President Bola Tinubu has approved the establishment of the National Health Fellows Programme, with young Nigerian fellows to be engaged in all the 774 local government areas in the country.

This, according to Presidential Spokesman Ajuri Ngelale, is part of “his determination to comprehensively upgrade existing primary healthcare centres and construct over 8,800 new primary healthcare centres across all local government areas in the country for accessible and qualitative healthcare delivery with the provision of new social accountability mechanisms.”

Ngelale explained in a statement issued on Monday, April 8, 2024 that, “The well-trained fellows will serve as fiduciary agents to monitor and track Primary Healthcare Centre development and performance, which is to be assiduously measured against all financial inflows to the centres nationwide.”

Continuing, he said: “The fellowship programme will be domiciled in the Sector Wide Approach (SWAp) coordination office under the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare. The fellows will be recruited, renumerated, and equipped with appropriate tools to track the performance of Basic Health Care Provision Fund-supported health facilities nationwide.

“President Tinubu, who is the African Union Champion for Human Resources in Healthcare, places faith in young Nigerians, and expects that their engagement in this critical nation-building task, which also includes a daily monitoring and tracking of health reforms in their locations, will usher in a new era of world-class service provision to all Nigerians in every part of the country.”