The NEDC kidney screening in Yola provided free medical tests and awareness on World Kidney Day, helping residents understand kidney disease risks and prevention methods.
- NEDC provides free kidney screening to Yola residents
- Doctors warn against harmful drugs, herbs, and bleaching creams
- Hypertension and diabetes linked to rising kidney disease cases
- Residents gain access to preventive healthcare and awareness
It is one thing for a government agency to release a statement about its commitment to the health of the people it serves. It is another thing entirely to show up at a market in Yola with medical professionals, screening equipment, and an open invitation for anyone who wants to know the state of their kidneys. The North East Development Commission chose the second option.
On World Kidney Day 2026, the NEDC partnered with the Nigerian Association of Nephrology to deliver a free kidney screening exercise to members of the public in Yola, bringing one of the most consequential but least discussed health interventions directly into the heart of a community that needed it. The collaboration between a federal development agency and a specialist medical body was deliberate, and the result was an outreach that neither institution could have delivered as effectively on its own.
The NEDC’s footprint across the six northeastern states has historically centred on infrastructure, resettlement, and post-conflict recovery. But the commission’s involvement in a kidney health outreach on World Kidney Day signals a broadening of how it understands its mandate. Healthcare access in the northeast is not a peripheral issue. For communities dealing with the compounding pressures of displacement, water insecurity, and limited medical infrastructure, preventive health interventions are foundational to the kind of recovery and development the commission exists to support.
The Nigerian Association of Nephrology brought the clinical depth to match that institutional reach. Kidney specialist Doctor Linga Filibus was among the physicians on the ground, and he used the occasion to do what free community screenings do at their best. He met people where they were and spoke to them in terms that connected the medical facts to their actual daily lives.
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“What we do on the day of kidney celebration is to create awareness, inform the general public on the ills of kidney disease and how they are able to recognise the symptoms of kidney disease, and then what they need to do to prevent getting kidney diseases,” Doctor Filibus explained.
He laid out the full picture of what healthy kidneys actually do, filtering the body’s waste, maintaining fluid balance, and regulating blood pressure. Then he turned to the more uncomfortable conversation about what is damaging those kidneys in communities across the region, and he named things that many people in the crowd had not connected to kidney health before.
Over-the-counter painkillers, particularly ibuprofen and diclofenac, came up early. So did herbal concoctions that circulate widely across northern Nigerian communities, and skin bleaching creams and soaps used daily by a significant portion of the population.
“A lot of people are into taking herbs that also would impact on the health of the kidney. Creams that people use for bleaching, the bleaching soaps, these are drugs. They have been harmful to the kidney,” Doctor Filibus said.
He also spoke about water. In a city like Yola, where heat is sustained and humidity is real, the body’s demand for clean water is not a general health tip. It is a specific and urgent need. Doctor Filibus warned that contaminated water triggers infections that travel through the body and eventually damage the kidneys, a risk that sits at the intersection of public health infrastructure and individual habit.
Hypertension and diabetes, both conditions with significant prevalence in the northeast, received particular attention. Left unmanaged, Doctor Filibus said, both conditions accelerate kidney damage in ways that are often irreversible by the time they are detected.
What the NEDC and the Association of Nephrology created together was a space where that knowledge became accessible. Residents who attended the screening described the initiative as timely, with many saying the experience had shifted how they think about their own health. Several noted that without the free nature of the exercise, they would not have sought out this kind of check on their own.
That accessibility is the point. The northeast carries a particular burden when it comes to healthcare access, and the NEDC’s role in co-delivering this initiative reflects an understanding that development in the region cannot be measured only in roads and bridges. It must also be measured in the health of the people those roads and bridges are built to serve.
The Gazette News (Nigeria) notes that the NEDC and Nigerian Association of Nephrology collaboration in Yola offers a model worth repeating. In a region where the gap between medical knowledge and community access remains wide, partnerships that bring specialists and federal resources together at the community level are not a luxury. They are a necessity.
This report was produced by the editorial team at The Gazette News | Independent. Human-Centred. Impactful in line with our commitment to accuracy, fairness, and responsible journalism. Information in this article is based on verified sources available at the time of publication. The Gazette News | Independent. Human-Centred. Impactful may update the story as new facts emerge or additional context becomes available.
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