Abia State has emerged as the best performing state in the South East in the 2025 Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) Primary Healthcare (PHC) leadership challenge.
The state won a cash prize of $500,000 at the awards night, held at the Bola Ahmed Tinubu International Conference Center, Abuja, on Friday.
Last year, the state emerged as runners up to Anambra State and won a cash Prize of $400,000.
Organizers of the event said the challenge is designed to periodically measure and benchmark progress by states across a set of primary healthcare system indicators underpinned by a performance monitoring framework, jointly developed by stakeholders and endorsed by the 36 states.
The framework addresses the key areas of the Seattle commitments, governance and leadership, finance, quality of care, evidence, and sustainability.
Following the signing of the Nigeria Health Sector Renewal Investment Initiative (NHSRII) compact in 2023, the framework was reviewed to include presidential indicators.
Beating other South East states to clinch the zonal award is a manifestation of the huge investments made by Governor Alex Otti’s administration in the health sector, since its assumption of office, as evidenced by the consistent allocation of 15% of the state’s annual budget to the health sector.
Abia State recently emerged as Nigeria’s most prepared state for health emergencies, topping the 2025 SBM Health Preparedness Index (HPI) with a score of 26.85.
Vice President Kashim Shettima, represented by the Coordinating Minister of Health, Prof. Muhammad Pate, commended the state governments for increased funding of the healthcare sector in their states and for surpassing their healthcare delivery performances in the previous years.
He urged the states to keep increasing their investments in the health sector and also ensure affordability. The minister noted that “a healthy person may have 1,000 wishes, but a sick person has one wish, which is good health.”
Responding on behalf of the other winners and runners up from other geopolitical zones and the overall winner, Yobe State, Gov. Otti said: “For us, we spend on healthcare, we don’t look at it as an investment because once you begin to look at it as an investment, the next thing you would begin to look at would be returns.
“So, we see the investment in healthcare as a necessary condition for people to survive in our state. Don’t look at it as money you are investing and tomorrow would yield returns. It is necessary for your people to be alive.”
This was contained in a statement issued on Saturday by Gov. Otti’s Chief Press Secretary, Ukoha Ukoha and made available to journalists in Umuahia.
“I was chatting with my brother, Lawal (Zamfara State governor) because some of the things we do, we don’t even remember that there is a challenge.
“So, we were not competing. But then, if you know what you are doing and you keep doing it, I think somebody must notice.” Gov. Otti stated
“And now that we know that there is a competition, I think we will raise the bar next year.”
He thanked the Nigeria Governors Forum, its partners – the Gates Foundation, the Aliko Dangote Foundation, the World Bank, UNDP, UNICEF, and all the international and local partners, saying that the programme would not have been possible without their support.
“On behalf of the Yobe State government and people who came first overall, on behalf of the five other states – Zamfara, Nasarawa, Osun, Rivers, and Abia, I want to say that we are very grateful.
“And, we know that the reward for hard work is more work. We assure you that we are going to raise the bar,” Gov. Otti concluded
