As the global community marks World Health Day 2026 under the World Health Organisation’s theme Together for health, the Centre for Media and Society (CEMESO) is joining partners, policymakers, health professionals, and communities across Nigeria to amplify a clear message: health is not a privilege. It is a fundamental human right. And in Nigeria, the distance between that right and its daily reality for millions of citizens remains a matter of life and death that demands urgent, multi-sectoral action.
Marking the occasion, Dr. Akin Akingbulu, Executive Director of the Centre for Media and Society (CEMESO), issued a call to action that situates health equity at the heart of Nigeria’s development agenda. “Nigeria stands at a defining crossroads,” he stated. “We have the policy frameworks, the reform momentum, and the international partnerships in place. What we have not yet matched these with is the sustained political will and the budgetary discipline to translate them into services that reach the last mile. On this World Health Day, CEMESO is standing with science — and demanding that Nigeria’s leaders stand with their people.”
Dr. Akingbulu acknowledged the genuine progress Nigeria has recorded in recent years, insisting that such achievements must be recognised, amplified, and built upon. According to the Federal Ministry of Health, the national health interventions now prevent an estimated 18 million malaria cases annually.
The Federal Government states that Nigeria has become a global leader in neglected tropical disease (NTD) elimination, with 40 million Nigerians across 20 states no longer requiring treatment, trachoma cases dropping by 84%, and the country surpassing WHO benchmarks for lymphatic filariasis and Onchocerciasis. According to the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA) new HIV infections have declined by 46% over the past decade. Health insurance enrollment has surged from fewer than 12 million to over 21 million Nigerians within two years. Across 172 high-burden communities, targeted maternal health interventions have produced a 17% reduction in maternal deaths — evidence, as Dr. Akingbulu put it, “that the science works. Now the systems must work too.”
Yet Dr. Akingbulu was equally unsparing in highlighting the scale of the crisis that persists. Nigeria’s life expectancy stands at 54.9 years — the lowest in the world, nearly 20 years below the global average. The country accounts for 29% of all maternal deaths worldwide, and a Nigerian woman faces a 1-in-25 lifetime risk of dying in childbirth — a risk more than 200 times higher than that faced by women in high-income countries.
The nation’s health system is operating at only 45% of its potential capacity, while 71–75% of all health costs are borne directly by families — pushing millions into poverty in their most vulnerable moments.
An estimated 30.6 million Nigerians face acute food insecurity, with 6.4 million children under five suffering from acute malnutrition — a driver of mortality and disease burden that rarely features in mainstream health discourse.
“These numbers,” Dr. Akingbulu observed, “are not fate. They are the consequence of chronic underfunding, systemic inequity, and broken implementation chains. They are, above all, correctable — if the will is there.”
CEMESO’s advocacy positions primary healthcare strengthening and universal health coverage (UHC) as the indispensable foundation of any credible health transformation. The revitalisation of over 2,125 primary health centres — part of an ambitious national target of 17,600 functional facilities by 2027 — is a meaningful commitment.
According to the Federal Government, the landmark National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) Act, the Sector-Wide Approach to health financing endorsed by the World Bank and WHO as a potential global model, and the $2.2 billion in health sector investment secured through international partnerships in 2025. Yet Dr. Akingbulu cautioned that institutional reform must be felt on the ground:
“We must stop measuring progress by the number of frameworks signed and start measuring it by the experience of the nurse in a rural clinic, the mother who reaches emergency obstetric care in time, and the child who receives the vaccine that saves her life. Policy that does not reach people is not policy — it is performance.”
A health system is only as strong as the people who deliver it. With a doctor-to-patient ratio of 1:3,500 — far exceeding the WHO’s recommended 1:1,000 — and nearly half of all Nigerian-trained doctors having emigrated in recent years, Dr. Akingbulu described the workforce crisis as “not peripheral, but existential.” He called on the federal and state governments to urgently scale up training, institute retention incentives, and create working conditions that make it possible for health professionals to serve their communities with dignity. He also underscored CEMESO’s particular commitment to strengthening health communication infrastructure: “Robust health data systems, evidence-based journalism, and accountable public information are not soft priorities — they are the connective tissue of a functional health system. When communities are informed and media professionals are equipped to report accurately, health outcomes improve. That is what CEMESO exists to advance.”
Dr. Akingbulu also called on the media to step in for a broader conceptual shift in how Nigeria frames or narrates its health challenges. “Health does not begin in the clinic,” he said. “It begins in the quality of the air people breathe, the safety of the water they drink, the food security of their households, and the equity of the communities they live in.” He pointed to the growing dual burden of persistent infectious diseases — malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS — alongside rapidly rising non-communicable diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, and cancer, now responsible for nearly 30% of all deaths in Nigeria.
Climate change, he noted, is expanding the transmission zones of vector-borne diseases and generating new environmental health hazards that fall heaviest on the most vulnerable.
A One Health approach — integrating human, animal, and environmental health within a single coherent framework — is, in Dr. Akingbulu’s framing, “not an add-on to Nigeria’s health agenda. It is the agenda.”
In marking World Health Day 2026, CEMESO reaffirms its commitment to mobilising media, civil society, and community stakeholders as active agents in Nigeria’s health transformation.
The organisation will continue to develop and disseminate evidence-based health communication resources; build the capacity of journalists and media practitioners to report accurately on health policy, disease surveillance, and system performance; engage policymakers and development partners to ensure that health financing commitments translate into verifiable service delivery; and amplify community voices — particularly those of women, rural populations, and other underserved groups — in health governance processes.
Akingbulu called on all stakeholders to match the moment: “We are asking policymakers to honour the Abuja Declaration in deed, not rhetoric. We are asking health professionals to be supported, not abandoned. We are asking scientists and local researchers to be resourced so that Nigerian solutions can answer Nigerian realities. And we are asking every Nigerian to know that their right to health is non-negotiable — and that CEMESO will keep insisting on it.”
Together for health is not a ceremonial phrase. It is an institutional demand. It calls on governments to fund the systems they have promised; on development partners to align support with national priorities; on media to inform rather than inflame; on civil society to hold power accountable; and on communities to claim the health services that belong to them. As Dr. Akingbulu concluded: “Nigeria has the blueprint for health transformation. What this World Health Day must mark is the beginning of the end of excuses. Every Nigerian deserves a health system that sees them, serves them, and saves them. CEMESO will not stop advocating until that is the reality.”
About CEMESO
The Centre for Media and Society (CEMESO) is a Nigerian non-governmental organisation working at the intersection of media development, health communication, democratic governance, and civil society strengthening.
CEMESO supports evidence-based journalism, builds the capacity of media practitioners and community stakeholders, and engages policymakers and development partners to advance accountability, equity, and access in public service delivery — including health.
