"Even if I Die": Inside Jehovah's Witnesses’ Blood Transfusion Ban and Health Risks in Nigeria
- Jehovah’s Witnesses’ strict stance on blood transfusions has continued to raise significant health concerns in Nigeria
- Under JW's doctrine, transfusions are considered a major sin and are categorically prohibited, even in life-threatening circumstances
- In this report, Legit.ng spotlights cases of Witnesses whose refusal of blood transfusions contributed to their deaths, as well as the obstacles they experience within Nigeria’s healthcare system
Legit.ng journalist Ridwan Adeola Yusuf has over four years of experience reporting on health and science across Africa.
Abeokuta, Ogun State - On a cloudy Saturday morning in August 2025 in Ota, an evolving city in the southern Nigerian state of Ogun, a small group of mourners gathered, some lamenting the passing of Tutu*, others saluting her ‘devotion to God’ and even congratulating her for dying.
“She told me that ‘even if I die, I am satisfied with the fact that I obeyed Jehovah till my last breath’,” says a middle-aged Jehovah’s Witness. “I am happy for her, as she will live in the Paradise that Jehovah will make.”
Source: UGC
Gentle, easygoing, and respectful, the light-skinned Tutu was as cute as a gazelle.
Tutu, 16, had been diagnosed with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), a chronic disease where the immune system attacks healthy tissues, causing widespread inflammation and damage to organs like the skin, joints, kidneys, and heart. Her health and quality of life waned, and she was admitted to the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH).
There, amid tough medical battles, doctors managed her well. It then became necessary to have a blood transfusion. Her Jehovah’s Witness parents, who generally hold legal responsibility for her, said an emphatic no. This is despite science strongly supporting transfusion as a vital, life-saving medical procedure, particularly in cases of severe trauma, major surgery, anaemia, and various blood disorders. The procedure is also generally considered safe.
“We signed a Refusal of Blood Transfusion, an Advance Directive, a checklist for blood refusal, and release of liability forms, and we were discharged,” Bimpe*, Tutu’s mother, recalls when this reporter visited their home four days before the young lady gave up the ghost. “I believe Jehovah, who preserved her life during the most difficult phase of her illness, will not forsake her.”
Emaciated, frail, and defaced by lupus-induced rashes, her mum says she will be fine.
“You can see these medications," Bimpe says, pointing to a stool in the living room. "I have been using them for her, and she is even better now. If you see her when we were at the LASUTH ehn (sic), her situation was worse. In fact, I had slim hope about her survival. But since we returned, her health has improved.”
Source: Original
At home, Tutu was nurtured with diapers, spoon-fed, and confined to the bed. Yet, her Jehovah's Witness mother believed she was getting better.
Around 11 pm on Friday, August 15, 2025, days after leaving LASUTH, she passed away - adding to Nigeria’s already-disturbing mortality statistics.
Estimates suggest that over 1 million deaths occur annually in Nigeria, with treatable diseases responsible for a significant portion of these fatalities.
A video source related to this claim is available on Facebook here.
While some efforts are being made, the high rates of preventable deaths remain an ongoing challenge.
Enter X fav, Aunty Esther
In late 2025, good Samaritans launched a fundraiser for Mensha Omotola Esther, the grocery shopper popularly known as Aunty Esther.
Esther rose to prominence in March 2023 after videos of her running her grocery shopping business went viral on X (formerly Twitter). She earned widespread admiration for her resilience and cheerful disposition.
Source: Twitter
Her story, however, took a sad turn when she disclosed that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer that had spread to her armpit area.
The revelation drew massive public sympathy, with internet users donating over N30 million (approximately $20,830) to support her treatment.
Esther was subsequently taken to the Lakeshore Cancer Centre in Lagos, a facility dedicated to comprehensive cancer prevention, diagnosis, and treatment, and regarded as one of the best in the country.
In early December 2025, she ignited public commentaries after announcing that she would not commence chemotherapy due to her religious beliefs as a Jehovah's Witness adherent. This religious movement boasts of at least 400,000 loyalists, according to its data.
Source: Original
Source: Twitter
Although her doctors advised that chemotherapy should begin immediately, Esther reportedly declined the blood transfusion required to optimise her blood count. Medical research shows that chemo can lower red blood cell levels, often necessitating a transfusion to treat the resulting anaemia and ensure adequate oxygen delivery throughout the body.
She died shortly afterwards.
