Nigeria: Health and Agriculture Key, Says Kwara Governor Saraki

Ilorin — This interview was first done in 2009, when an AllAfrica team visited a rural health clinic and a farm in Kwara state and afterwards talked to then-GovernorBukola Saraki about rural development. We are revisiting that conversation now, because AllAfrica is exploring those issues in Nigeria in more depth this month and in the months to come. What the governor – now a senator from Kwara state – said then can help to benchmark how far Nigeria has come in the past three years and how far it still has to go. Excerpts:

You're a medical doctor who has become a politician. Has your professional background had an influence on what you do as governor?

We have the first state health insurance scheme in Nigeria. The design came partly from my medical background but more from experience, after being governor.

It is always easy for us to look at things like bricks and mortars and say, "I've built a hospital." People will come, there will be fanfare, and we cut tapes. As politicians and as leaders, we clap and say, "Oh, yes, we've done something." Everybody can point and say, "That building was commissioned by Governor Saraki". Building those clinics and hospitals, people can say we've sorted health care. And that's a mistake. But you only learn that from being here in this seat for a while.

We came in saying: we need more hospitals, we need more clinics, we need more drugs – and we do. But there is one thing I have learnt after being here for a while, which many people don't understand. Over years of neglect, the population has lost faith in medicine, in the sense that over the years the clinics are not there, the doctors are not there. They've gone to traditional medicine and other ways of trying to survive. So you first have to win their confidence and get them to come back.

The way to get them to come back is pretty much as if you are a marketing a new product. We decided to charge a nominal amount for insurance – 300 Naira ($U.S. 2) a year. So that's basically free. It's not a cost issue anymore. And we are providing care through clinics. After a year in the program, the community has started going back to those clinics, and as time goes on, they begin to act like consumers and demand better service - because they're paying for insurance. And that begins to bring back better health care.

Original Article Here