The state government is committed to strengthening primary healthcare and improved service delivery, argues SHUAIBU ABUBAKAR
It’s not every day that international development partners openly pour encomiums on a Nigerian leader. This rare fit is reserved for leaders who made the conscious efforts to put the health of the people first, and where the impact is almost instant. In this situation, the people begin to live again, as once comatose hospitals come back to life. Health facilities that once existed only in name begin to experience a transformation never before believed possible.
That is the quiet revolution unfolding in Sokoto State under Governor Ahmad Aliyu and that’s why he has been receiving commendations from international organisations. In Sokoto, what used to be a grim landscape of dilapidated structures, absent personnel, and empty wards is gradually giving way to something more reassuring. We now have functional hospitals that inspire confidence, and primary healthcare centres that now serve as genuine first points of care that people can trust and rely on.
Unlike the Sokoto of yesterday, where many public health facilities had become shadows of their intended purpose. Where health facilities stood, but healthcare was nonexistent. Where equipment was scarce, and where available, often obsolete. Where health workers were either too few or unevenly distributed, leaving rural communities especially vulnerable. The result, under such circumstances was a predictable system that could neither prevent nor respond effectively to health challenges, particularly among women and children, where the grim numbers piled up.