Michael Olusina Ajidahun, popular on X as The Bearded Dr Sina, a doctor who was a key part of the group that tried to save Esther’s life, declined to speak on the late grocery shopper’s case when contacted, citing “medical confidentiality.” Nonetheless, he shared an expert perspective on whether Nigeria’s healthcare system is adequately equipped to handle cases where critically-ill patients refuse certain treatments for religious reasons.
Source: Twitter
“Nigeria is not ready because we have a health crisis going on,” the digital health strategist told Legit.ng, alluding to the rising incidences of Lassa fever, mass measles, yellow fever, and diphtheria outbreaks. “And we are not ready to absorb all of those health problems.
“Many of them (members of some Christian denominations) will say, ‘we want to do bloodless surgeries.’ Yes, for example, JW, I mean Jehovah’s Witnesses, they have some surgeons that are educated in blood-conservation techniques. But the thing is that sometimes, blood is a life-saver.
“For example, in the case of an accident, when someone has lost a lot of blood. All of those things would not matter. So, that's the thing. It still carries a fair share of mortality and morbidity in patients.
“Sadly, that is what we have now.”
JWs view blood transfusion as a religious issue rather than a medical one, and are therefore very strict about it.
Source: Twitter
Hundeyin, blood transfusion, and JW controversy
David Hundeyin, a prominent Nigerian journalist, wrote about how, as an 11-year-old boy, his parents gave him a card-sized legal document to keep in his wallet, stating that in the event that he suffered any injury or sickness that required a blood transfusion, under no circumstances was the hospital permitted to administer one.
Describing the document as a “death warrant,” Hundeyin, who had been a JW member for roughly 20 years, said he “refused to sign it, which was my own little rebellion against what I could clearly see was a David Koresh–type cult hiding behind well-ironed shirts and feigned politeness.”
Referencing a popular case of Tega Esabunor, a then-infant central to a landmark Nigerian Supreme Court litigation, Tega Esabunor & Anor v. Dr Tunde Faweya & Ors, concerning medical treatment and religious beliefs, Hundeyin warned against being “crazy outliers.”
Born in April 1997 to Jehovah's Witness parents, Tega required a lifesaving transfusion as an infant, which his parents refused based on religious grounds, leading to a legal battle and court-ordered treatment. Eventually, the one-month-old baby lived.
“Putting aside the cockamamie doctrinal position for a moment, this meant that under JW policy, it would be preferable for Tega to die an avoidable death than to receive a blood transfusion,” Hundeyin said in a scathing 2022 piece.
There was a police corporal assigned to the Wuse Zone 3 Police Division in Abuja who died at the National Hospital on Monday, January 7, 2013, after refusing an emergency blood transfusion.
According to Premium Times, her husband, Emmanuel Timothy, said his wife, Grace, a member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, lost her life because her family refused to consent to the transfusion.
“She lost her pregnancy at seven months, which resulted in a surgery to get the baby out. After the surgery, she had complications," Timothy lamented. “When she complained of serious stomach ache, we rushed her to the National Hospital, where the doctor said her stomach had to be flushed.
“But before the flushing, they said she needed a blood transfusion because she had already lost so much blood. However, she did not receive the transfusion because her religion and family forbid it. ‘Over our dead bodies. It is better she dies than for her to take another person’s blood,’ Timothy said his in-laws told him.”
When asked if he would press charges against the parents of his late wife, he said he would.
Many such cases exist.
Source: Original
Why don’t Jehovah’s Witnesses accept blood transfusions?
Of the estimated 45,000 distinct Christian denominations worldwide, Jehovah’s Witnesses are the primary Christian denomination that prohibits blood transfusions. They reject whole blood and its four major components, namely red cells, white cells, platelets, and plasma.
Children of Jehovah’s Witnesses are not permitted to take part in birthday celebrations, Christmas, Easter, or other festivals, among other doctrines. However, the prohibition on blood transfusions appears to be the most pronounced.
In the course of this report, this reporter contacted four Jehovah’s Witnesses to reverify the publicly available claim on transfusions independently, and all unequivocally confirmed that it is an abomination. One Witness, Ayodeji Adeleke, noted that while they take public-health guidance seriously, “the single line they don’t cross is blood transfusion.”
According to details on JW’s official website, the scripture forbids taking in blood to sustain the body.
The organisation stated:
“Both the Old and New Testaments clearly command us to abstain from blood. (Genesis 9:4; Leviticus 17:10; Deuteronomy 12:23; Acts 15:28, 29) Also, God views blood as representing life. (Leviticus 17:14) So we avoid taking blood not only in obedience to God but also out of respect for him as the Giver of life.”
