The five-year service bill on doctors

THE penchant for treating the symptoms rather than the disease itself seems to know no boundaries in Nigeria’s official circles. The government, whether it is the executive or the legislative arm, is always looking for the easiest, albeit often the costliest, way out of any national challenge, and it does so in a manner that does not resolve the main issue. This is the context within which the ill-advised five-year service bill on doctors currently undergoing legislative action in the House of Representatives can be construed. If the bill is passed into law, medical doctors will be required to undergo a minimum of five years residency in Nigeria before they will be granted licences to practise as physicians. The ultimate objective is to prevent them from travelling abroad to practise their profession.

To say the least, this is a very wrong-headed reaction to the exodus of trained Nigerian doctors to countries in Europe, North America and other continents. We condemn the proposal in the strongest terms in view of its grave implications. We urge the legislators to stop the consideration of the bill, which is yet inchoate. The bill is uncalled for because it is against the letters of the Nigerian Constitution as it infringes on the rights of the doctors. The government has no right to circumscribe the movement of professionals across borders or validly legislate against the mobility of labour as it is natural for talents to go where it is rewarded. Getting down to brass tacks, the question that should be of serious concern to Nigerian leaders but which they have largely ignored is this: what are the factors that trigger and have sustained the migration of Nigerian doctors and other medical personnel as well as most professionals to Europe and other advanced climes? Unless and until this question is answered sincerely and the challenges it throws up officially addressed, no amount of legislative action can stymie the spate of migration of Nigerian professionals abroad. Human capital will always gravitate towards areas where returns are highest and the conditions of service excellent.

A government that has failed to rekindle hope in the people, judging by the myriad of challenges that impinge on their welfare and wellbeing and which it has been unable to solve, lacks the moral authority to constrain the movement of its citizens seeking greener pastures outside the shores of the country. This moral burden is in addition to the patent illegality that such restraint by subterfuge represents. The national challenges are legion, even if in all honesty they are not insurmountable. Most institutions have collapsed, and there is lack of motivation for professionals. Security of life and property is suspect. And there is the issue of poor salary and lack of career progression in places of work. The operational environment is also stifling and, ironically, that is amid the irritating lifestyle of political office-holders who habitually display unabashed opulence and affluence. Under this regime of plain disincentive, it should not be surprising that many of the professionals who are still within the shores of the land are most probably waiting for the right time to exit the country. It is that bad.

It is yet unclear if the Federal Government has made a volte-face and began, just like the legislature, to see the migration of Nigerian doctors to Europe as an unwelcome development. Few years ago, the Minister of Labour and Engagement, Dr. Chris Ngige, hailed the demand for Nigerian doctors abroad. He actually made light of the exodus of Nigerian doctors to countries in Europe as he did not see it as one of the consequences of the official neglect of the welfare of Nigeria’s resident doctors. He noted that the development would impact the domestic economy positively through increased diaspora remittances. His words: “Who said we don’t have enough doctors? We have more than enough. You can quote me. There is nothing wrong in them travelling out. When they go abroad, they earn money and send them back home here. Yes, we have foreign exchange earnings from them and not just oil.” This was the position of the Federal Government, as it were, a couple of years ago. Is it not ironic that the legislative arm of government is currently processing a draconian bill to stop the doctors from going out?

It is imperative to state that the plank upon which the obnoxious bill rests is weak. The argument is that the government expends a lot of resources in the education and training of medical doctors in the country, and the rate at which qualified doctors travel abroad to practise translates into a colossal waste of national resources. That is true, but the doctors cannot be held responsible for the sordid state of affairs or punished for the government’s inability to retain professionals within the economy. The harsh operating environment is occasioned by official ineptitude. Besides, the state did not train some of the doctors, and so should not make certain demands of them. The bill should go the way of similar, poorly initiated pieces of paper. To rein in the current challenge of migration of Nigerian doctors abroad, the government must frontally address the security and socioeconomic issues which trigger and sustain the exodus of professionals from the country. It cannot do so through precipitate and illegal legislation.