Lagos, Nigeria — What if I told you that Nigeria’s greatest killers right now are silence and neglect, not war or famine? We’ve been bleeding ourselves dry — through our hospitals, through our schools — and very few people are urgent enough to call it what it is: a national collapse.
At independence in 1960, Nigeria had something real. Our hospitals were good. Our schools were respected. We were building a nation rooted in competence, national pride, and possibility. Visionaries like Prime Minister Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, President Nnamdi Azikiwe, and Health Minister Dr. Moses Adékóyèjo Májékódùnmí laid foundations that once made Nigeria a destination for global talent.
Fast forward to today: Nigeria reportedly has the highest maternal mortality rate in the world, at 993 deaths per 100,000 live births. That’s not a rounding error. It’s not “bad, but getting better.” The data from 2023 confirms it.
And it’s not just mothers. Infant mortality is still a national scar. In 2023, Nigeria’s infant mortality rate was 60.1 deaths per 1,000 live births — a ranking that keeps us painfully high in global standings. These aren’t just numbers — they’re children who don’t make it past their first year.
How Did We Fall So Hard?
Part of it is emigration. We call it the “Jápa phenomenon” — our healthcare professionals walking out because working here has become untenable. We’ve lost so many doctors, nurses, specialists. Hospitals like the University College Hospital (UCH) in Ibadan, once a world-class institution, now struggle with reliable power, staffing, and even basic services. What was once a beacon of excellence is now a ghost of itself.
Another part is poverty. Nearly half of Nigeria’s population — about 119 million people — live in extreme poverty, surviving on less than $3 a day. When salaries are so low that healthcare workers can’t feed themselves, when clinics can’t afford consistent electricity, death by neglect becomes the default mode.
Expectant mothers go to dilapidated clinics. Babies are born into environments where caretakers lack training. Preventable diseases kill. Tragically, this isn’t a crisis that makes headlines every day — but the cost in human life is immense.
And Schools? We Broke Those Too.
Neglect didn’t stop at healthcare. Our education system — especially for the poor and the vulnerable — has been collapsing too. According to UNICEF’s 2023 Education Fact Sheet, seven northern states now have primary out-of-school rates exceeding 50%. That means states like Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Kebbi, Sokoto, Yobe, and Zamfara have one out of every two primary-aged kids not attending any school.
It’s no better for older students: at the upper-secondary level, rates jump even higher. In states like Bauchi and Jigawa, up to 73% of young people are completely out of school. Meanwhile, states like Imo and Ebonyi do well with just 7–8% out-of-school rates — but isolated success stories don’t save a broken system.
An even deeper tragedy? According to multiple reports, 34 states have left over ₦135 billion in UBEC matching grants unused — while millions of children stay home instead of in classrooms.
The Realities We Refuse to Face
This isn’t just bad governance. This is moral bankruptcy. We talk about making Nigeria great again, but we haven’t treated life, health, and learning as priorities — we treat them as budget lines for political optics.
When nearly 1 in 100 mothers dies giving birth, something fundamental has broken. When tens of millions of school-age kids don’t even get to step into a classroom, we aren’t “forgetting” them — we’re erasing their future.
Neuroscience backs up what any concerned person can see: childhood poverty and educational deprivation inflict real damage on growing brains. Kids deprived of learning early on struggle academically. Their vocabulary lags. Their cognitive growth slows. These outcomes are predictable — and preventable.
What Has to Happen
- Healthcare must be a national emergency: Beyond funding, we need real investment in infrastructure, reliable power, specialist retention, and working conditions that keep health workers in the country.
- Education must be decentralized: Federal and state bureaucracies have had decades to fix this and failed. Communities should control their own schools. Regional responsibility matters.
- Leadership must be accountable: No more propaganda. Nigeria’s leaders must treat healthcare and education as moral imperatives, not political afterthoughts.
Nigeria once showed the world what greatness looked like. We built hospitals that drew global praise and schools that produced giants. We can do it again — but only if we stop pretending this collapse is normal.
Our silence is killing us. It’s time to act.