexpected from a man of God.
“We wish to inform Pastor Peju Oyemade that N500, 000 cannot sustain an undergraduate non-clinical student for one year less clinical student and for 6 years! This is even worse at the postgraduate levels,’ both educated the pastor.
In the statement, NAMDA stated that medical education is expensive in Nigeria and the current funding from the governments is grossly inadequate and is capable of breeding poor training particularly when the teachers are underpaid which has contributed to the well-known “japa” syndrome.
The union condemned and rejected the claim and misinformation by Pastor Oyemade who NAMDA said ought to know that their privileged and exalted position needed to be guarded by caution when sharing information.
It added: “It is our hope that the good pastor shall see the need to renounce his proclamation on medical education to reflect the facts and lay to rest this unfortunate misrepresentation.”