Former Nigerian President, Olusegun Obasanjo, has called on the government to create more attractive incentives for doctors and health workers. He believes this will help stop the growing trend of medical professionals leaving the country to work abroad—a situation popularly known as “Japa.”

He made this statement during the opening of a new hospital in Zamfara State on June 17. According to him, if doctors are better appreciated and supported, many of them will choose to stay in Nigeria rather than search for better opportunities overseas.

Obasanjo encouraged all levels of government—federal, state, and local—to take this issue seriously. He believes that improving healthcare services and rewarding health workers will go a long way in solving the brain drain in the medical sector.

“For hospitals, especially when many Nigerians who have been trained as medical personnel are ‘japa-ing’, which is going out of the country, looking for better conditions, how do you hold them here? You have to give them a bit of incentive.

We need all the personnel that we can have because our hospitals have to deliver. You need the right environment and that is the refurbishing, renovation but you need the right equipment and then you need the personnel.”he said