By Ozioruva Aliu

BENIN CITY – THE President of the World Medical Association (WMA), Dr Osahon Enabulele has expressed his desire to have strong collaborations and partnership with the Edo state government, Nigeria and other countries of the world to achieve the universal health coverage and the boosting of human resources in the health sector that would benefit the human race.
   Enabulele stated this at the Edo State government house in Benin City while on a thank-you-visit for the government’s presence when he was inaugurated as the president of the WMA in Germany. The state government was represented by the Edo State Deputy Governor, Comrae Philip Shaibu.

   While appreciating Governor Godwin Obaseki for government presence and the Oba of Benin for sending palace chiefs to the event in Germany, Enabulele said “The World Medical Association looks forward to a very close collaboration with the Edo state government, we are here to strike further collaboration and relationship with Edo state government because immediately after my inauguration, we indeed hit the ground running because it is clear that the expectations from an African presidency and for our presidency has indeed reached fever pitch and we do not in any way want the enthusiasm the kind of confidence that is imposed on this presidency to evaporate so soon.

    “We have also started work on looking again at the whole issue of Sustainable Development Goals with preeminence on Universal Health Coverage which is the SDG 3 and of course the human resource for health in Africa and Nigeria have been the issue everywhere we go and so we are looking again at it and work has started in that direction.

   “We are already having some conversation between those in the global north and global south to see how we can look at this issue again and let it be a win-win situation for everybody. There are people who are already waiting in the United States of America, waiting in Germany, waiting in Japan to see what more they can do to further the progress of health systems in Africa and Nigeria.”  

  Responding, Obaseki said he was proud of Dr.Enabulele’s remarkable achievements and further called on him to use his tenure to tackle brain drain of medical personnel and other workers in the health sector which he said was at an all time high in the country and needed to be addressed.
   He called on Enabulele to evolve a workable solution that would positively impact the health sector, both locally and internationally.