Nigerian Nurses Voice Frustration as NMCN Certificate Backlog Hits 3 Years

Nigerian Nurses Voice Frustration as NMCN Certificate Backlog Hits 3 Years

Fellow Nurses Africa News
31 January 2026

Nigeria’s nursing community continues to express deep concern over a persistent administrative delay at the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria (NMCN), where certificates of registration have not been issued to qualified professionals since May 2023 now marking a full three years.

The certificate of registration is a fundamental credential that verifies a nurse or midwife’s qualifications, allowing them to practise legally, apply for promotions, pursue postgraduate studies, secure employment, or proceed with international verification processes. Affected graduates have completed their education, passed licensing examinations, and in many instances fulfilled additional requirements such as post-qualification service periods, yet the essential document remains undelivered.

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Accounts from nurses across different platforms highlight the widespread impact. Speaking to Fellow Nurses Africa News, one of the affected nurses lament.

“Since 2023, no certificates. We waited the full 2 years post-qualification like they asked. Now it’s 2026. Still nothing… This isn’t just delay. It’s dysfunction. And it’s costing nurses their futures.”>

Similar frustrations appear on X, with one professional noting, “Since 2023 we are still waiting for our nursing certificate from NMCN. We have seen shege in this country,” while another stated, “NMCN really needs to release our certificate, since 2023, it is really really unfair.”

The delay is commonly attributed to the absence of a fully constituted NMCN board, specifically lacking a chairman authorised to approve and sign the certificates. Despite this constraint, the council has continued routine activities including conducting examinations, indexing students, and inducting new members leading to an expanding backlog that leaves successive cohorts in the same position.

This issue occurs alongside other longstanding concerns in the sector, such as previous interruptions to the verification portal (notably closed from December 2023 to September 2024), which restricted nurses’ ability to migrate for work abroad and prompted advocacy from the National Association of Nigeria Nurses and Midwives (NANNM) as well as National Assembly scrutiny.

Fellow Nurses Africa News contacted the NMCN and the Federal Ministry of Health for an official statement but received no response by the time of publication.

With the three-year milestone now reached, calls are intensifying for decisive steps: reconstituting the board, providing clear timelines, and prioritising the release of pending certificates. Addressing the backlog would ease significant hardship for thousands of professionals and help mitigate Nigeria’s ongoing nursing shortage, which industry estimates place well above 300,000 personnel.

Nurses affected by the delay are encouraged to document their experiences and engage with advocacy platforms to support collective efforts for resolution.

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