Human-rights lawyer Chidi Odinkalu fired a scathing rebuke at Nigeria’s political elite on Monday, declaring that “those who die abroad will only return as cargo consignment” unless the government invests in functional hospitals . His barb came just hours after former President Muhammadu Buhari’s body arrived in Abuja.
Addressing a media briefing, Odinkalu contrasted lavish state funerals with crumbling public health facilities, lamenting that “we clear our dead through Customs like imports” while citizens perish due to lack of ICU beds, modern equipment, and specialist care . He urged immediate allocation of oil-revenues to health infrastructure to prevent future “cargo consignments.”
He also recalled the Zaria massacre victims from 2015, whose remains were hauled in dozens of trucks and buried in mass graves, as a grim precursor to today’s health-system failures, arguing that “if we don’t learn to value life, we’ll keep consigning our people to anonymous graves” .
Civil-society groups backed Odinkalu’s demand, planning nationwide “Fix Our Hospitals” protests, while medical associations warned that without urgent action, another generation of leaders and citizens will opt for treatment abroad—further bleeding national coffers .
As Nigeria prepares Buhari’s state funeral, Odinkalu’s words linger: until hospitals can rival London’s, the cycle of flights and freight coffins will continue—and national dignity will erode with every cargo manifest.
