Leaders Who Don’t Trust Our Hospitals

Despite some private hospitals in Nigeria attaining world-class status and Nigerian doctors competing favourably with their foreign counterparts, the country’s past and present leaders have continued to shun Nigerian hospitals. Ejiofor Alike reports

Nigeria was thrown into mourning last Sunday when the death of former President Muhammadu Buhari was announced by his family.

His death at a London clinic, however, exposed the failure of successive Nigerian leaders to fix public hospitals and their apparent lack of faith in the country’s world-class private hospitals.

Forty-two years after Buhari overthrew ex-President Shehu Shagari’s administration in a military coup partly on the ground that Nigerian public hospitals had become “mere consulting clinics without drugs and equipment,” these public hospitals are still not adequately equipped to cater for the country’s leaders and their families.

Consequently, Nigeria’s successive leaders have continued to waste public resources trooping to hospitals in Europe and other parts of the world to visit their loved ones in sickbed, or seek medical treatments, despite the significant improvements in healthcare delivery in private hospitals in Nigeria.

Since he assumed power, President Bola Tinubu is believed to have spent over 50 days in at least eight separate visits to France.

Critics have raised concerns over the frequency of the visits, with insinuations in some quarters that some of the trips were related to medical tourism, especially as they have not been reciprocated by President Emmanuel Macron.

Before the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua died on May 5, 2010 at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, he was treated at a hospital in Saudi Arabia from November 24, 2009 until he was brought back to Nigeria on February 24, 2010 when his health deteriorated.

Though not at the expense of public resources, Buhari was receiving treatment at a London clinic until he died.

His death at a foreign hospital, however, dipped into public resources as President Bola Tinubu sent Vice President Kashim Shettima-led delegation on two different occasions – to visit him at his sickbed, and later to accompany his body back home for burial.

“I was there for two days and when he answered the call of Allah, the president equally directed me and the Chief of Staff to go and accompany the family and the body of the late president back home,” Shettima reportedly explained.

Other public officials also rushed to London at the expense of government’s resources.

The trips to London by Shettima and other public officials were not the first time public resources were expended in the course of the former president seeking medical care in foreign hospitals.

As the President of Nigeria from May 2015 to May 2023, Buhari was believed to have spent about 200 days on medical leave in foreign hospitals despite the Federal Ministry of Health receiving over N2 trillion during the period. 

The State House Medical Centre also received billions of naira, according to reports by the Budget Office of the Federation.

The presidential clinic is meant to cater for the president, vice president, their families and members of staff of the Presidential Villa, Abuja, but these public officials and their families have always demonstrated preference for foreign hospitals, due largely to the poor state of Nigeria’s public hospitals and a lack of faith in private hospitals.

Former Vice President Yemi Osinbajo had in July 2022 attempted to break this tradition of patronising foreign hospitals by Nigerian leaders by undergoing a life-saving surgery at the Duchess International Hospital, Ikeja, Lagos, which provides access to affordable world-class healthcare.

Osinbajo successfully underwent a surgical procedure on his femur at the hospital, a new facility under the Reddington Hospitals group in Lagos.

Osinbajo had earlier in October 2021 inaugurated the Duchess International Hospital.

Speaking at the inauguration, he had insisted that Nigeria has world-class talent, world-class ideas and world-class execution of ideas, adding that the hospital would make the country a destination of choice for medical tourists even from developed countries.

“We have all it takes to become the place of choice for even medical tourists from developed countries looking to jump long queues for specialised procedures at home or simply shopping for more affordable fees for first-class healthcare,” Osinbajo explained.

Later, while narrating his experience after his successful surgery at the hospital, Osinbajo stated that “by both medical and aesthetic standards, the Duchess Hospital is comparable to the best hospitals anywhere in the world.”

Indeed, Nigeria has world-class medical professionals and some of these experts work in some of the foreign hospitals being patronised by Nigerian leaders.

Before Osinbajo’s case, Buhari’s son, Yusuf, who was involved in a motorbike accident in Abuja on December 26, 2017, was admitted into Cedarcrest Hospitals, Abuja, where he underwent successful emergency surgical operations carried out by a team of neurosurgeons and orthopaedic surgeons, and was discharged in January 2018.

However, the rare show of confidence in private hospitals exhibited on these two occasions by Osinbajo and Buhari’s family was not sustained as Nigeria’s past and present leaders and their families, including the late president himself, continued to patronise foreign hospitals.

Responding to criticisms over Buhari’s repeated medical trips to the United Kingdom while in office, his former Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina Adesina said the former Nigerian leader would have not survived his health challenges if he had relied solely on Nigerian hospitals for treatment.

“Buhari always had his medicals in London, even when he was not in the office,” Adesina explained.

Adesina’s claim was a confirmation of Buhari’s lack of confidence in Nigerian hospitals.

The former Military Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar (rtd.) had also revealed that he was admitted in the same London hospital with Buhari before his death.

Many believe that Buhari’s death in a London hospital has exposed the hypocrisy of successive Nigerian leaders and their failure to fix the country’s public hospitals.

The late president had led other military officers to overthrow Shagari on December 31, 1983, accusing the civilian administration of turning public hospitals to “mere consulting clinics without drugs and equipment.”

But ironically, his military regime which lasted for close to two years and his civilian administration that lasted for eight uninterrupted years could not fix any public hospital in Nigeria to be able to take care of the health needs of the president and past presidents and their families.

It is very shameful that the leaders of the giant of Africa have continued to search for foreign hospitals for themselves and their loved ones, instead of fixing government hospitals or patronising world-class private ones to save scarce public resources.

The rush to the London hospital by serving public officials to bring back Buhari’s body ought to have been an embarrassing moment for the Nigerian leaders if they truly understand their responsibilities as leaders.