The Nigerian Medical Association’s (NMA) renewed call for the Federal Government to implement a 65-year retirement age for clinical health workers deserves urgent attention, not because it offers a complete answer to Nigeria’s medical workforce crisis, but because the country can no longer afford to retire experienced hands while thousands of younger professionals are emigrating.

The Federal Government announced in February 2025 that President Bola Tinubu had approved extending the retirement age for clinically skilled health workers from 60 to 65 years, with the policy taking effect from January 1, 2026. Yet the NMA, after its August 24–28, 2026 National Executive Council meeting, says implementation remains delayed. The issue now, therefore, is less about policy approval than ensuring full and effective implementation across the health system.

The urgency is obvious. Nigeria’s 2024 health statistics recorded 66,241 doctors, but 4,193 doctors and dentists left the country in 2024 alone, about 66 per cent of them reportedly heading to the United Kingdom. Another study has found that nearly half of Nigerian medical graduates had emigrated within 15 years of qualification. 

These figures are alarming in a country where doctor availability remains far below international requirements. The reasons are well known: poor remuneration, inadequate equipment and infrastructure, insecurity, heavy workloads, limited career opportunities, delayed allowances and professional dissatisfaction. Young doctors leave in search of better pay, training, working conditions and predictable career prospects. Established doctors are also leaving because experience does not immunise them against insecurity, professional frustration, poor facilities or more attractive opportunities abroad. 

The result is a devastating loss of public investment in medical education and a widening gap between the population’s healthcare needs and the professionals available to meet them.

This is why the NMA’s position deserves serious, immediate consideration. A competent doctor should not become professionally redundant simply because he or she has reached 60. Medicine is an experience-intensive profession. Senior clinicians possess accumulated diagnostic judgement, specialist knowledge, institutional memory and the ability to train and mentor younger doctors. Where they remain physically and mentally capable and willing to serve, they should be allowed to continue, particularly as consultants, teachers and mentors. 

The same should apply to teachers. The extension can therefore provide an important bridge while Nigeria recruits, trains and retains younger professionals. But the government must not neglect the causes of migration. Better salaries, functional hospitals, security, housing and rural incentives, reliable residency funding, career progression and prompt implementation of collective agreements remain essential.

The Federal Government, state governments and relevant regulatory authorities should act expeditiously to remove every administrative obstacle to the 65-year retirement policy.  

Competent senior doctors should be retained. They should not be driven out by bureaucracy. At a time when Nigeria is exporting medical expertise, every experienced clinician willing and able to continue in service is an asset the nation should preserve.