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In a tweet chat hosted by Abuja Discourse, a public health specialist Dr. Shola Molemodile Dele-Olowu (@DrDelwu) drew attention to the fact that our public healthcare system is facing serious challenges in the fight against Coronavirus being that as a result of years of bad leadership on all levels of government, the healthcare system has been underfunded, understaffed, poorly equipped and overworked.

In the face of a global pandemic, the healthcare system in Nigeria is looking bleak, but she remains hopeful asking all Nigerians to follow laid down safety measures as given by the World Health Organization (WHO) and Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC).

On electing the right political leaders Dr. Shola opined that Voters need to understand that priority placed on health and education across all levels of government are the most important for social and economic development. According to her, health must be used as political currency; voters need to look at the state of health facilities and human resources for health in the communities and ask themselves if they have a functional health center within 5km of their dwelling? Stating further that one good outcome of the COVID-19 pandemic is that the political class is more aware of the importance of healthcare. Expressing hope that after this battle has been won, political leaders on all levels will place a premium on the quality of public healthcare and facilities.

This episode of the weekly tweet chat by @AbujaDiscourse was extremely educating, eye opening and engaging as Nigerians engaged Dr. Shola with questions ranging be from individual responsibility to cubbing the pandemic to political responsibility among others.

To follow up in subsequent tweet chat series and also to catch up on earlier discourse follow @AbujaDiscourse on twitter and follow the hashtags #ADTweetChatSeries.