Not less than 6,068 medical doctors trained in Nigeria have moved to the United Kingdom since the regime of President Muhammadu Buhari came on board 2015, according data from the General Medical Council of the United Kingdom show.
The data obtained by Punch showed that the number of Nigeria-trained doctors who migrated to the UK as of August 30, 2022 stood at 10,096.
Nigerian doctors who got medical qualifications in schools outside the country are not included in the data
The data revealed that 233 Nigerian doctors passed the examination to practise in the UK in 2015.
The number increased to 279 in 2016, while the figure was 475 in 2017
In 2018, the figure rose to 852 while it further increased to 1,347 in 2019
In 2020, the figure was 833 despite the fact that the GMC closed operations during the COVID-19 pandemic. The figure for 2021 was put at 932
So far in 2022, the data revealed that 1,107 Nigerian-trained doctors have been licensed to practise
Presently, Nigeria has the third highest number of foreign doctors working in the UK after India and Pakistan