On medical treatments, JW argued that some treatments conflict with Bible principles, “and we reject these.” It added: “One Witness might decide to accept a particular medicine or treatment, while another Witness might reject that same treatment—Galatians 6:5.”
Despite this stance, ex-members and critics insist a Jehovah’s Witness patient faces the difficult prospect of being “disfellowshipped” for accepting the administration of blood or blood products, adding that recipients are told that they risk missing out on ‘living forever on a paradise earth.’
Throughout history, various Christian denominations and organisations have evolved in their stances on critical social, ethical, and theological issues. These changes often stem from new interpretations of scripture, cultural shifts, and intense internal debates. In light of this, this reporter asked the leadership of the Jehovah's Witnesses in Nigeria whether there might come a day when the organisation would reconsider its position on blood transfusions. Days later, however, no response had been received, despite assurances by its Hospital Information Services that a written reply would be provided.
Bloodless surgery hurdles in Nigeria
Jehovah's Witnesses hold the notion that bloodless surgery should be an integral part of routine surgical practice in a modern society. They contend that in advanced countries, thousands of doctors and numerous specialised medical centres now utilise blood-conservation techniques and bloodless surgery programmes to perform complex procedures, including cardiac, orthopaedic, and transplant surgeries, without allogeneic blood transfusions. But Nigeria has been somewhat slow in the widespread adoption of bloodless medicine and surgery.
Dr AbdulRasaq Ebiti of the Federal Medical Centre Ebute Metta, Lagos, pointed out that "there are multiple hurdles" why health practitioners in Nigeria maintain the 'old techniques' when attending to patients.
He cleared up some blind spots:
"We need to clarify two things: Number one, bloodless surgeries tend to be performed in elective cases; cases that are planned. And in doing those cases, you need to have what we call minimal access surgeries and surgeries that traumatise the body very little.
"Now, in those cases, it's very rare using the old surgical techniques or what we call the regular techniques, because there are new modern techniques to surgery: robotic surgeries and things like that. Those surgeries will reduce the blood loss overall. They will help increase healing time and reduce hospital stay. But in doing those kind of surgeries, you need good equipment, and you need people trained to use those equipment.
"Unfortunately, those equipment are not cheap. And then, training people to use those equipment are not cheap."
Noting that most specialists in Nigeria who are skilled in using these equipment are either self-trained or gained their experience at private hospitals, Dr Ebiti asserted, 'there is no way you are going to spend millions to learn a particular technique and then expect people to pay just N50,000 (about $36) or N100,000 ($73).'
"You're gonna (sic) either want to make your money back for yourself or make money back for the hospital that gave you the opportunity to learn that valuable skill," he said in an interview with Legit.ng.
Additionally, Ebiti said if a health practitioner trains themselves and purchases the equipment for bloodless medicine and surgery, they will face the dilemma of finding a suitable workplace where they can earn back their personal investment.
In the same vein, Dr Adeniyi Ajibade, a Lagos-based transfusion medicine specialist, stated that current realities in Nigeria make it extremely difficult for the country's health institutions to widely adopt bloodless surgeries, citing the type of training practitioners receive.
"Basically, surgeons are trained to see blood transfusion as a life-saving back-up," he said. "In fact, for those of us in the blood transfusion sector, when dealing with patients with congenital conditions or sickle cell anemia, there is often no alternative to saving their lives other than a transfusion.
"I have surgeons who, due to their training, for them to do a surgery, they have to have blood available in the bank.
"For now, blood transfusion is the custom in Nigeria. Perhaps in the future, the story will be different."
Source: Original
Furthermore, the expert identified infrastructural challenges as responsible for the snail-paced adoption of transfusion-free surgery and management in the country.
"We lack certain advanced equipment to carry out treatments for some deadly diseases," Ajibade bemoaned. "In Western countries, hospitals are better fortified to manage patients without using blood transfusions. But since we find ourselves in Nigeria, it is best for a patient to accept blood transfusion, and everyone is happy in the end."
Legit.ng sent a message to Iziaq Adekunle Salako, the minister of state for health and social welfare, seeking an official explanation for Nigeria’s shortfall in genuinely adopting bloodless medicine, particularly in light of the ministry’s pledge to ensure health security for all citizens. The inquiry went unanswered.
*The names of the late teenage Jehovah’s Witness and her mother have been changed to preserve their anonymity, as their family would not want their names in the media.
Proofreading by James Ojo, copy editor at Legit.ng.
Source: Legit.ng
