Dr. Samuel Chukwuemeka Obasi is the Acting Director, Nutrition Department, a brand-new Department created in March 2023 following approval by the Federal Government of Nigeria.

Dr. Obasi is a Public Health Physician who joined the Agency in 2011 from the National Hospital, Abuja where he was a Resident Doctor in Clinical Microbiology/Parasitology.

Since joining the Agency, Dr. Obasi has traversed three Departments: Community Health Systems Development; Planning, Research, and Statistics; and Primary Health Care System Development where he served as the Head of Division, Human Resource for Health (HRH) at the time he was appointed as Acting Director, Nutrition.

Over the years, he has supported the implementation of several laudable projects in the Agency such as the Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI), Integrated Community Case Management of Childhood Illness (ICCM), Mid-Level Management Training for PHC Workers, Programme for HIV/AIDS Integration and Decentralization (PHAID), Integrated Service Delivery Training for Primary Health Care Workers, On-the-Job Mentoring of PHC Workers, and many others.

He also led the team that implemented the scale-up of the District Health Information System version 2.0 (DHIS2), a PHC data reporting tool, to the 36 States of Nigeria + the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and facilitated the eventual transition from the paper-based District Vaccines and Devices Management Tool (DVD-MT) to the DHIS2 which is electronic and online. Up to the time of his appointment as the Ag. Director, Nutrition, he was a member of the core team supporting the implementation of the Catalytic Grant to increase access and availability of quality gender responsive RMNCAH+N services in PHC facilities across the 10 BMGF focal States (Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Kaduna, Kano, Lagos, Nasarawa, Niger, Sokoto, and Yobe).

Dr. Samuel Chukwuemeka Obasi holds a master’s degree in public health (MPH) from the Imo State University, Owerri, and a bachelor’s degree in medicine and surgery (MBBS) from the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, certificates in Monitoring and Evaluation in Global Health, Epidemiology in Global Health, and Project Management in Global Health, all from the University of Washington, USA.

Dr. Obasi was a participant at the Joint Learning Network for Universal Health Coverage (UHC) PHC Measurement for Improvement Collaborative where he co-authored the PHC Measurement for Improvement Toolkit.