Fellow Nurses Africa
12 December 2025
NMA Calls Consultant Nurses “Irrelevant” – Meet Nigeria’s Newest Doctor of Nursing Practice
As Nigeria’s medical and nursing professions remain locked in a heated debate over the proposed Consultant Nurse cadre, a Nigerian-born nurse is preparing to receive one of the highest clinical qualifications in global healthcare.
Uhunoma “Noma” Aguebor, who was born in Nigeria and raised in Toledo, Ohio, will be awarded the Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) – Family Nurse Practitioner degree by The University of Toledo on Saturday 13 December 2025.
The DNP is widely regarded as the terminal clinical doctorate in nursing and equips graduates to lead complex patient care, develop evidence-based protocols, influence health policy and deliver advanced primary and specialist services – roles closely aligned with those of Nurse Consultants and Clinical Nurse Specialists in the United Kingdom, United States, Canada and Australia.
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Ms Aguebor, an above-knee amputee since early childhood, has combined full-time work as a registered nurse in the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit at ProMedica Russell J. Ebeid Children’s Hospital with the demanding DNP programme. Colleagues describe her as “calm, resilient and exceptionally focused” throughout multiple academic challenges, including changes to her doctoral project supervision.
Her achievement comes at a moment when the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), in a widely circulated 1 December petition, described nurses possessing postgraduate fellowships and advanced qualifications as “clinically irrelevant entities” within the acute hospital setting and warned of “catastrophic mortality” should the Consultant Nurse cadre be approved.
In contrast, international evidence consistently shows that nurses with doctoral and fellowship-level preparation working in expanded roles contribute to:
- lower hospital mortality and complication rates
- reduced length of stay
- improved chronic disease management and maternal–child outcomes
Speaking ahead of her graduation, Ms Aguebor paid tribute to the support of her faculty and her family, and expressed hope that Nigeria would soon allow nurses with similar qualifications to practise at the full scope of their training.
Fellow Nurses Africa extends warm congratulations to Ms Aguebor on her outstanding accomplishment and notes that her success exemplifies the calibre of expertise currently available to the Nigerian health system – should the ongoing deliberations at the National Council on Establishment permit its deployment.
The Council is expected to conclude its review of the Consultant Nurse and Consultant Midwife cadres this month.
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