For all her faults, UIMSA is far from being the worst-run medical student body in the country. A myriad of other such institutions exist, where constitutions are mere suggestions and those in charge are more like to flout the rules. Add all these varying MSAs together, and the result is a national body sagging with weight at the seams, struggling to keep up with its sheer scale. Where did we go wrong with the Nigerian Medical Students’ Association, and how do we fix this?
The MAK tribute of Tuesday, 24th June, and the furore that surrounded it, is just the latest in a long list of failings of the national body at adequately representing the interests of her members. On the 24th of June, 2023, Mustapha Tukur, Aisha Celestine Ogwu and Kabiru Hamzat died. Young medical students with entire futures ahead of them, they were in attendance at the NiMSA Health Week at the University of Calabar that year, and victims of a boating mishap at the Marina Resort Waterways. In the aftermath of fervent search and rescue operations, the trio will be declared dead, owing to the negligence of the resort, guilty of providing non-functional safety vests and a poorly maintained boat to the tourist, the engine of which would go off in the middle of the boat cruise, with the leaky vessel taking on water until its eventual capsize. Nobody would be held responsible for this in a court of law. Things will proceed as normal, with the NiMSA South-West convention scheduled to take place at Olabisi Onabanjo University in September of that year. However, this event, like others, is also plagued by complaints, this time regarding the quality of accommodation and the arbitrary changing of venues. This marks a consistent pattern for NiMSA, which has for some time been unable to pull off a hitch-free event.
The constitutional amendment adopted during the 47th General Assembly held in Kano to rename the NiMSA National Health Week to the MAK National Health Week, with ‘MAK’ representing the initials of Mustapha, Aisha and Kabiru would, however, have been welcomed as a step in the right direction to immortalise the trio, but IMSUMSA’s latest renaming of the event for political purposes, amidst what has been described as gross misconduct, financial misappropriation, violation of medical students’ rights, mental and emotional harassment, breach of privacy, and misplaced priorities in their handling of this landmark event, means we have thrown what little progress we made in honouring the memory of these deceased medical students down the drain. And now, to top it off, a painfully inaccurate AI-generated flier to commemorate the two-year anniversary of their passing. The memories of these three have been desecrated at every turn.
The 2024 NiMSA Games will have been the primary exposure of many UIMSAites to NiMSA’s inefficiency in all its glory. The first NiMSA Games since Ilorin 2018, the hosting of the landmark event by the Association of Medical Students, University of Lagos presented a chance to set a strong precedent going forward. But what followed was more commotion and strife, as has become the norm with events associated with the National body of medical students. This genuine celebration of sporting prowess is today remembered for all the wrong reasons. Poor accommodations provided to arriving athletes proved to be a sign of things to come, with the organisation of the event generally proving subpar, athletes even forced to miss events due to inhibitive scheduling. In a crowning moment, the UBEMSA contingent staged a protest at half-time during the UIMSA AAUMSA football final over the non-failure of the Local Organising Committee to confer medals on successful athletes, while allegedly hoarding these for members of the LOC. Messages to the NiMSA Games group chats would be limited by group admins in turn, in an attempt to stem the online protests at least, a move that is today, synonymous with the national body.
But why is it that NiMSA struggles, and how can we arrest that problem? With 42 member Medical Students’ Associations (reduced to 41 now upon IMSUMSA’s suspension) and tens of thousands of students represented, some argue that the association is a victim of its scale, and to that end, her two tranches of National Officer appointments, numbering 93 in the second NiMSA NOC Appointment List and 112 on the first list. That makes up 205 appointments in total, including roles as Deputy Director Infectious and Non-Communicable Diseases, Deputy Liason Officer to ECOWAS, General Assistant on ICT, Special Adviser on Political Matters II, Special Envoy to the President, Director Internally Displaced Persons and Special Assistant to the President on Travels and Conferences. It is mind-boggling how bloated our government is, with overlapping, at times pointless roles leading to even more inefficiency. Such increased fragmentation can only serve to reduce coordination, and many of these appointments will indeed see out this tenure without lifting a finger.
A case in point will be the struggles of UIMSA and other South-West MSAs with the MDCAN-UCH and later MDCAN-SouthWest academic strikes. The halt to academic activities in UCH will only end on April, 22nd, 2025, 125 days after commencing, no thanks to the efforts of these 205 National Officers and the NiMSA Executive Council. For the foremost medical institution in the country to cease training clinical students over a four-month period and the National Body of Medical Students to fail to act decisively is an indictment of NiMSA, the oblivious Regional Coordinator South-West, the clueless four serving on the NiMSA Emergency Response and Advocacy Team, the ignorant two acting as Technical Director and Deputy Technical Director on Medical Students’ Rights, the blindfolded Liason Officer and Deputy Liason Officer to Student Union Governments, and the entire National Executive Council. Perhaps a Liaison Officer to MDCAN should be added to the list of appointees next year as an adjunct to those currently serving as liaison to MWAN, MDCN, NARD and other national and international bodies.
