Tinubu appoints 36-year-old Harvard certified Betta Edu as Minister
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has nominated 36-year-old Dr Betta Edu as Minister Designate, among other nominees who would make up the federal executive council in his administration.
The appointment of Dr Edu who is currently the National Women Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has been hailed by all especially the youths who see the appointment as a demonstration of the President’s promise to make youths and women focus of his administration.
The ministerial nominee has carved a niche for herself in all assignments both at state and federal levels and her meteoric rise in her service to humanity in the past eight years is a testimony that the youths can be entrusted with the sacred roles of leadership and would deliver.
She played active roles in the political space since she won the election as the Women leader of the party and became a voice and rallying point for the political campaigns of the ruling party, defending its policies and programmes using various media platforms and medium.
A seasoned administrator and a gender expert who in the last one year has had a dynamic result-oriented leadership career at national core politics as the National Women Leader of the ruling party, provided vision, strategy and operational execution to the women’s wing of the party, addressing gender issues, women empowerment, women affirmative action, welfarism, healthcare programs and operations geared towards female gender mainstreaming in politics, leadership and governance.
Dr Edu was very instrumental to the emergence of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu as President of Nigeria through the mobilisation of women all across the country in their millions to vote for President Bola Tinubu.
Edu rose from being a Special Adviser in 2015 to the position of Director General and served as the pioneer Director General/CEO of the Cross River State Primary Health Care Development Agency (CRSPHCDA) in 2016, and successfully created at least one functional primary healthcare centre (PHC) in every ward in Cross River state, (built 60 new PHCs and revitalized 200).
In line with her UHC policy agenda, she established the Cross River State Health Insurance Scheme which had over 80,000 enrollees accessing quality healthcare, and fully protected from financial risk.
She established partnerships with local and international development partners and mobilised over $10 million into the state health system to support strategic investments in resilient systems for sustainable health (RSSH) and quality healthcare service coverage.
She revolutionised the primary healthcare system in the state through policies and programmes that promoted innovation, quality of care, and efficiency. Under her leadership, the Agency developed the first ever minimum PHC service package for the state and established a framework for Traditional Birth Attendant Regulation in Cross River State.
She reorganised the PHC system to promote access, equity, quality of care and efficiency. These policy actions resulted in reduction in maternal mortality rate, infant mortality rate and improved child survival rate. Working with her team she initiated the Vaccine Push System in Cross River State which strengthened the immunisation program improving access to vaccines by 30 per cent.
As a result of these innovative policies and strategic investments, Cross River State was ranked by UNICEF as the state with the highest child survival rate in Nigeria. Her dynamic leadership qualities and sterling achievements earned her recognition among her peers who elected her the Vice Chairman of Forum of CEOs of Primary Health Care Agencies and Boards in Nigeria (March 2018–May 2019).
She was appointed Commissioner for Health in Cross River State in 2019, and eventually became Chairman of all Health commissioners in Nigeria in 2021.
As Commissioner, she revolutionised the health care system through innovation, purposeful leadership, and integrity. Her energetic and quintessential leadership resulted in significant improvements in key health indices in Cross River state. Some of these include best child survival rate in Nigeria; 63 per cent reduction in maternal mortality rate (MMR) in public health facilities in the last 5 years; 44 per cent reduction in new-born death at health facilities in the last 5 years; decline in HIV prevalence from 6.6 per cent (2015) to 1.8 per cent (2020).
The National Tuberculosis and Leprosy Control Programme (NTBLCP) of the Federal Ministry of Health ranked Cross River State and the 2nd best performing state in 2020. These remarkable achievements were made possible by her strategic investment and re-organisation of the Cross River state health system founded on a robust primary health care system as the fulcrum of its universal health coverage (UHC) agenda.
She started the operationalisation of the Cross River state Health insurance scheme covering over 80,000 cross Riverians in both Public and private sector within 6 months driving the state towards the attainment of universal Health coverage.
Dr Edu as Commissioner for Health in Cross River state managed COVID-19 pandemic in her state as the chairman of COVID-19 Response Taskforce, where she performed exceptionally well as the state recorded almost the lowest number of cases and mortality in the country. Her outstanding public health response preparedness and innovation brought about the introduction of face mask as a preventive measure against COVID-19 long before it was recommended by World Health Organization and the countries Presidential Taskforce on COVID-19.
Her unique leadership qualities saw her emerge the Chairman of the Nigeria Health Commissioners Forum between 2020 and 2022.
In this capacity, she reformed the organisation, giving it a legal status, and formally affiliated it with the Nigerian Governors’ Forum. She organised the first ever health summit by the Forum which facilitated strategic engagement of the health commissioners with development partners, private sector, academia and the civil society to bridge information gap that existed between them, review progress towards UHC, identify opportunities for improvement and foster strategic partnerships to serve Nigerians better through policy actions and optimization of investments.
Dr Betta Edu was also appointed by President Buhari to represent the National council on Health as a member of the Presidential Health Reform committee chaired by the Vice President Prof. Yemi Osibanjo
Afterwards, she became the youngest National Woman Leader in the history of political Parties in Africa in 2022 and has now broken yet another record as the youngest Minister in the Federal Executive council to preside over the entire humanitarian sector.
Nigerian youths can now heave a sigh of relief with this gesture of the President having been shut out of the federal executive council since the return of democracy in 1999.
Edu, a Harvard certified, medical Doctor and public health specialist has shown great passion for humanity. She is result-oriented health policy and management expert with over twelve-years’ professional experience building and leading teams in visioning, developing, and implementing life-saving health policies and programmes at national and state levels.
She has a medical degree from University of Calabar, Post Graduate Diploma in Public Health for Developing Countries from London School Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, UK, Master of Science Public Health in Developing Countries from London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, UK, and Doctor of Public Health from Texila American University (AC). She is a fellow of the African Institute of Public Health Professionals, Fellow of the Royal society of Public Health, United Kingdom and regularly updated her professional and leadership skills through numerous executive programmes from renowned institutions including University of London UK, Harvard University, University of Washington, and University of Virginia in the United States.
Dr Edu, with her robust background in professional medical and humanitarian services is surely a top notch nominee as Minister.
