50% in extreme poverty
70% do have drinking water or sanitation.
69% of urban dwellers in slums
49% of children under the age of five are stunted, underweight or overweight
23%of labour force is unemployed
The 2020 government budget allocates about 4. 5% of spending to health, below the 15% target that the African Union set for governments in 2001.
Doctors frequently embark on strikes over salaries not paid for months.
Many of them are taking advantage of any and all opportunities to work abroad: approximately 2,000 doctors from the UK’s National Health Service have graduated in Nigeria, according to a report presented to the British parliament last year.
Nigerians spent more than $1 billion ($800 million) on hospital care in 2013.
President Buhari promised to end “medical tourism” when he took power in 2015, but he himself spent more than four months in London in 2017 seeking treatment for an undisclosed illness and then returned to the British capital for further treatment.
But with borders closed and the country haunted by its own Covid-19 nightmare, Nigeria’s wonderful men and women are now forced to use their country’s hospitals, prompting an onslaught of ridicule and prank.
“This is your punishment for not investing in your country’s fitness system,” some say.
“I thought our hospitals weren’t smart enough for you,” others say.
This video cannot be played
Nigeria’s Tommy Kuti: Fighting Coronavirus with Rap
Some Nigerians also hoped that the “selectivity” of the virus might simply be God’s way of bringing about adjustments in his government.
They clung to rumors that Buhari, 72, had been inflamed by his chief of staff and seriously ill on a ventilator.
The other, less depraved people wrapped their wonderful hope in one prayer: “God’s will be done. “
Indignant at the expressions of ill will towards his boss, presidential spokesman Femi Adesina said: “Why do some people conjure nothing but evil? In 2017, while President Buhari had his medical challenge, they were on an orgy of negative wishes, misinformation, and disinformation.
“But God dealt them a heavy blow. He brought the president back, as fast as rain. Haven’t they learned their lesson?”
The rumours finally ended after Mr Buhari – looking well – was videoed in a meeting with senior health officials.