The Senate on Tuesday urged the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN) to allow Nigerian medical graduates from Ukraine and Sudan, where the war did not affect their academic activities, to sit for MDCN exams in July and November.
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The Red Chamber advised the MDCN to devise means to decentralise the body exams in each geopolitical zone of the country, like the law schools, to mitigate the economic cost to the students and their parents.
The Senate resolutions were a sequel to the motion titled “Discrimination Against Medical Graduands from Ukraine by the Nigerian Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria.
It was sponsored by the Senator representing Osun West, Oyewumi Olalere.
Presenting his lead debate, the lawmaker recalled that the predicament of medical graduates from Ukrainian universities has been a recurring issue in the National Assembly since 2022.
He said in 2023, the House of Representatives and the Ministry of Health concluded with the Medical and Dental Council to allow the students that graduated from medical schools in Ukraine to participate in qualifying exams like other students, or at best, organise a makeup programme for them before the exam.
He said MDCN has slated a referral programme for the 2022 graduates alone at the Federal Medical Centre Gwagwalada at the cost of N1.5 million per student to be paid in one and a half weeks.
He said the concerned parents of the affected students had visited the National Assembly complex to lodge their complaint during the vacation of the Senate for an extension of the deadline for payment to one month from one and a half weeks.
Olalere, who is the Senate Deputy Minority Leader, said the war in Ukraine affected the eastern part of Ukraine and KIV, the capital, adding that western Ukraine was not affected.
According to him, the students were on campus doing their programme unhindered, as confirmed by the Ukrainian Ambassador to Nigeria.
He said since the war in Ukraine did not affect all the universities, especially students in the western parts of Ukraine, students who graduated from those universities in 2023 should be allowed to sit for MDCN exams henceforth without any hindrance.
Other senators who supported the motion include Adamu Alero (PDP-Kebbi and Abdul Ningi (PDP-Bauchi), among others.
In his remarks, President Godswill Akpiabio thanked the sponsor of the motion, saying that it was a popular motion that elicited comments from lawmakers.
He expressed the hope that the resolutions of the Senate would be adhered to by MDCN and the Vice Chancellors to ameliorate the sufferings of concerned Nigerian medical graduates from war-affected nations.
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