Former Nigeria President, Olusegun Obasanjo, on Tuesday, provided a strategy for preventing the Japa syndrome among Nigerian doctors.

Obasanjo stated that the federal government must incentivise doctors and other healthcare workers to prevent them from migrating abroad.

He stated this during the inauguration of the Yeriman Bakura Specialist Hospital in Zamfara on Tuesday.

While lamenting that the migration of specialized and trained health workers is worsening the country’s healthcare sector, Obasanjo insisted that the infrastructure upgrades must be matched with policies and incentives to keep the workers.

His word, “For hospitals, especially when many Nigerians who have been trained as medical personnel are ‘japa-ing’, which is going out of the country, looking for better conditions, how do you hold them here? You have to give them a bit of incentive.

“You need the right environment and that is the refurbishing, renovation but you need the right equipment and then you need the personnel” he added.

UGAMATV reports that at the May 2025 NMA Annual Delegates Congress and General Meeting held in Katsina State, the President of the Nigerian Medical Association, Prof Bala Audu, lamented that over 15,000 doctors had left the country in the past five years.

According to Audu, this has led to an increase in the demand for doctors, causing one doctor to attend to 8,000 patients.