Here is a roundup of some Nigerian newspaper headlines, accompanied by our advocacy-driven demands for government action in addressing citizens’ concerns.

1. Daily Trust: Lagos Building Fire: Survivors, Experts Blame Slow Response

Daily Trust reports that survivors of Tuesday’s fire outbreak at Afriland Towers in Lagos have blamed the incident on slow emergency response, even as the death toll has risen to ten.

This is as survivors allege that the initial response to the fire was woefully ‘inadequate’, saying that emergency services took too long to arrive at the scene.

Our Take: This tragic fire demands urgent action from the Lagos State Government, emergency management agencies, regulatory bodies, and corporate organisations to strengthen high-rise building safety measures, improve emergency response systems, and enforce strict compliance with fire safety standards.

2. The Guardian: Brain Drain: Exhausted Doctors, Long Wait Times Test Public Hospitals’s Care Capacity

The Guardian reports that the growing exodus of doctors has pushed Nigeria’s health system to a breaking point, bequeathing to it pathetic legacies, including severe staffing shortages, horrible conditions of service, burnout, and preventable deaths.

Our Take: We call on the Minister of Health and state commissioners of health to urgently address the worsening brain drain crisis in the country. Improving doctors’ welfare, creating better working conditions, and expanding medical workforce recruitment to ease the burden on overstretched staff without decisive reforms in pay, infrastructure, and support systems, are things that should be focused on in order to avoid a complete collapse of Nigeria’s public health sector, with patients and health workers alike paying the ultimate price.

3. Punch: Emergency Rule: Uncertainty in Rivers as Fubara Delays Return

Thousands of supporters, who had thronged Government House, Port Harcourt, on Thursday to welcome the reinstated Rivers State Governor, Siminalayi Fubara, went home disappointed after he failed to appear.

Our Take: Governor Siminalayi Fubara should rise to the occasion by swiftly resuming office and reassure the people of Rivers State of his commitment to peace and stability. We urge him to also engage all stakeholders to end the cycle of political hostility.