The Kogi State Government has been called upon to urgently address a deepening manpower crisis affecting schools, hospitals and retired civil servants across the state.
The call was made by the Publisher of Policy and Lawmakers Magazine, Prince Ogungbemi, in a strongly-worded press statement urging the administration to move beyond policy pronouncements and take concrete steps to address issues directly affecting the welfare of residents.
At the heart of the concerns raised is an acute shortage of teachers in public primary and secondary schools across the state. The publisher said the situation requires urgent government intervention through the recruitment of more qualified personnel, warning that no education reform could succeed where classrooms lack sufficient teachers to provide effective instruction.
He called on the government to carry out an urgent assessment of manpower needs across public schools and begin employing and deploying qualified teachers to areas facing the most severe shortages, cautioning that continued investment in school infrastructure without a corresponding investment in human resources could leave the state with improved facilities but too few personnel to deliver quality education.
The statement also drew attention to the plight of pensioners, urging the government to prioritise the payment of outstanding gratuities owed to retirees who served the state during their working years. The publisher said the situation of pensioners should not be allowed to become a permanent feature of the state’s public service, particularly given the rising cost of living confronting many retirees, and called for accelerated payment of gratuities to restore dignity and security to former civil servants.
On healthcare, the statement demanded the urgent recruitment of medical professionals to adequately staff hospitals and other health facilities in the state. It stressed that doctors, nurses, pharmacists, laboratory scientists and other healthcare workers remain indispensable to the effective running of medical facilities, and called for a comprehensive manpower review of government-owned health institutions followed by recruitment to fill critical gaps. The publisher argued that constructing or renovating hospitals alone cannot guarantee quality healthcare, insisting that the availability of qualified professionals is central to translating government investment into improved health outcomes.
The publisher described the three concerns — teacher shortages, healthcare worker gaps and unpaid pensioner gratuities — as issues that place human welfare at the centre of the development debate in Kogi State, and urged the government to treat them as matters of urgent public interest rather than routine administrative challenges.
He further called for a development strategy that places greater emphasis on human capital, arguing that the quality of governance is ultimately measured by the services available to citizens and how vulnerable groups are treated. He urged the state government to demonstrate political will by addressing the teacher deficit, strengthening the medical workforce and clearing outstanding gratuity obligations, stressing that these interventions should be sustained rather than treated as isolated, one-off measures.
The publisher said Kogi State residents deserve functional schools adequately staffed with teachers, hospitals properly manned by medical professionals, and a pension system that does not leave retirees struggling indefinitely for their legitimate entitlements. He called for immediate action on the three fronts, noting that doing so would provide tangible relief to thousands of families while strengthening the capacity of government institutions to serve the people.
He maintained that the welfare of teachers, healthcare professionals and pensioners should occupy a central place in the state’s development priorities rather than being treated as peripheral concerns, and urged the government to see the demands not as criticism for its own sake, but as a call for accountability, responsiveness and policies capable of producing measurable improvements in the daily lives of Kogi residents.
Prince Ogungbemi concluded by urging the state authorities to act decisively on the identified gaps, insisting that the people ultimately judge government not only by projects commissioned, but also by the quality of education, healthcare and social protection made available to them.
