Chris Ngige, the Minister of Labour and Employment, has recommended that medical staff, especially government-trained doctors, be required to serve the country for at least nine years before considering transferring to another country.

On Wednesday, November 10, Ngige announced this in the House of Representatives during his Ministry’s 2022 Budget Defense.

Every year, thousands of Nigerian medical practitioners travel to other nations to offer their services in exchange for better pay and working circumstances.

He said;

“Medical education in Nigeria is almost free. Where else in the world is it free? The Presidential Committee on Health should come with a proposal for bonding doctors, nurses, medical laboratory scientists and other health workers, so that they don’t just carry their bags and walk out of their country at will when they were trained at no cost.

In London, it is 45,000 pounds a session for medical education in cheap in universities. If you go to Edinburgh or Oxford, you pay 80,000 dollars. If you go to USA you pay 45,000 dollars but if you go to the Ivy leagues, you pay 90,000 dollars for only tuition, excluding lodging. You do it for six years. So, people in America take loans.

We can make provisions for loans and you pay back. If the government will train you for free, we should bond you. You serve the country for nine years before you go anywhere” he said