President Bola Tinubu has approved the appointment of Fatima Suleiman-Zuntu as director general of the National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA).
The appointment takes effect from April 16, 2026, for an initial term of four years in line with the National Biosafety Management Agency Act.
She succeeds Bello Bwari, who was appointed in October 2025 and is seeking election to the Senate to represent Niger East in 2027.
Suleiman-Zuntu is a public health professional with experience across clinical practice, development work and health policy.
Before her appointment, she worked with the World Bank Group as a health, nutrition and population consultant from December 2023 to June 2025.
She also served as a resident doctor in the department of public health and community medicine at Barau Dikko Teaching Hospital between 2021 and 2022.
Earlier in her career, she worked as a medical officer at the Central Bank of Nigeria and at Kapital Hospital and Maternity Nigeria Ltd in Abuja. She completed her housemanship at the National Hospital Abuja between 2017 and 2018.
She also worked in corporate healthcare as team lead of provider network at NNPC Health Maintenance Organization Ltd from 2019 to 2020.
Suleiman-Zuntu studied medicine at the University of Maiduguri, graduating in 2016, and later obtained a master’s degree in public health from the University of South Wales in 2021.
She holds professional certifications including training in COVID-19 response from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
She is the founder of the Abuja-based Suleiman Zuntu Foundation, which focuses on providing social and health support to vulnerable communities.
Suleiman-Zuntu has also been active in national politics and mobilisation. She served as a national delegate for the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential primaries in 2022 and was the national coordinator for the Grassroots Mobilisation for Tinubu and Kashim.
She is married to Bashir Suleiman-Zuntu, a former accountant general of Kaduna State and chairman of Kubau Local Government Area.
