By Ikenna Nwokedi 

Professor Echendu Dolly Adinma of the Department of Community Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka has harped on the need to enhance the nation's health policy so as to energize the health sector and boost the healthcare delivery for her citizens.

The call was made by Prof. Adinma on Thursday, 4th December, 2025 while delivering the 118th Inaugural Lecture of Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka titled, "The Anatomy of a Policy: Dissecting the stages, forces and fractures of the health policy development in Nigeria."

The 118th inaugural lecturer and Professor of Public Health and Community Medicine in her opening remarks stated that health policy is the architecture of a nation's well-being and just like the blueprint of a complex building, determines whether the structure of care will stand against the storms of disease.

The scholar disclosed that the lecture adopted an anatomical lens to highlight the importance of health policy in order to examine the stages of policy, determinants of the policy, actors in policy and the points of the fracture that compromise function.

Prof. Adinma informed that health policy development in Nigeria has undergone transformative journey from the pre-colonial era which she described as the traditional health practices to the colonial era, the foundations of exclusion within a period of 1900 to 1960 and the post-independent era comprising of the primary health care era, structural adjustment and health under strain, health sector reforms and 2014 National health act.

The 118th inaugural lecturer enumerated the challenges of health policy development in the land such as limited funding, weak heath system infrastructure, heath workforce shortages, poor information system, political instability, inadequate community engagement, emerging health treats and low health insurance coverage.

Prof. Adinma suggested that for the nation to strengthen her health sector she must embrace a new paradigm build on five pillars highlighted as political will as currency, financing as oxygen, equity as compass, data as light and community ownership as anchor. The scholar affirmed that for Nigeria's health policy development to move forward, critical stakeholders in the health sector must embrace long-term healthcare financing, institutionalized feedback mechanisms, gender-sensitive approaches and interdisciplinary collaboration

Earlier in his remarks while declaring the lecture open, UNIZIK Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Ugochukwu Bond Stanley Anyaehie stated that Inaugural Lectures are core ingredients of the University culture and a platform for Professors to showcase their research studies carried out in their chosen field. 

Prof. Anyaehie described the lecture as an epic event bringing about the fusion of town and gown while also promising to enhance inaugural lecture programme in the institution through adequate funding and encouraging research.

Highpoints of the occasion was the decoration of the inaugural lecturer with medal of Honour by the Provost, College of Health Sciences, Nnewi, Prof. Jude Kennedy Emejulu on behalf of UNIZIK Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Ugochukwu Bond Stanley Anyaehie.