Nigeria must take its own destiny into its hands, build local capacities that will ensure health access to the people, and take advantage of the opportunity to become a leading nation in healthcare.
This is the submission of the Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, who is of the firm belief that there are already clear indications that “we are well on the way” to getting the job done. Delivering a speech on Monday at the International Conference on Health Access beyond COVID-19 in Abuja, Professor Osinbajo highlighted the country’s strength in the area of healthcare while emphasising major steps Nigeria should take to improve its health system.
According to him, one of the eye-openers from the COVID-19 pandemic “is that despite infrastructural weaknesses, we have an experienced and robust public health system, peopled by some of the best personnel in the world, but more importantly (is) the huge opportunities for becoming a leading nation in healthcare.”
The Vice President, while buttressing his point on building local capacity, noted that the pandemic revealed further that “every nation is on her own in a global pandemic and how vaccine-rich nations at some point even banned exports in order to meet local needs, it is clear that we must take our destiny in our own hands. And there is great potential.
