Like the cases of previous victims of systemic failures in Nigeria, the case of Ms. Ifunanya Nwangene, the stunning singer who died in Abuja from the effects of neurotoxins from snake bites, may eventually fade, but one thing is extremely important: her case will add to the numerous reminders of how Nigerians have been let down by those in positions of power.
Professor Muhammad Ali Pate, Nigeria’s Coordinating Minister for Health and Social Welfare, will gladly list the health-related accomplishments of the Renewed Hope Agenda today, but an avoidable death happened right at the seat of power when hospitals failed to act promptly to save the life of a singer who, against all odds, dragged herself to medical facilities in order to survive.
According to sources, Ifunanya was meant to live, but the system had other plans for her. The corruption in the system and the ignorance of the ruling class wanted her to die, which was clearly preventable if the nation’s hospitals had been prepared for emergencies.
Ifunanya could have survived today if anti-venom had been administered right away, according to Sam Ezugwu, the director of Amemuso Music, where she was a member. He stated that it took the singer more than half an hour to get from her home to the two medical institutions.
According to what I understand, Ifunanya visited a hospital in Lugbe after being bitten by the snake, and they informed her that they did not have anti-venom. Thus, she drove a Bolt to FMC, according to Ezugwu.
The trip takes roughly half an hour. When she arrived at FMC Jabi and described what had happened to them, she was still active. She even told them about the kind of snake.
Ezugwu claims that a physician later informed him that the venom had spread by the time Ifunanya reached FMC.
“The reason a facility like FMC won’t have the necessary treatment is what hurt me the most. “It’s unfortunate that she passed away in that way,” he remarked.
According to another story, Ifunanya was bitten by the snake at around 8 a.m. and arrived at the FMC through the first hospital by 10 a.m. This indicates that she was able to withstand the venom for roughly two hours, which is sufficient to preserve her life in a nation where the safety of its residents is of utmost importance.
Ifunanya would still be alive today if she had received medical attention right away, as evidenced by the fact that she drove herself to the two hospitals in attempt to survive.
The Federal Medical Center, the second hospital she went to on her own, claimed to have injected her with anti-venom, although it was rumored that this was a face-saving tactic because Ifunanya was only given a drip.
It was clear that FMC didn’t do that, according to our correspondent, a physician at a federal clinic in Abuja who wished to remain anonymous.
He explained, “Look, anti-venom is not something you just keep without the necessary temperature; otherwise, it loses its potency.”
Anti-venom must be stored consistently between 2°C and 9°C to maintain its potency and activity, just like the majority of vaccines.
Given the subpar power supply in the FCT, I doubt any hospital, especially government institutions, can afford such.
Because of this, I’m not sure if they had anti-venom when the woman was taken to their hospital. But I believe her passing should serve as a lesson,” the physician stated.
Although it was bad that she couldn’t get anti-venom, the emergency response from people who ought to know was worse.
The first establishment she went to, Divine Health Hospital, was incredibly unprofessional. Snake bites are considered emergencies everywhere in the world.
The hospital failed to supply an ambulance for Ifunanya’s next trip, admitting that they had no anti-venom. Additionally, they neglected to provide her with a trained person who would keep an eye on her at every stage until the next destination. Additionally, they did not search for ways to stabilize her condition. Instead, they let a lady who had been bitten by a snake make her way to another hospital.
Even worse, a woman who had been bitten by a cobra was compelled to ride normally while the venom slowly shut down her body. Even though it was a private facility, the first hospital would have handled her case as an emergency in a rational nation since snakebite causes an urgent emergency response, activating an ambulance service with oxygen on hand. In developed nations, such instances are referred with medical escorts present to guarantee the victim’s stability.
This is due to the fact that snake venom targets the neurological system and rapidly stops breathing, paralyzing breathing muscles, producing abrupt respiratory failure, and depriving the brain of oxygen. Ifunanya was nevertheless left to find her way to the FMC despite the fact that doing so would cause the venom to spread quickly.
Ifunanya’s situation serves as a depressing reminder of how Nigerians have been ruined by a subpar healthcare system. Such a lack of access to healthcare has been found to be the primary cause of preventable deaths in the nation.
Nigeria is among the nations with the highest rates of maternal and infant mortality worldwide, according to studies and reports that show about 1.2 million lives are lost each year as a result of deficiencies in emergency medical services, which are beset by persistent underfunding, substantial brain drain, and inadequate infrastructure.