This same inaction was the case when medical students in UCH struggled with a 109-day blackout, and through the series of misfortunes befalling those studying Medicine and Surgery at Ambrose Alli University, where a cutthroat system seems to act only to take advantage of the students, forcing these young people into limbo for many years of their training. Indeed, the woes of medical students are widespread across the country, from fee hikes, prolonged stays in school and insensitive transfers of students to other departments, to even criminal cases such as sexual assault. Yet, inattention to the plights of her members has come to define this Association, which, when utilised as designed, could be a significant Pressure Group in advocacy for medical students’ rights. Rather, it is more concerned with trivialities, as proved during the June 30th Extraordinary General Assembly.
Three items were on the agenda ahead of June 30th: Presentation of Investigation Findings related to the 2025 NiMSA Health Week, Standardising Future NiMSA Events and Clarification of the Status of Medical Schools in Kwara in response to a request from a student of Lead City University. Much of this nearly six-hour meeting would indeed be reportedly spent deliberating on whether the University of Ilorin Medical Students’ Association was a member of the Northern Caucus or the South-West region, needless politicking in the face of yet another NiMSA disaster. At present, the latest communications from NiMSA herald the recovery of a 2 million naira sum as a “prudent, diligent, stepwise investigation… unprecedented in the history of NiMSA.” Yet, these monies cannot be the extent of the damage, and to hail the bare minimum as unprecedented in the history of NiMSA is to state the truth, for the first time in a long while, that financial transparency has become entirely alien to this body. According to NiMSA’s initial press release, IMSUMSA, which has since had her President suspended, was slated to appeal her suspension at this very EGA, yet her acting President was absent from the meeting, unable to report on the state of the Imo State University MSA and provide reasons for the association to not be suspended. And despite initial bluster with talk of a petition to the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria to suspend the license of Dr Franklin Olumba, primary defendant in the investigations into financial misappropriation in the course of the 2025 NiMSA Health Week, pending an investigation by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, there has been no word to the public on this, raising suspicion that Olumba and fellow perpetrators will get away with their actions.
Discussions on ILUMSA joining the Northern bloc, taking up four hours at such a time, show us clearly where our priorities are at such a critical juncture. Can we be so concerned with consolidating power, if this move can be described as such, at a point where we must show proactiveness in dealing with more pressing issues concerning Nigerian medical students? To what end does this drawing of arbitrary regional lines serve us and what do we truly hope to gain from this? Journalists are often quoted as calling this a microcosm of that, but in what other manner can we describe this repeated pattern that manifests in our student organisations? If the happenings of 2016 are anything to go by, the division within Nigeria is well and truly reflected in the Nigerian Medical Students’ Association. For an association once upon a time divided between Northern and South-East Caucuses, and South-West and South-South caucuses, we evidently still have a lot to learn. It is our sincere hope that NiMSA through her repeated failures does not devolve into a mere tool for division, thuggery and political machinations as the National Association of Nigerian Students has done, for all the talk of medical students being a little bit smarter than the average.
How can this rot be stemmed? To what extent must we debride this wound? There is an urgent need for greater political participation in NiMSA. And that is not reflected in these redundant appointments, no, but in the participation of medical students as observers. Because it is only when the citizenry is vigilant that governments can be held accountable. In truth, many students of the College of Medicine, University of Ibadan are like to be remiss when quizzed on NiMSA Executives. A couple may know the name of the 48th President, Ahmadu Sardauna, but even fewer will be able to identify other members of the Executive Council. Most critically, a vast majority of these students are entirely uninformed on the actions and inactions of the NiMSA Government, such is our disillusionment with the national body. Greater care must be taken to sensitise these people on those who in truth have a say in their wellbeing, and to foster a sense of belonging with the National Association. And in truth, this indirect voting system whereby delegates vote on our behalf could well be our undoing in that regard. This system, subject to manipulation and leading to brash displays of machismo and intimidation as has come to define NANS elections has even more insidious consequences. The reduced public engagement serves to severely dampen political participation by ordinary members, leading them to become entirely unconcerned with the process. It is a fact that student bodies reliant on indirect voting have reduced political participation, the UCH Students’ Association being our most recognisable case study. And this is not even taking into cognisance the risk of misrepresentation of constituents on the D-day.
As has been emphasised by UIMSA Press, there is a need for greater participation of medical professionals in politics, and that starts now, at student level. Yet, we must not become entrapped by what is currently obtainable in ‘medico-politics’. In truth, the elimination of indirect voting across medical organisations: NiMSA, NMA, NARD et al could positively influence female participation in politics as outlined in a Medical Mirror piece. We must keep in mind that before Jaachima Nwagbara in 2022, there was no female UIMSA President in the Association’s 60+ year history. Heck, the last female NMA National Executive—not just President—was Dr Abiola Oshodi who served as President from 1988 to 1990. And NiMSA’s last female President, Winifred Erepade Esite of Niger Delta State University, was elected in 2016, when the Northern and South-East caucuses, led by then-NiMSA President, Haruna Musa Kereng and the NMA observer who represented the Chairman of NMA Committee on NiMSA affairs, Dr. Tuko Moses Tari (then-Secretary, NMA Kaduna), almost got away with exploiting the Indirect System of Voting using non-existent MSAs to install a candidate of their choosing.
Too many things have gone wrong with NiMSA in recent years for us to trivialise yet another failing of the national body. And with the prospect of the 49th administration looming large, the time for us, the observers, to act is now!