Salako Says 60% of Beneficiaries of Emergency Medical Services Are Pregnant Women As FG Intensifies Fight Against Maternal Mortality
The Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare, Dr. Iziaq Adekunle Salako has said that the emergency medical services system of the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has benefited 79,000. He said that 60 percent of these beneficiaries are pregnant women who have been transported to care, cutting the fatal delays that so often cost lives. This deliberate bias in favour of women, according to the Minister, is to reduce Nigeria’s maternal mortality ratio which remains unacceptably high according to the 2023–24 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey.
Speaking at the National Flag-Off of Incentives to Increase Maternal and Newborn Care Services Utilization held on Monday, September 14, 2026 at the Banquet Hall, Aso Rock Villa, Abuja, Salako said a Nigerian woman faces roughly a 1-in-19 lifetime risk of dying from pregnancy-related causes, compared with 1-in-4,900 in the most developed countries. He said Nigeria alone accounts for close to 29 percent of global maternal deaths.
“It is this urgency that gave birth to the Maternal and Neonatal Mortality Reduction Innovation Initiative — MAMII — launched by this administration in November 2024. MAMII deliberately targets 172 Local Government Areas across 33 states — just 20 percent of Nigeria’s LGAs, yet responsible for 55 percent of our maternal deaths — with a bold, sector-wide ambition: to cut maternal mortality by 30 percent and neonatal mortality by 20 percent in these areas by 2028, reaching 2.9 million pregnant women with free, timely and comprehensive care. And the results are already visible. MAMII has been rolled out across states including Bauchi, Borno, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina and Ogun, with over 250 health facilities now actively implementing the programme. More than 32,000 women and 1,700 newborns have benefited directly from emergency obstetric and neonatal care.
“Through NEMSAS, our emergency medical services system, nearly 79,000 beneficiaries — roughly 60 percent of them pregnant women — have been transported to care, cutting the fatal delays that so often cost lives. In MAMII-implementing LGAs, fourth-visit antenatal care attendance rose by 20 percent in a single quarter. Today’s flag-off of incentives is our next deliberate step — rewarding and reinforcing the very behaviours we know save lives: early antenatal registration, facility delivery and postnatal follow-up.
And the promise of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu GCFR to Nigerians families and communities is to do more, scale up nationally and ensure that we have a Nigeria where no woman looses her life while trying to give life”, the Minister noted.
He said none of the progress made would have been possible without the steadfast support of Nigeria’s development partners — the World Health Organization, UNICEF, UNFPA, the Global Financing Facility, USAID, and others — whose technical and financial partnership continues to strengthen Nigeria’s health system. He added that most importantly, the maternal and newborn survival in Nigeria could not have received the needed attention without the extraordinary leadership of Her Excellency, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, Nigeria’s First Lady.
“Through the Renewed Hope Initiative, she has personally driven the distribution of professional kits to midwives across the six geopolitical zones, supported the retraining of 120,000 frontline health workers, championed the Free to Shine campaign to eliminate mother-to-child transmission of HIV, syphilis and hepatitis, and mobilised well over ₦100 billion in support of Nigeria’s most vulnerable women, children and families. Her conviction — that no woman should die bringing a child into life — has become a rallying cry for this entire administration, and we are deeply grateful for her tireless championing of this cause.”
