By Abidemi Adebamiwa
A hospital is only as reliable as the current that powers its machines.
For all the talk about reviving Nigeria’s healthcare system, one fundamental truth remains unaddressed: no nation can build medical trust on an epileptic power supply. You can install modern scanners, build stylish wards, even fly in world-class consultants—but if the light goes out mid-surgery, none of it matters.
This is the real shame: Nigeria has spent trillions of naira on the power sector, yet doctors still perform procedures by flashlight, cold-chain vaccines still spoil in transit, and intensive care units rely more on fuel prices than government funding. The most basic infrastructure needed to keep patients alive—electricity—is still rationed like a privilege.
And this is why people in power don’t stay for treatment.
Every time a Nigerian leader travels abroad for medical care, it reinforces a message that should alarm every citizen: they do not trust the system they built. And how could they? They know too well that the CT scanner might not power on. The oxygen machine might stall. The generator might fail, and there’s no solar backup. They know—because they underfunded it.
You cannot demand faith from the people when those at the top abandon ship at the first sign of illness. You cannot blame citizens for seeking care elsewhere when the facilities here are held hostage by darkness.
Power is not just an economic issue—it is a public health issue. Electricity is the heartbeat of diagnostics, neonatal survival, emergency response, and surgical safety. Until it’s stable and universal, any national health policy is a sandcastle in a storm.
What we need is not just more hospitals. We need functioning hospitals—hospitals that can run for 24 hours without blinking lights, without diesel fumes choking the ER, and without patients praying the lights stay on through the night.
Healthcare reform begins with power reform. That’s the plain truth.
Allah ya jikan Shugaba Muhammadu Buhari, ya gafarta masa, ya kuma ba shi hutawa cikin rahamarSa.
(May God forgive President Muhammadu Buhari, grant him mercy, and give him peaceful rest.)
Abidemi is the Managing Editor @ Newspot Nigeria