Nkanu Nnamdi, the 21-month-old twin son of well-known Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, died in a Lagos hospital on January 6. Adichie, who lives in the United States, and her husband, doctor Ivara Esege, had Nkanu and his twin sibling via surrogacy in 2024, eight years after the birth of their first child, a girl. After a brief illness, he passed away in Euracare Hospital, a private medical facility in Lagos.
According to reports, Nkanu passed on the day before his scheduled medical evacuation to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, which is close to the couple’s US residence. He was referred to Euracare from another hospital in Lagos for a battery of diagnostic tests, including a brain MRI and echocardiography.
In a lawsuit against Euracare, the parents claimed that the company had committed medical negligence by failing to provide essential resuscitation equipment and making mistakes during the child’s admittance.
Additionally, there was news early last week that a school headmistress in Ibadan had passed away as a result of hospitals in the capital of Oyo State refusing to respond to her emergency.
According to a report our correspondent was able to obtain, the woman’s relative, Mrs. Ajayi Omowunmi Fajuyigbe, the headmistress of the Nigerian Army Officers’ Wives Association (NAOWA) Model Nursery and Primary School, Letmuck Barracks in Mokola, gave up the ghost after being turned away from multiple hospitals where she was taken in critical condition.
She was transferred at night between hospitals in the Mokola, Adeoyo, Oluyoro, and Basorun regions of Ibadan, according to a relative of the dead named Fajuyigbe. She was refused admittance for various reasons until around 1:00 a.m., when she was accepted by a private hospital in Idi-Ape after a sizable payment, where she subsequently passed away.
These tragedies highlight the shortcomings of the nation’s leaders, both past and current. Muhammadu Buhari’s more than 200 days in foreign hospitals for medical care, followed by his death in a London hospital, is an indictment of his government for failing to live up to standards after overseeing Nigeria for an astounding eight years.
Former aide Femi Adesina was cited as defending his nearly monthly medical tourism by claiming that it was required since specialized knowledge was not accessible in Nigeria, so confirming his boss’s failure.
A presidential spokesperson won’t do much to justify the majority of African heads of state’s use of domestic healthcare facilities.
Even in his active years, former President Nelson Mandela frequently visited the Mediclinic Heart Hospital in Pretoria, where he was confined prior to his death.
According to our correspondent, state-run medical facilities, particularly military hospitals, are the main source of healthcare for South African presidents and high-ranking government officials.
It was discovered that both presidents and high-ranking government officials are served by establishments like Military Hospital in Thaba Tshwane, Pretoria, and Military Hospital in Wynberg, Cape Town.
In Nigeria, the opposite has been true for both current and former leaders. According to reports, even the best government facilities in the nation lack the essential tools needed to treat medical crises.
The Aso Rock Clinic was constructed specifically to care for the first family and other prominent State House occupants, but in 2017 Aisha Buhari, the First Lady at the time, voiced concerns about its appalling condition.
Even though the clinic received large annual allocations, the then-first lady was very direct in pointing out that the institution lacked a syringe and an x-ray machine.
“When I express a few words on Nigeria’s health delivery system, I want to be realistic. At the start of a two-day stakeholders forum on reproductive, maternal, newborn child, adolescent, and nutrition health and nutrition in the Presidential Villa’s banquet hall, she added, “I’m sorry to say that it is very poor.”
“Having the MD of Aso Clinic here makes me happy. I’m glad you’re here, Dr. Manir.
They suggested that I take a flight to London while I was ill a few weeks ago, but I declined.
“I stated that since there is funding for a designated clinic to care for us, I must have treatment in Nigeria.
“We need to know how the N100 million fund is being used. I persisted throughout the process, and when they called Aso Clinic to check on the X-ray equipment, they informed me that it was not functioning. They were unaware that I was supposed to be at the hospital at that very moment.
“I had to visit a hospital that was founded by foreigners.
What does that signify? I believe it is time for us to act morally. Of course we have policies, but there are always issues with how they are put into practice. Therefore, we must adopt a new perspective and act morally.
“What does it indicate that there isn’t a single syringe at the hospital despite all the construction going on? Who is going to use the building? Then she said.
The fact that the facility had annual budgets without matching inputs highlights the system’s innate corruption.
According to his advisers, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has been in France for more than 60 days in order to establish diplomatic and economic ties. However, insiders have consistently suggested that the president’s travel is mostly for medical examinations, which is also a critique of the government’s pledge to improve the health sector.
Due to the system’s inability to retain their expertise, the nation’s top medical experts are currently working abroad to provide services that are absent domestically.
Almost every area of the nation is pleading for attention, so the systemic failure is not just in the healthcare industry.
Nigeria has suffered considerably more from insecurity since so many of its citizens have been victims. As the phrase goes, many Nigerians have been abducted and killed in their homes and on the country’s roadways.
For example, the rise of one-chance criminals in the nation’s capital has resulted in numerous deaths. One-off robbers killed Chigbo Mediatrix, a lawyer, and Chinemerem Chuwumeziem, a nurse, in Abuja last month.
Chuwumeziem worked in healthcare, and Mediatrix was the NBA Abuja Branch’s previous treasurer. The bodies of the two women were subsequently discovered in various areas of the country’s capital after they were allegedly attacked by criminals acting as commercial transport operators.
Terrorists have robbed the residents of numerous communities in the Plateau, Benue, Niger, Kwara, and numerous other places, leaving them abandoned today.
Infrastructure is in poor shape, and thieves use poor road conditions and cover to wreak havoc on defenseless Nigerians. Due to the kidnapping or murder of their breadwinners, a number of families have been left defenseless. Twenty individuals were slain by terrorists in Katsina just this week amid a ceasefire agreement where security personnel were in close proximity.
In the meantime, analysts have connected the increase in insecurity to a number of factors, chief among them being the mishandling of defense budgets, where money intended for the acquisition of contemporary weapons, armored vehicles, and surveillance equipment is regularly embezzled, leaving soldiers on the front lines with less equipment than insurgents who are better armed.
Additionally, there is the problem of personnel allowance diversion, where senior officials are suspected of withholding operational allowances, incentives, and wages, which seriously undermines military morale and dedication to the mission.
Additionally, there are several cases where soldiers leak operational intelligence to rebels due to low morale and other reasons, which results in an ambush of soldiers and their eventual murder.
Additionally, there have been cases where high-level employees have been connected to the transfer of supplies and weaponry to terrorist organizations.
There were also reports of officers purposefully destroying or abandoning armored personnel vehicles and other critical military equipment in order to aid insurgent advances.
All of these are the result of an ineffective system in which the government continues to prioritize things incorrectly at the price of Nigerians’ lives.
The All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) founder, Chekwas Okorie, acknowledged that Ifunanya is a victim of a broken system, acknowledging that her death was not caused by snake bites but rather by the system’s failure to provide her with timely care. He had a conversation with our correspondent.
We don’t have enough money for health care. She was slain by a subpar healthcare system. She is a victim of inadequate healthcare delivery since she could have survived with timely care,” he stated.
Sadly, it’s not just anti-venom. Today’s hospitals lack several essential drugs that Nigerians require, and when you visit, they would tell you to buy them elsewhere.
Do we have to wait until another Ifunanya passes away before we find out? There must be action taken since Nigeria’s system is incredibly hopeless.
This is a result of leadership failures, so we need to reconsider how we elect leaders. This is crucial,” he stated.
Speaking on his social media site, well-known internet user Egemba Chinonso Fidelis, also known as Aproko Doctor, an actor, health influencer, and practicing physician, concurred that Ifunanya died not from snake bites but rather because the system she may have trusted failed her.
Although they bite people all over the world, snakes do not pass away in this manner. In 2026, not 1980 or 1970, people do not perish just because they visited two hospitals and were informed directly that antivenom was not available in a nation where snakes are found.
When you consider it, Nigeria has created a specific antivenom specifically for Nigerian snakes. “Echitab” is the name of it. Why wasn’t this antivenom kept in the refrigerators at the hospitals she visited? just because we’ve forgotten the fundamentals.
“Where there are no ambulances, our politicians are constructing flyovers.” The primary healthcare center, which ought to be the initial point of contact in any functioning nation, is being neglected while we concentrate on constructing ultramodern hospitals.
Dele Farotimi, a human rights advocate and attorney, lamented the state of affairs and thought back to the time when Nigerian secondary healthcare facilities were helping foreigners.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Saudi royal family favored the University College Hospital in Ibadan. It really was that good.
However, because our doctors are all overseas and our hospitals lack basic antivenoms, lives are being wasted in Nigeria in 2026. We have failed in this situation.