By Muhammad Amaan
The National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) said reducing Nigeria’s alarming maternal mortality rate remains the Federal Government’s top priority.
Executive Director of the NPHCDA, Dr Muyi Aina, stated this at the 2025 National Health Dialogue in Abuja hosted by Centre for Journalism, Innovation and Development and PREMIUM TIMES, with the theme, ‘Evidence, Innovation, and Financing for a Healthier Nigeria.’
He noted that President Bola Tinubu has directed the health sector to prioritise cutting maternal deaths.
“This is why the government said that it is a top priority: We need to focus on crashing maternal mortality. That is what President Tinubu has asked us to do, and that is what the Minister is pushing us to do on a daily basis. Beyond that, we want to keep mothers alive, we want to keep children alive”, he said.
The NPHCDA boss noted that under the leadership of the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Professor Muhammad Ali Pate, the agency used data to identify maternal mortality and under-five mortality as the biggest issues facing the country.
Dr Aina stated that a major driver of poor outcomes is the lack of equitable access to basic services, adding that when a woman is pregnant and cannot receive the care she deserves during pregnancy or delivery, the system is failing her.
He disclosed that the Federal Government launched the Maternal and Newborn Mortality Reduction Innovation Initiative to address the challenge, noting that almost 500,000 pregnant women are enrolled in the programme, with 41,193 followed through to delivery.
He explained that the initiative is designed to identify pregnant women in communities and follow them through their pregnancy journey to ensure they attend antenatal care, receive ultrasound scans, and book for delivery and receive appropriate care based on risk assessment.
“When a woman is pregnant, after a few months, people tend to know. So, if we can find a pregnant woman, then as a community and as a health system, can we follow this woman through the journey of her pregnancy?
“We need to make sure that when she should attend ANC, she goes. When she should get an ultrasound scan, she gets it. When she should book for delivery, she does so,” Aina stated.
He said the initiative includes free emergency caesarean sections for those who need it, adding that the programme has recorded a 22.5 per cent increase in ANC attendance when comparing the third quarter of 2025 to the second quarter.
The NPHCDA boss stated that half of Nigerian women do not make initial contact with the healthcare system, calling on community members and the media to help push these women into the system.
He stated, “There is this half of our women who don’t even make that initial contact, which is where, as community members and as the media, we also have a responsibility to help push these women into the system. We are scrambling very fast on our side to make sure that when they come, at least we don’t let them down.”
Aina noted that attendance and utilisation of primary healthcare services were very high in the country at one point, but people stopped using the services because of erosion of trust.
On infrastructure development, the NPHCDA ED disclosed that over the last year and a half, the Federal Government has completed 2,125 additional primary healthcare facilities, with many now staffed as states recruit health workers.
He stated that 11 states have recruited 13,434 community-based health workers, whilst 1,155 skilled birth attendants have been recruited by five states, noting that Kaduna State was at the forefront of recruitment.
Aina noted that the agency redefined the minimum staffing requirement for primary healthcare facilities to six skilled birth attendants, who are trained midwives, nurses or doctors able to safely deliver babies, down from the previous requirement of 24 health workers.
The NPHCDA boss disclosed that over 70,000 health workers have been trained as part of aggressive capacity-building efforts, noting that the training programme has been digitised into short, self-paced videos with tests to track progress.
He stated that health workers need to be trained to provide good quality service and treat people nicely, adding that even if services are provided, if health workers are mean to patients, they will go elsewhere.
Aina disclosed that the agency now records about 47 million service contacts each quarter in primary healthcare centres, which is twice what was recorded two years ago.
