By Abubakar Imam

A former Provost of the College of Medicine, Federal University of Health Sciences, Ila-Orangun, Osun State, Prof. Aishatu Ahmed Gobir, has tasked governments at all levels to invest massively in the provision of health facilities and manpower development.

               Prof. Gobir, who made this advocacy last Monday (July 14, 2025) while speaking with UNILORIN Bulletin in her office, said that the advice had become more important in order to reduce the challenge of medical tourism and brain drain facing the country.

The don, who teaches at the Department of Paediatrics and Child Health, College of Health Sciences, University of Ilorin, explained that Nigeria needs to ensure that brain drain in the health sector stops forthwith because of the danger it poses to the ordinary people who cannot afford to seek medical help elsewhere.

Prof. Gobir said, “Nigeria has some of the finest healthcare professionals in the world but they are all leaving the country”, pointing out that “the situation is making it difficult to run hospitals effectively due to lack of manpower and facilities.”

She said, “We and our people are dying needlessly. We train people and none wants to stay behind,” lamenting that enough premium is not being placed on the health of Nigerians.

Prof. Gobir said that instead of complaining when doctors go on strike in pursuit of better working facilities and improved conditions of service, the masses should assist them by impressing it on those in government to do the needful as their counterparts in other parts of the world.

She stated that active citizen participation would help medical practitioners to achieve better healthcare delivery because it will make the system more accountable.

Prof. Gobir said that if proper measures are put in place the world will begin to flood into Nigeria as the nation has enough capacities to reverse the current inelegant trends in healthcare.