BUILD ABUJA, DON’T SELL LAGOS: Inside the Nurses House Controversy Dividing Nigerian Nurses
As NANNM faces pressure over the proposed disposal of its historic Lagos property to support a major Abuja development, nurses are asking a bigger question: what should happen to the collective assets built by generations of Nigerian nurses?
By Fellow Nurses Africa
2nd September, 2026. Lagos, Nigeria
There is a building on Churchgate Street in Victoria Island, Lagos, that carries a name understood across Nigeria’s nursing profession.
Nurses House.
For generations of nurses, it has represented more than commercial property. It is part of the institutional history of the profession and of the National Association of Nigerian Nurses and Midwives (NANNM).
Now, its future has become the subject of a growing controversy.
Nurses are opposing a proposal to sell the Lagos property, saying the historic asset should be preserved while NANNM develops its major project in Durumi, Area 1, Abuja.
Their message is simple:
Build Abuja. Don’t sell Lagos.
The dispute is not simply about one building. It has opened a wider conversation about NANNM’s assets, membership dues, income from properties and the financial responsibility that comes with managing the collective wealth of Nigerian nurses.
Why Nurses House matters
Nurses House is located at Plot PC 43, Churchgate Street, Victoria Island, Lagos, formerly known as Afribank Street.
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The building has continued to host commercial organisations. Public corporate records, including filings relating to Olayinka Oyebola & Co, identify the address as PC 43, Nurses House, Churchgate Street, Victoria Island.
But its significance to nurses goes beyond its present commercial use.
To understand why its proposed sale has generated such strong opposition, it is necessary to understand the history of NANNM itself.
A profession that once had many voices
Before NANNM was established, Nigerian nurses and midwives were represented by several organisations.
NANNM’s official history records the formation of the Professional Association of Trained Nurses of Nigeria (PATNON) in 1957 at the University College Hospital, Ibadan. PATNON later became the Nigeria Nurses Association.
Other professional groups also existed, including organisations representing midwives, psychiatric nurses, industrial nurses, public health nurses and other categories of nursing professionals.
The divisions created problems when the profession needed to speak with one voice.
Then, on 8 December 1977, representatives of the various groups came together at City Hall in Lagos to form NANNM as a single umbrella organisation.
The organisation’s first leadership followed in 1978.
Among those at the heart of that formative period was HRH, Oba Moses Adelani A. Olabode, who became NANNM’s pioneer Executive General Secretary in February 1978. NANNM’s official history credits him with helping organise and coordinate the new association and unite its factions.
That history is now central to the debate over Nurses House.
ADENIJI: A NATIONAL PERSPECTIVE ON THE PROPERTY’S HISTORY
Fellow Nurses Africa spoke with Comrade Abdrafiu Alani Adeniji, who served as NANNM National President from 2012 to 2019.
Adeniji’s tenure placed him at the centre of the national administration of the organisation and gave him a direct perspective on NANNM’s institutional development.
He told Fellow Nurses Africa that the history of the Lagos property is connected to the earlier professional structures that preceded NANNM, including PATNON, and to the eventual consolidation of nursing organisations under the national body.
His account is important because it places the property within a much larger story — the transition from fragmented professional groups to one national organisation.
The question now confronting nurses is whether an asset acquired and developed through that collective history should be treated simply as another property on a balance sheet.
Oba OLABODE: THE GENERATION THAT BUILT THE FOUNDATION
Kabiyesi Oba Moses Adelani A. Olabode, the Omala/Onimala of Imala in Ogun State, is another key historical voice.
He was NANNM’s pioneer Executive General Secretary and remained in the position until 1992.
NANNM’s official history describes him as one of the people central to the formation of the association.
For an organisation now approaching half a century, that institutional memory matters.
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Oba Olabode’s account of Nurses House takes the story back to a period when the profession had the ambition to acquire and develop assets but did not necessarily have the financial capacity to construct major commercial buildings on its own.
According to the account given to Fellow Nurses Africa, a long-term development arrangement of about 25 years was used.
The developer constructed and commercially operated the building. At the end of the arrangement, the property returned to the nursing organisation, with commercial occupation subsequently generating rental income.
That distinction is important.
The nurses did not merely inherit land. They inherited an income-producing asset.
AWOJIDE: WHY LAGOS NURSES ARE RESISTING
Comrade Olurotimi Julius Awojide, a former NANNM Lagos State Chairman, also spoke to Fellow Nurses Africa.
His perspective reflects the concern being expressed by nurses who believe the Lagos property should remain part of the profession’s long-term asset base.
Their position is not necessarily opposition to the Abuja development itself.
Rather, they question why the solution to financing Abuja should involve disposing of a historic Lagos asset.
That distinction sits at the heart of the controversy.
BUILD ABUJA — BUT WHY SELL LAGOS?
NANNM has an ambitious development project in Durumi, Area 1, Abuja, intended to provide substantial infrastructure for the national organisation.
The project represents an understandable desire to create a modern national institutional base.
But nurses opposed to the Lagos sale argue that development and preservation do not have to be mutually exclusive.
They say NANNM should explore other ways of financing the Abuja development rather than disposing of Nurses House.
Campaign materials circulated by opponents of the sale point to other assets in Abuja, including residential properties, a guest house/hotel and undeveloped land.
The argument is straightforward:
If the objective is to raise capital, why not first consider assets that are less historically significant to the profession?
The issue therefore becomes one of priorities.
THE OTHER ASSETS — AND THE QUESTION OF STEWARDSHIP
The controversy has also brought renewed attention to NANNM’s wider asset-management strategy.
In January 2026, NANNM advertised an internal sealed-bid auction for two Toyota Highlander vehicles previously used by its national headquarters.
The reserve prices were ₦30 million for one vehicle and ₦15 million for the other. The auction was restricted to verified members.
Selling vehicles that are old, surplus or no longer required is not, by itself, evidence of financial mismanagement.
But when an organisation is considering the disposal of a major property, members are entitled to look at the bigger picture.
They can reasonably ask:
What assets does NANNM currently own?
Which assets have been disposed of in recent years?
What were they sold for?
How were the proceeds applied?
Which properties generate income?
How much does NANNM receive in rental income?
How much does the organisation receive through membership dues?
And most importantly:
What is the long-term strategy for preserving and growing the collective wealth of Nigerian nurses?
These questions are about governance, not hostility.
NANNM’S MONEY IS NOT ABSTRACT
NANNM itself says its income comes from several sources, including membership dues, merchandise, conferences and workshops, grants, property income, dividends on bank shares and bonds.
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It also says its accounting function is managed by professionals and overseen by the Board of Trustees.
That makes the debate over Nurses House particularly significant.
Membership dues are not an abstract source of money.
They represent the contributions of nurses and midwives across Nigeria.
NANNM’s own website lists membership as open to licensed nurses and midwives and identifies its National Delegates Conference, National Executive Council, National Administrative Council and Board of Trustees among its governing organs.
The principle should therefore be simple:
The larger the collective asset, the greater the responsibility to account for it.
THE COMMONWEALTH OF NIGERIAN NURSES
A professional association can change leadership every few years.
Its presidents change.
Its general secretaries change.
Its national executives change.
But institutional assets can remain for generations.
That is why the question surrounding Nurses House reaches beyond whoever is currently in office.
A building acquired by one generation can serve another.
Rental income generated today can finance professional activities tomorrow.
A strategically located property can appreciate over decades.
Once sold, however, the asset is gone.
That is why nurses are asking whether the immediate need to finance Abuja should outweigh the long-term value of retaining a strategic property in Victoria Island.
THE CASE FOR ABUJA
There is also a legitimate case to be made for investing in Abuja.
NANNM needs a strong national institutional presence.
A modern headquarters can provide offices, meeting spaces, accommodation, commercial facilities and other infrastructure capable of supporting the organisation for decades.
The Durumi development could become an important landmark for Nigerian nursing.
But the debate should not be reduced to development versus opposition.
The real question is:
How does NANNM build Abuja while protecting the assets that generations of nurses have already built?
There may be several ways to finance a major development project.
Asset optimisation.
Phased construction.
Commercial partnerships.
Structured financing.
Fundraising.
A dedicated development levy.
Income from existing properties.
Or the disposal of non-strategic assets where appropriate.
The nurses challenging the proposed Lagos sale want those possibilities considered before Nurses House is sacrificed.
THIS IS NOT JUST ABOUT LAGOS
There is a deeper issue underneath the controversy.
It is about how institutions think about inheritance.
The nurses who established professional organisations decades ago could not have known exactly what Nigerian nursing would look like in 2026.
But they built anyway.
They created structures.
They paid dues.
They acquired assets.
They established an organisation intended to survive individual generations.
Today’s leaders have inherited that work.
Tomorrow’s nurses will inherit whatever today’s leaders leave behind.
That is the responsibility of institutional stewardship.
WHAT SHOULD HAPPEN NEXT?
The growing opposition to the proposed sale presents NANNM with an opportunity.
Not necessarily to abandon the Abuja project.
Not necessarily to abandon the idea of rationalising its assets.
But to have a transparent conversation with the membership about the organisation’s collective wealth.
Nurses deserve clarity about the value and purpose of major assets.
They deserve confidence that strategic properties are being managed for long-term benefit.
And where significant assets are proposed for disposal, members should be able to understand the financial rationale.
Because if the argument is that selling Lagos will build Abuja, then nurses should be able to see the numbers behind that decision.
What will the sale generate?
How much will Abuja require?
What other funding options were considered?
What happens to the rental income that Nurses House currently generates?
And what will replace the asset once it is gone?
These are reasonable questions for an organisation whose stated income includes both membership dues and property income.
BUILD ABUJA. DON’T SELL LAGOS.
The dispute over Nurses House has exposed an uncomfortable truth.
Sometimes the hardest decisions facing institutions are not about whether something is valuable.
They are about whether something is too valuable to sell.
For the nurses opposing the proposed disposal, Nurses House is not simply a commercial building in Victoria Island.
It is part of the profession’s institutional inheritance.
For those who support developing the Durumi project, Abuja represents the future.
Perhaps the real challenge for NANNM is to prove that the future does not have to be built by dismantling the past.
Nigeria’s nursing profession has spent decades building its collective strength.
The question now is whether that strength can be used to build Abuja without selling Lagos.
Because presidents will change.
Executives will change.
Administrations will change.
But once a historic institutional asset is sold, the next generation cannot simply vote to bring it back.
Fellow Nurses Africa will continue to follow the controversy and the response from NANNM and other stakeholders.
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Fellow Nurses Africa is the independent voice of African nursing, we educate, inform and support nurses across Africa.
Kehinde Oluwatosin is one of the many editors here at Fellow Nurses Africa and fellownurses.com.
He is a registered nurse with a Master of Science degree in healthcare leadership from the University of Hull, United Kingdom. Kehinde is passionate about advancing the nursing profession across Africa. As Co-Founder of Fellow Nurses Africa, he plays a key role in shaping editorial direction, ensuring our content educates, informs, and empowers nurses continent-wide.
With expertise in leadership, patient flow, and healthcare operations, Kehinde brings valuable insights to nursing news, career development, and policy discussions. He is committed to amplifying the voice of African nurses and driving positive change in the profession.
