…Kano, Kaduna, Borno, Benue, Abia, Ogun meet WHO’s 13 per cent recommendation
By Clifford Ndujihe, Politics Editor
The Federal Government and 21 of the 36 states of the country have allocated N3.846 trillion of their 2025 budgets to healthcare.
The figure represents a miserly 6.02 per cent of the N63.898 trillion they proposed to spend next year.
This is a far cry from the World Health Organisation, WHO’s recommendation of 13 per cent and the Abuja 2001 Declaration by the African Union of 15 per cent.
Currently, 33 of the 36 states have announced their budgets. Only Imo, Kwara and Rivers are yet to unveil their 2025 budgets.
Among the 33, only 21 states announced what they would spend on Health going by information on their websites and what the governors read at their Houses of Assembly.
And of this figure, only five states — Kano (16.50 per cent), Kaduna (16.07 per cent), Borno (15.39 per cent), Benue (15.09 per cent) and Abia (15 per cent) met the WHO and African Union benchmarks. Ogun (13 per cent) met the WHO recommendation.
The rest including the Federal Government fell behind grossly.
In his N47.9 trillion 2025 budget presentation at the National Assembly, yesterday, President Bola Tinubu allocated N2.48 trillion or 5.18 per cent to Healthcare.
States that made least allocations to Health include Bayelsa (2.77 per cent), Delta (3.12 per cent), Cross River (4.22 per cent) and Enugu (4.72 per cent).
The others include Anambra (9.39 per cent), Ebonyi (9.84 per cent), Lagos (6.79 per cent), Ondo (7 per cent), Oyo (8.76 per cent), and Gombe (10 per cent).
The rest are Edo (10.56 per cent), Jigawa (5.78 per cent), Katsina (6.34 per cent), Zamfara (11 per cent) and Nasarawa (9.46 per cent).
How the states fared
Abia proposed N750.28b, allocated N38.6b to health, and Anambra has N57.1b out of N607.992b earmarked for healthcare.
In Enugu, it was N45.016b out of N971.8b. Lagos proposed N3.005 trillion and slated N204.005b for health.
Others are Ondo N655.230b (N46.016b) Oyo N678.087b (N59.411b) Borno N584.76b (N89.97b) Gombe N320.11b (N32b) Bayelsa N689.4b (N19.1b) Cross River N498b (N21b) Delta N979.2b (N30.55b) Edo N605b (N63.9b) Jigawa N693.3b (N40.1b) Kaduna N790b (N127b) Kano N549.1b (N90.6b) Katsina N692.245 (43.882b) Zamfara N545.015b (N64.384b) Benue NN550b (N83b) Nasarawa N382.57b N36.2b.
Vanguard
