Dr Zainab Shinkafi-Bagudu: Deepening Healthcare Delivery, Advocacy From Kebbi State To Global Space

Dr Zainab Shinkafi-Bagudu is a paediatrician, cancer care advocate and global health leader. The Catalyst for Healthcare Transformation is also the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Medicaid Cancer Foundation, Senior Advisor on Women’s Health and Cancer Advocacy to the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, as well as the President-Elect of the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC).

With over two decades of dedicated service, she has redefined what it means to lead with both science and soul. She has remained one of Nigeria’s most consequential voices in global healthcare delivery and advocacy. Her contributions have transformed cancer care, immunization, and women’s health from villages in Kebbi State to the highest tables in countries across the globe, including international health organizations and governance.

Through her works, she has placed Nigeria firmly on the map of global oncology.

The Medicaid Cancer Foundation numero uno is the first African elected, President of the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC). The body is a globally recognised cancer-fighting organisation across the world. It is made up of over 1,100 member organisations across 170 countries.

This historic achievement is not merely a personal honour, but, indeed, a testament that African voices can be heard and obeyed at the comity of global healthcare decision making forum and not at the margins.

The distinguished physician began her journey with a determination to solve medical problems around her and improve people’s wellness.

After completing her MBBS at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, and a training in paediatrics and neonatology in the United Kingdom earning membership of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, she returned to Nigeria with a clear mission to impact her community for good.

In 2009, she founded Medicaid Radio-Diagnostics and Clinics in Abuja, introducing CT scanning, MRI, digital X-ray, and molecular laboratory testing to the private sector in the region for the first time. Where diagnostic gaps existed, she built solutions. Confronting the devastating reality of late-stage cancer diagnoses across Nigeria made her to establish the Medicaid Cancer Foundation (MCF), an organisation dedicated to cancer prevention, early detection, treatment access, and advocacy.

To date, MCF has raised over $2.5 million, supported thousands of patients, built local clinical capacity, and driven nationwide public awareness campaigns. Its flagship programmes ; PACE, CareWheels, OrangeBox, and WalkAway Cancer have directly been taken to the grassroots centres and communities the formal health system had never reached. This impact remains legendary to the people.

MCF works span outreach, education, treatment support, and research; making it one of Nigeria’s most impactful health institutions.

As First Lady of Kebbi State from 2015 to 2023, Dr Shinkafi-Bagudu demonstrated that political will, if guided by genuine compassion and expertise can produce extraordinary results. She saw her position as a mandate to further touch more lives, which she did by making healthcare easily accessible for all both at urban and rural areas.

She spearheaded a public health revolution in one of Nigeria’s most underserved states launching aggressive polio campaigns, driving routine immunisation, and establishing the Kebbi State Cancer Control Plan.

Under her leadership, immunisation coverage in Kebbi state rose from a staggering 17 per cent to 85 per cent. That statistics was not a mere figure; it rather represents the thousands of children alive today because one woman decided that ‘underserved’ was not an acceptable final answer.”

This feat was celebrated as a national model for health equity. She also established the state’s first cancer registry and an indigent patient fund, ensuring that poverty would not be a barrier for cancer patients and others to get treatments.

The UICC head has been one of the most forceful advocates for HPV vaccination in Africa. She played an instrumental role in the introduction of the single-dose HPV vaccine in Nigeria in 2023; a landmark moment in the history of the nation’s public healthcare.

As co-chair of Nigeria’s Cervical Cancer Elimination Task Force, she helped to design and upscale school-based vaccination campaigns and community screening programmes that reached over 13 million girls in the national pilot programme.

These over 13 million girls, apart from being vaccinated against different killer diseases, are now carrying protection against cancer that has stolen many mothers and daughters at their prime.

Her influence extends globally through her roles on the Global Initiative Against HPV and Cervical Cancer, and the WHO Global Breast Cancer Initiative, where she advocates relentlessly for gender-equitable healthcare systems.

The healthcare advocate understands that lasting change requires policy reform, not just frontline service. As Senior Adviser to Nigeria’s Coordinating Minister of Health on Women’s Health and Cancer Advocacy, she champions increased investment in diagnostics, vaccines, and treatment for underserved populations.

Dr  Shinkafi-Bagudu has been a leading voice for the inclusion of cancer treatment within Nigeria’s National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS). She has continued to engage policymakers, health institutions, and development partners to push for reforms that reduce out-of-pocket costs and expand coverage for cancer patients across Nigeria.

Apart from sitting on the board of many global health organisations and task forces, including WHO Cancer Committees, the World Ovarian Cancer Coalition, and CHIC, she has also co-chaired multinational efforts to advance care for hard-to-reach communities.

Zainab Shinkafi-Bagudu, a bighearted lady, is a mentor and deeply a compassionate human being. Whether sitting with a patient in a rural Kebbi clinic or addressing world leaders at a UN health forum, she brings the same warmth, clarity, and urgency to her job. She is a proof that the most powerful form of leadership is one that never loses sight of the individual life it exists to protect. She has continued to inspire a generation of Nigerian women in medicine, policymaking position, industry, and public service; showing that it is possible to lead globally, while rooted locally.

Her impressive services to humanity either at the grassroots level or at the global space have earned her some distinguished recognition and awards both within and outside the country. Some of which are: the Nigerian Medical Association Distinguished Service Award; Dicey Scroggins Distinguished Advocate Award for Gynecologic Oncology; 2023 Global Health Distinguished Leader Award (Global Health Catalyst Summit).

Despite the awards, Dr Zainab Shinkafi-Bagudu is not resting on her oars, she is still at the forefront of cancer advocacy and better healthcare delivery across the country.