Following the demise of former President Muhammadu Buhari in a London hospital—an episode that cast a long shadow on Nigeria’s dignity and exposed the fragility of its health infrastructure—the nation watched, chastened, as his successor inherited not just the presidency but also the unenviable legacy of presidential medical tourism.
Nigeria’s predicament is encapsulated by a glaring paradox: its leadership, entrusted with the nation’s welfare, continues to seek healing beyond its borders, even as a N21 billion presidential clinic stands idle at the seat of power.
President Bola Tinubu has reportedly made numerous trips abroad—most notably to France—for medical consultations, with at least four such visits occurring between January 2024 and April 2025. While the Presidency maintains diplomatic ambiguity, these repeated sojourns contrast sharply with the reality facing ordinary citizens: crumbling hospitals, chronic shortages, and a pervasive lack of faith in the system.
The Aso Rock clinic, envisaged as a symbol of national pride, remains understaffed, underutilized, and closed to the very individual it was ostensibly constructed to serve. Its construction, funded to the tune of over N10 billion during the Buhari administration, was meant to spare Nigeria both the exorbitant cost and the indignity of its leaders seeking treatment overseas. Yet, for all that investment, the clinic stands as a monument to misplaced priorities and unfulfilled promise. Today, each presidential flight to Paris is a tacit admission that even the most expensive domestic option is either unworthy or untrusted.
In a situation where leaders and those in positions of authority do not have faith in our healthcare facilities, why should ordinary Nigerians trust a system that their own leader avoids?
As one of the most indebted nations in Africa, it is puzzling why our leaders do not seem to consider the opacity and the exorbitance of medical tourism abroad. In just five months, the Presidency’s travel expenses reportedly surpassed ₦2.3 billion—a figure that feels increasingly indefensible when measured against hospitals starved of basic drugs and medical personnel fleeing for better prospects abroad.
Every presidential departure—for health or diplomacy—represents a missed opportunity to set an example, to demonstrate confidence in Nigerian institutions, and to signal that true national renewal begins at home.
This is not simply a matter of fiscal prudence, though that alone would warrant scrutiny. It is, fundamentally, a test of governance integrity and leadership character.
If the commander-in-chief cannot, or will not, utilize a clinic built at such monumental expense, what hope is there for citizens left to navigate collapsing district hospitals and rural clinics deprived of basic staff and medicines? If Tinubu’s administration continues to treat the Aso Rock clinic as a symbolic anachronism—a white elephant nourished by billions but starved of purpose—even as the president finds comfort in Parisian medical suites, the message is unambiguous: Nigeria’s health system is for the governed, never for the governors.
Defenders of the President, such as Bayo Onanuga, point to broader diplomatic and economic justifications for these trips. They argue that global engagement is integral to governance. However, the arithmetic of credibility is clear: transformative leadership is rooted in the willingness to lead by example, to dignify local institutions with patronage and trust.
If our President is serious about national transformation, he must demonstrate it not just in proclamations made abroad, but in decisions enacted at home—by commissioning and utilizing the N21 billion clinic at his doorstep, rather than perpetuating a tradition that distances the leadership from the lived realities of its people.
Until then, the N21 billion Aso Rock clinic will remain a testament to unfulfilled potential—a facility awaiting a president bold enough to challenge the habit of seeking succor overseas, and courageous enough to place his confidence, and indeed his person, squarely on Nigerian soil.
Nigerians deserve a leader whose faith in local institutions is not rhetorical but real, one for whom the renewal of the nation’s health sector is both a personal and political imperative.
Only when this paradox is finally confronted can the clinic—and the country—fulfill its promise.