Bring back shame

Nigerian hospitals will likely struggle to operate at full capacity this week

Sep 09, 2025

Good morning, Big Brains. Anytime you feel like giving up in this life, just buy original meat pie from a good restaurant. Don’t say I’ve never done anything for you. P.S.: Nigerian men are never beating the allegations, as you’ll soon see in today’s edition.

- Margaret

Word count: ~ 1,200
Reading time ~ 7 mins

Let’s get into today’s edition:

Nigerian hospitals will likely struggle to operate at full capacity this week
CBN is considering reducing interest rates

The Big Deal

Nigerian hospitals will likely struggle to operate at full capacity this week

Nigeria is the biggest weapon fashioned against your health, and we’re not even exaggerating. Yesterday, we walked you through everything you need to know about a planned nationwide strike by the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG). Today, we bring more unpleasant news.

Isaq Salako, Nigeria’s Minister of State for Health, wants you to expect this strike to affect hospitals across the country. Without any visible expression of shame, the minister admitted that 65% to 80% of Nigerian hospitals run on generators. So when there’s no fuel, there’ll be limited treatment.

To avoid the worst, Salako is now appealing to all the parties involved in this strike business to play nice and put the ordinary citizen at the centre of their decisions.

Why is this a big deal?

We need to bring back shame as a country. Not only should the minister be ashamed to admit that 65% to 80% of Nigerian hospitals cannot function without generators, but he should be terribly bothered.

There’s too much at stake if hospitals across the country lose access to their primary means of electricity supply. A 2025 Daily Trust investigation shows that constant power cuts worsen patients' health and sometimes even cost them their lives. Even with access to fuel and generators, these hospitals still struggle to function at full capacity, especially when surgeries and antenatal care are involved.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), Nigeria had the most maternal deaths across the world in 2023, with about 75,000 women dying. A report by Nigeria Health Watch links some of these deaths to avoidable electricity disruptions, which make it impossible for women to access quality maternity care.

If you’re wondering how we got here, the answer starts and ends with the federal government. In April 2024, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) hiked the tariff for ‘Band A’ customers, tripling the rate from ₦68 to ₦209.50 per kilowatt-hour. A good number of Nigerian hospitals fall into this category, which promises 20+ hours of electricity.

To soften the blow of the tariff hike, the Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, promised to subsidise the cost of electricity in hospitals and schools. It’s been a whole year, and that promise is still hanging in the air.

Sadly, empty promises don’t pay electricity bills. Some teaching hospitals now spend up to ₦300 million monthly on power, a crazy increase compared to less than ₦100 million before the tariff hike.

But many of these hospitals don’t even get the steady power their supply bands promise. Instead, they end up spending about a quarter of their monthly budget on electricity. We’d ask you to guess who pays the bills, but it’s quite obvious; patients are the ones who bear the cost.

Medical experts have suggested that solar power grids would be more sustainable to keep hospitals running, and at some point, the government agreed. The Minister of Power visited the University College Hospital (UCH) in Ibadan after its students organised a protest after experiencing 100 days without electricity earlier this year. In his typical fashion, he promised to add the hospital to the Energising Education Programme (EEP), which is supposed to provide a 50MW solar mini-grid. But the promise, like his previous one, is still ageing like milk.

For now, we’re stuck in a country that would rather subject its citizens to interrupted healthcare services than fix age-long issues.

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CBN is considering reducing interest rates

As the Minister of Power has shown us, trusting a Nigerian man is hard. But if there’s ever a time we’d desperately hope for a man (specifically the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria) to act right, it’s now.

The CBN governor, Olayemi Cardoso, has shared that there’s a tiny chance that interest rates might finally come down. And no, this isn’t some random promise that Cardoso is making out of the goodness of his heart; the country’s slowing inflation and increasing investor confidence are factors we have to thank. If this happens, loan interest rates would drop.

This tiny hope indicator comes at a time when some commercial banks are charging 29% to 36% interest on loans. These insane rates are making life difficult for business owners and reducing their ability to grow, invest, or even hire people.

Even the CBN can’t deny how bad the situation has gotten. The apex bank’s data from earlier this year showed that three out of every four businesses in the country reported high interest rates as their biggest operational problem.

If you’re a consumer of Nigerian-made goods and services, this is your business too (no pun intended). So, please, join the long line of people holding Cardoso’s neck so this won’t be just another man-made promise that ends up collecting dust.

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