Photo: Philafrenzy / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Nigeria’s Federal Government has framed healthcare investment as an economic strategy as new NSIA MedServe diagnostic centres were commissioned in Bauchi and Ibadan.
Health as an economic priority
Finance Minister and Coordinating Minister of the Economy Taiwo Oyedele said investment in health should be treated as investment in Nigeria’s workforce, productivity and long-term growth.
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Speaking at the commissioning events on Monday, 5 October, Oyedele said illness imposes a major cost on families through treatment bills, lost earnings and depleted savings. He argued that modern local diagnostic and treatment services can keep more value, skilled work and expertise within Nigeria.
The centres form part of the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority’s healthcare expansion programme, delivered through its wholly owned subsidiary, MedServe. The Bauchi facility is at Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Teaching Hospital, while the Ibadan opening extends the programme into Oyo State.
Building specialised care closer to patients
The government says the centres are part of a broader drive to widen access to advanced diagnostics and reduce the need for Nigerians to travel long distances — or abroad — for specialist care.
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MedServe already operates a cancer centre at Lagos University Teaching Hospital and diagnostic centres in Kano and Umuahia. NSIA says the Lagos cancer centre has delivered more than 25,000 radiotherapy sessions and 10,000 chemotherapy treatments to about 15,000 patients since it opened in 2019. The Kano and Umuahia centres had delivered diagnostic services to more than 410,000 patients by December 2025.
The next phase includes 13 diagnostic centres, three oncology centres and three cardiac catheterisation laboratories across 13 states, according to NSIA. The plan is intended to bring higher-level services into more regions rather than concentrating access in Lagos and Abuja.
Finance model and accountability
The International Finance Corporation has provided long-term naira-denominated financing for the MedServe expansion, backed by the World Bank Group’s International Development Association facility. IFC says its financing package is worth about $24.5 million within a project valued at $154.1 million.
This matters because health infrastructure requires costly equipment, reliable maintenance and trained staff over many years. Financing in naira is designed to reduce the foreign-exchange exposure that can make imported medical technology more expensive for Nigerian providers and patients.
Oyedele said public budgets alone cannot cover Nigeria’s development needs and called for government investment to draw in private and development finance. But the programme’s real test will be whether patients can access services at prices households can afford, alongside dependable staffing, equipment uptime and clinical standards.
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For Black communities across Nigeria and the wider continent, the stakes are clear: stronger domestic capacity can mean earlier diagnosis, less financial strain on families, more specialised jobs and fewer patients forced to seek life-saving care outside Africa.