For four months, 774 health workers across Nigeria have been waiting for appointment letters that never arrived.
They are not fresh graduates looking for their first job. Many of them are trained professionals who left their former jobs, turned down other offers and spent their own money because they believed the Federal Government would employ them as promised.
In June 2026, they were told that President Bola Tinubu had approved their immediate absorption into the Federal Civil Service. That approval was supposed to end their uncertainty. Instead, it started a new phase of waiting.
In a letter dated October 29, 2026, sent through the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, the fellows under the National Health Fellows Alumni Association of Nigeria asked the President to intervene and make the relevant agencies finish the process.
Their message was simple. They are not asking for a new favour. They are asking for an old approval to be carried out.
“Four months after that directive, we are yet to be engaged or offered employment, while the process continues to be delayed by administrative explanations and unresolved procedures,” the letter stated.
For the workers, the delay is not just paperwork. It has hit their homes, their families and their plans for the future.
“Some resigned from previous employment, declined other opportunities, and invested their personal resources in good faith, believing in the promise of a better future through public service,” they said.
That decision has now left many of them without income and without a clear direction. Some had built their lives around the promise of public service. Now they are stuck between the jobs they left behind and the jobs they have not yet received.
The fellows said the long silence has turned hope into frustration. They recalled that the President’s promise had first given them reason to believe in a better future, but the continued delay is now wearing that hope down.
“Our Renewed Hope, which your leadership inspired and which your approval further strengthened, is now being toyed with by the continued delay in implementing the very decision that gave us reason to look forward to a better future,” the association said.
They are now appealing for a direct presidential directive to the Federal Civil Service Commission and other relevant ministries, departments and agencies to fast-track the process and issue appointment letters to all eligible fellows.
“Your Excellency, we are not asking for a new promise, but for the fulfilment of an approval already granted,” they stated.
The workers say they are ready to work. They want to serve in the health sector, support their families and contribute to the country. What they want now is for the promise made to them to finally become employed.
