Background HINARI is one of the four programmes of Research4Life managed by the World Health Organization in partnership with Yale University Library. HINARI provides online access to the world's health‐related scientific literature free or at very low cost to researchers in developing countries. The research examined the use of HINARI through a 5‐year (2007–2011) citation analysis of Nigerian Journal of Clinical Practice. Method The study was a citation analysis of 5 years of published volumes of Nigerian Journal of Clinical Practice. The analysis was carried out using issues ranging from volume 10 (2007) to 14 (2011). The use of HINARI was determined by comparing the total journal titles and articles cited from HINARI with non‐HINARI journals in the five volumes of Nigerian Journal of Clinical Practice (NJCP). Results Results show that only 42.8% of the journal titles cited are available in HINARI. On the contrary, in terms of total articles cited from the journals, HINARI had a higher citation of 56.1% with a greater citation frequency of individual titles. Conclusion The higher article citations and repeated use of individual titles available in HINARI suggest that health researchers in Nigeria are using the HINARI resource to a measurable extent.