44 UNILORIN Medical Graduates Left Without Induction After Quota Breach.

Forty-four medical graduates of the University of Ilorin (UNILORIN) remain without induction into the medical profession, nearly nine months after completing their degrees, following revelations that the university admitted far more students into its Medicine and Surgery programme than its regulatory quota allows. According to a Premium Times report, 194 students sat their final MBBS professional examinations in August 2025, with 175 passing outright and the remaining 19 clearing resit exams. The cohort had spent eight years on a programme originally designed to run for six, with the extra two years attributed to repeated ASUU strikes and COVID-19-related campus shutdowns. When the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN) arrived in November 2025 to conduct the induction, it confirmed that UNILORIN's approved quota for the programme stood at only 150 students. In response, the university ranked all 194 successful students by academic performance and presented only the top 150 for induction. The remaining 44 were sent home, despite having passed their examinations and committed no wrongdoing. The report traces the root of the problem back to 2017 and 2018, when UNILORIN reportedly admitted more than 200 students into the programme in successive years, against the MDCN-approved cap of 150 — a gap that went unaddressed by successive university administrations for nearly a decade until the 2025 graduating class reached the induction stage. One affected graduate told Premium Times that when the class initially organised a petition against the university in October 2025 over the ranking plan, it was later withdrawn, reportedly out of concern that pursuing it could bring further repercussions on students. The report notes that similar quota-related disputes have affected other Nigerian institutions. In 2025, the MDCN reportedly declined to induct more than 300 dentistry graduates from the University of Calabar over a comparable quota breach, while in 2023 the Council for Legal Education imposed a five-year admissions ban on Baze University's law faculty after repeated quota violations left over 347 students awaiting entry into the Nigerian Law School. Sources cited by TheCable say UNILORIN is considering an indexing system that would extend to the current 600-level MBBS class, whose final exams are scheduled for September and October 2026, under which only the top 150 of each cohort would be inducted while the remainder roll over to subsequent cycles — a process sources estimate could take around nine induction cycles to fully resolve. The university's spokesperson, Kunle Akogun, told TheCable in July 2026 that UNILORIN was making "every necessary effort" to ensure the affected graduates' induction "in the shortest possible time," adding that student welfare remained a priority. He did not provide a specific timeline or address the reported indexing proposal directly. The report situates the case within Nigeria's broader doctor shortage, noting that the country's doctor-to-population ratio is estimated at roughly one per 2,500 people, well below the World Health Organisation's recommended threshold of one per 1,000.