Nigeria must break free from this tragic cycle. We should be known as a nation that nurtures life, not merely as the final resting place of her dead. Achieving this requires a visionary reinvestment in our healthcare system—from teaching hospitals to specialist centres and rural clinics. It demands more than funding; it calls for discipline, transparency, and professional meritocracy. We must create conditions that encourage Nigerian medical professionals abroad to return home, and enact policies that make local healthcare attractive to both citizens and leaders alike. This is not just a political obligation; it is a moral imperative. Rev. Fr. (Dr.) Okhueleigbe Osemhantie Amos writes to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Leadership, at its finest, is best demonstrated not only in monumental actions but also in the solemn dignity with which a nation is guided through moments of loss. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s formal announcement, through the official agencies, of the passing of Nigeria’s former Head of State, Muhammadu Buhari, stands out as an act steeped in statecraft, civility, and responsibility. In a nation where news of the death of a prominent figure is too often first circulated through unverified whispers on social media, followed by a confusing silence or a litany of unofficial denials, the promptness and propriety of your presidential communication must be applauded.
It sent a clear message: that the Nigerian state respects its past, honours its dead, and is capable of acting with institutional maturity. For a republic where such courtesies are too frequently overlooked, this was not a small gesture—it was a symbolic restoration of public trust and governmental credibility. Equally commendable was your swift delegation of the Vice President, Senator Kashim Shettima, to accompany the mortal remains of the former President back to Nigerian soil. That act, more than ceremonial, carried the moral weight of a state taking responsibility for its own. It signaled continuity. It expressed compassion. And above all, it bears the age-old African wisdom that says, “We bury our dead ourselves.” Your public messages to the bereaved family, the people of Katsina State, and the Nigerian populace were equally befitting.
They not only reflected your understanding of the national mood but also elevated the office of the President beyond partisanship into the realm of statesmanship. This is the tone a grieving republic deserves. For this, history will record your conduct with dignity. However, Mr. President, noble gestures should never be islands of virtue in oceans of dysfunction. They must call us to reflection and serve as bridges to national renewal. And here lies the painful irony: while your announcement was timely, it once again revealed an unsettling pattern in the Nigerian experience—that far too many of our statesmen and public figures end their days not on the soil they swore to serve, but in rooms of foreign hospitals, far from their people, their culture, and their history.
This recurring reality casts a dark shadow on our collective dignity. It reduces Nigeria, metaphorically and tragically, into a mere necropolis—a land where citizens are born to serve but must die abroad and be flown home for burial. It is not death that is shameful—it is the manner of dying that raises troubling questions. What kind of nation consistently builds no medical institutions strong enough to inspire confidence in its own leaders? What is the message we send to our children when the elite entrust their lives to foreign systems while the poor are left to overcrowded public hospitals, unpaid doctors, and failing infrastructure? This tragic routine has deep and damaging implications.
Diplomatically, our continued reliance on foreign nations for medical salvation quietly underscores a posture of dependence and subordination— suggesting that we are unable or unwilling to govern our own mortality. Institutionally, it erodes trust in our health sector. If the highest public officeholders reject Nigerian hospitals in their hour of need, what confidence can the average citizen have in them? From the angle of civic psychology, it alienates the people from their leaders; a nation where its elite dies in exile while the poor perish in neglect is not merely divided by class—it is fractured at the level of human worth. And symbolically, Nigeria becomes known not as a land that nurtures and sustains life, but as a terminal ground—a place where the final act is burial, not healing or recovery.
President Tinubu, “for such a time as this” were you called. Your ability to act with decorum in grief must now inspire the will to act with resolve in reform. If we can send jets to recover the dead, we can also send convoys of compassion to rescue the living. Let those displaced by Boko Haram, bandits, and communal conflict be granted the same urgency as state funerals. Let our refugee camps and IDP centres receive the same national honour we accord our presidential cemeteries. We must break the cycle. We must reclaim Nigeria as a land of ‘life’, not just the final destination of her dead.
That begins with a visionary reinvestment in our healthcare institutions— teaching hospitals, specialist centres, rural clinics—all of which require not just funding, but discipline, transparency, and professional meritocracy. We must create the conditions necessary for the repatriation of Nigerian medical professionals in the diaspora. We must enact policies that make local healthcare attractive to both the people and their leaders. And we must do all these not as a political gesture, but as a moral imperative. The next generation must not inherit a country where leadership is a privilege to live abroad and a duty to die outside.
They must inherit a country that honours its people with life-giving systems, not only with ceremonious burials. Mr. President, you have shown that the art of governance includes how a nation mourns. Let the next chapter of your presidency show how a nation heals, builds, and sustains life. Let Nigeria no longer be a place where excellence dies in exile but where hope thrives at home. History watches. Posterity listens. The world waits.
• Rev. Fr. (Dr.) Okhueleigbe Osemhantie Amos, Lecturer, Catholic Institute of West Africa (CIWA), Port Harcourt, Nigeria
