Peter Obi warns Nigeria cannot progress while primary healthcare fails
Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress, said on Monday that building a new Nigeria is impossible while people die due to a weak primary healthcare system. He reacted to a report showing that 97% of assessed Primary Healthcare Centres in 16 states did not meet national staffing standards, noting that this suggests about 80% of PHCs nationwide are not working properly. "The recent report showing that 97% of assessed Primary Healthcare Centres in 16 states didn’t meet the national staffing standard, isn’t just a number. It can be applied to the country as a whole, where about 80% of PHCs are not working properly," he wrote on X.
Obi argued that health is the most important indicator of a country's progress and that a nation cannot create a healthy, hard-working population without adequate trained workers in primary health centres. He highlighted the human cost: pregnant women may not receive timely care and children could die from preventable illnesses, reinforcing Nigeria's reputation as one of the hardest and poorest places to be born and live. He stressed that healthcare should be a basic government responsibility, not a privilege for the rich, and that progress should be measured by lives saved, functional health centres, and availability of trained workers—not by flyovers or underused airports.
He called for greater investment in primary healthcare, hiring and retaining trained health workers, and ensuring every Nigerian, regardless of location or income, can access good, affordable care. Without fixing PHCs, he warned, attempts to build a "new Nigeria" will fail.
Will increased funding and staffing of primary healthcare centres actually translate into saved lives for ordinary Nigerians, or will it remain another unmet promise in the nation’s development agenda?