Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo announced a strategy on Tuesday to prevent the Japa syndrome among Nigerian doctors.
Obasanjo argued that the federal government must provide incentives to doctors and other healthcare workers to keep them from fleeing abroad.
On Tuesday, he made this statement at the inauguration of the Yeriman Bakura Specialist Hospital in Zamfara.
While expressing concern that the migration of specialized and educated health personnel is harming the country’s healthcare industry, Obasanjo stressed that infrastructural improvements be accompanied by regulations and incentives to retain workers.
His words, “For hospitals, especially when many Nigerians who have been trained as medical personnel are ‘japa-ing’, which means leaving the country in search of better conditions, how do you keep them here?” You need to provide them with some motivation.
“You need the right environment and that is the refurbishing, renovation but you need the right equipment and then you need the personnel” he told me.
According to MEDIA STAR NEWS, at the May 2025 NMA Annual Delegates Congress and General Meeting in Katsina State, Nigerian Medical Association President Prof Bala Audu decried the departure of nearly 15,000 doctors in the country over the last five years.
According to Audu, this has resulted in an increase in demand for doctors, with one doctor seeing 8,000 patients.