These headlines from Nigerian newspapers highlight urgent issues that demand more than just discussion. 

1. ‘Hardship: Many governors desert states to live in Abuja’ – Vanguard

The Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC has lamented that most governors abandon their states and live permanently in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), while the people they were supposed to govern are facing hardship.

Our Take: Governors, Abuja is not your ancestral home, and your people didn’t elect you to be FCT landlords while they drown in hardship back in your states. If you wanted to live in the capital, you should have contested for a senatorial seat, not the governorship. It’s time to return to your states, roll up your sleeves, and actually govern, because last we checked, potholes don’t fill themselves, salaries don’t pay themselves, and insecurity won’t disappear by mere long-distance concern from a cozy Abuja mansion.

2. ‘Hospitals groan over debts as federal government’s 50 percent power subsidy delays’ –  Punch

The promise by the federal government to subsidise the cost of electricity in health institutions has yet to materialise even as hospitals groan over electricity debts.

Our Take: Hospitals were promised a 50 percent power subsidy, not a 100 percent blackout. As this subsidy is yet to see the light of day, we urge the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Ali Pate to please, flip the switch on this policy because the sick can’t run on hope, and life support machines don’t run on promises.

3. ‘”Japa” – One doctor attending to 1,800 cancer patients’ – Daily Trust

The Nigerian Cancer Society ( NCS) says the high rate of health worker-migration popularly called ‘ Japa’ syndrome is impacting on the number of oncologists attending to cancer patients in the country .

Our Take: While doctors ‘japa’ in search of better pay and conditions, patients are left battling both cancer and a failing system. It is time for the government to invest in healthcare and retain our doctors.