A few weeks ago, the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof. Muhammad Ali Pate, stood before the House Committee on Healthcare Services and uttered words that should have sparked a national uprising. With a heavy heart, Pate revealed a betrayal of catastrophic proportions: out of the ₦218 billion appropriated for the ministry’s capital projects in the 2025 budget, a measly ₦36 million was actually released. Not billion. Million. In a country of over 250 million souls, the federal government deemed the health of its citizens worth less than the cost of a single luxury SUV in a politician’s convoy.
For me, this is not just a funding gap; it is a death warrant. While Nigerians remain largely oblivious to the sheer depth of this crisis, a look at the data from the last decade reveals a systemic, cold-blooded strangulation of the health sector. We are witnessing a calculated abandonment of the Nigerian people by a ruling class that has long since outsourced its own survival to Europe and the West.
The rot didn’t start today. In 2016, the government appropriated ₦28.7 billion for health capital expenditure but released only ₦15.2 billion. At a 53% release rate, the message was clear from the start: health is a secondary concern, a line item to be slashed whenever the “real” business of politics requires more grease.
In 2017, there was a glimmer of false hope. Appropriation rose to ₦51.3 billion with ₦33.3 billion released (65%). But even at its “best,” the government was still withholding over a third of the funds needed to fix the broken machines and leaking roofs of our federal medical centers.
By 2018, the appropriation jumped to ₦71.1 billion, yet only ₦42.6 billion (60%) saw the light of day. The trend remained consistent: promise the world on paper, but keep the cash in the vaults or redirect it to less “humanitarian” ends.
In 2019, the sector saw a sharp dip. Appropriation fell to ₦46.5 billion, and only ₦25.5 billion (55%) was utilized. This was the year preceding a global pandemic, a year when we should have been fortifying our defenses. Instead, we were disarming our doctors.
Then came 2020, the year of COVID-19. Despite the global terror, the Nigerian government only released 50% of the ₦46.5 billion appropriated. While the world was building emergency hospitals, half of our meager health capital budget was swallowed by the “bottom-up cash planning” abyss.
2021 saw the highest utilization at 70%, with ₦93.8 billion released from a ₦134 billion budget. It took a global plague to get our leaders to release even two-thirds of the promised funds. Yet, even this “peak” was a failure—leaving ₦40 billion in unexecuted projects while citizens died of preventable ailments.
In 2022, the masks came off. As the urgency of the pandemic faded, so did the government’s commitment. Only 45% of the ₦194 billion appropriation was released. The ₦87.3 billion that made it to the hospitals was a drop in the ocean of a crumbling infrastructure.
2023 was a total collapse. Out of ₦134.7 billion, only ₦40.4 billion (30%) was released. This was an election year, a time when the focus shifted from the life-saving wards of hospitals to the life-sucking machinery of political campaigns.
By 2024, the original appropriation was a staggering ₦434.8 billion. However, the release was a pathetic ₦65.4 billion, representing a mere 15.06%. The government was essentially telling Nigerians: “We know what is required to save you, but we simply aren’t going to do it.”
Finally, we arrive at the insult that is 2025. To appropriate ₦218 billion and release ₦36 million—a utilization rate of 0.0165%—is a statistical middle finger to every Nigerian. It is not a “gap”; it is the complete abdication of the state’s responsibility to protect life.
While these numbers represent the slow-motion murder of the Nigerian poor, President Bola Tinubu and the political elite remain unfazed. Why should they care? For them, Nigeria is merely a workplace; Europe is their hospital. When a Nigerian leader sneezes, they don’t go to Gwagwalada; they fly to London, Paris, or Berlin. They have turned the world’s most advanced medical facilities into their private clinics, funded by the very treasury they refuse to use for Nigerian hospitals.
The sheer audacity of this hypocrisy was laid bare by Femi Adesina, the former spokesperson to the late President Muhammadu Buhari. In a defense that was as honest as it was chilling, Adesina admitted that if Buhari had relied on Nigerian hospitals, he would have died long before he eventually did in a London hospital. This admission is the ultimate indictment. Our leaders know that the hospitals they manage are death traps—so they build themselves a bridge to the West while the bridge for 250 million Nigerians is burnt to the ground.
The implications of this data are nothing short of genocidal. When capital projects aren’t funded, cancer machines stay broken, oxygen plants remain unbuilt, and the “brain drain” becomes a flood. We are losing our best doctors to the very countries where our leaders go for check-ups. Nigeria is now a country where a “successful” surgery is often a miracle of improvisation rather than a triumph of technology.
This funding crisis ensures that being born in Nigeria is a high-risk gamble. It ensures that a car accident on a Nigerian road is a likely death sentence because the nearest trauma center hasn’t seen its “capital release” in three years. By starving the health sector, the government is effectively devaluing Nigerian life to zero. We are being governed by people who have no stake in our survival, and the 0.0165% release rate of 2025 is the cold, hard proof. Nigeria’s health sector is not in intensive care; it is being buried alive.
Stanley Ugagbe is a Social Commentator. He can be reached via stanleyakomeno@gmail.com
