Nigeria's hospital deserts: where the doctors and hospitals are, LGA by LGA
Nigeria's health workforce is not just short, it is concentrated. In the Veligraph register, half of all reported doctors work in just 36 of 692 local government areas. At the other end, 82 LGAs have no general or specialist hospital on record, and 49 have no doctor reported at all. This report maps where those gaps are, state by state.
Half the doctors, 5% of the LGAs
Facilities in the register report 36,832 doctors in total. Sorted LGA by LGA, the first 36 areas account for half of them. The ten largest alone hold 25%.
| LGA | State | Doctors on record |
|---|---|---|
| Abuja Municipal Area Council | FCT | 1,929 |
| Jos North | Plateau | 1,570 |
| Mushin | Lagos | 964 |
| Port-Harcourt | Rivers | 856 |
| Obio/Akpor | Rivers | 798 |
| Enugu North | Enugu | 701 |
| Eti-Osa | Lagos | 698 |
| Makurdi | Benue | 677 |
| Moro | Kwara | 609 |
| Umuahia North | Abia | 550 |
These are the places with teaching hospitals and federal medical centres: Abuja Municipal, Jos North, Mushin, Port Harcourt. Tertiary facilities are only 179 of the 30,934 on record, but they report about 23% of the doctors. Some entries look high for their area, Moro in Kwara for example; figures are shown as the register reports them.
The states with the most LGAs without a hospital
An LGA is counted here as having no hospital when the register lists no secondary facility (a general hospital or equivalent) and no tertiary facility there. Primary health centres may still exist, and in most of these LGAs they do: 1,624 facilities sit in the 82 gap LGAs, all of them primary care.
| State | LGAs on record | With no hospital | Doctors on record |
|---|---|---|---|
| Katsina | 24 | 19 | 129 |
| Jigawa | 27 | 10 | 420 |
| Yobe | 17 | 5 | 304 |
| Enugu | 21 | 6 | 1,412 |
| Kano | 44 | 12 | 1,235 |
| Edo | 17 | 3 | 473 |
| Borno | 25 | 4 | 478 |
| Niger | 25 | 4 | 321 |
| Nasarawa | 13 | 2 | 883 |
| Rivers | 23 | 3 | 1,999 |
| Ondo | 17 | 2 | 847 |
| Ebonyi | 13 | 1 | 305 |
Katsina stands out: 19 of the 24 Katsina LGAs on record have no hospital listed, and the whole state reports 129 doctors to the register. Kano (12) and Jigawa (10) have the next highest counts. The pattern is concentrated in the north-west.
Where the doctors are, by state
Five states, Lagos, Plateau, FCT, Oyo and Rivers, report 38% of all doctors on record. The five with the fewest are Yobe (304), Taraba (247), Bayelsa (196), Bauchi (142), Katsina (129).
Why this matters
For a health insurer building a provider network, these gaps are where members will struggle to find a contracted hospital. For donors and programmes, they show where a single new facility changes access for a whole LGA. For patients, they explain long journeys to the nearest place with a bed and a doctor.
Every state has its own LGA-level page with primary, secondary and tertiary counts, beds, doctors and nurses: start at Nigeria hospital coverage gaps by LGA.
What this data is, and is not
These are facilities on record in Veligraph, not a census. The Nigeria register in our set covers 692 LGAs in 33 states and the FCT, and some states are thinly covered. A gap can therefore mean a real absence of hospital care, or a hospital the register does not hold yet. Staff and bed figures are what facilities reported to the register. Closed and non-functional facilities are excluded. Treat each number as the register's view, and verify locally before acting on it.
Sources
- Nigeria Health Facility Registry, Federal Ministry of Health, facility level, beds and staffing as registered (2026)
- Veligraph analysis by local government area, October 2026
Register figures are shown as recorded; anomalies are flagged, not edited. Method and limitations: how Veligraph is built.