Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno and the new chairman of the Northern States Governors Forum (NSGF) had during its maiden meeting in Kaduna recently painted a gloomy picture of the region.
He described the North as a ‘weeping child’ confronted with a mirage of problems. These problems he said were hunger, terrorism, poverty, infracstrutural decay, poor economy and backwardness in education.
That same week, in another fora, the region was under scrutiny. In a five-day media workshop organised by a non governmental organisation, Save the Children, for health, providers and editors of both electronic and print media in the region, the issue of malnutrition came to the front burner. Journalists from Zamfara, Kaduna, Kebbi, Kastina, Yobe as well as Abuja convened in Zamfara and later Katsina to take a critical look at how malnutrition affects the region.
It was the belief of the participants that malnutrition is a silent killer worse than malaria and other dreaded diseases. They said if it is allowed to continue it will become an endemic too difficult to handle.
Onikan Wemimo, the convener of the workshop, told the forum that early study by the National Demographic survey in 2008 had shown that Kebbi, Katsina, Jigawa, Yobe and Zamfara states have the highest number of malnourished children in the country.
She disclosed that the study also shows that over one million children die every year in the country due to health-related issues. “What this meant was that 2,740 children die every day and more than half of these deaths are attributed to malnutrition,’ she declared.
Today, according to the National Programmes Manager, Working to Improve Nutrition in Northern Nigeria (WINNN), Dr Mohammed Liman while speaking at the workshop, remarked that Nigeria is one of the six countries that account for half of all the deaths associated with malnutrition.
He said in the North, the situation was so bad that one in every five children suffers from acute malnutrition. According to him, this has a profound effect on the health and human development of the region.
Elaborating further on the menace, the Field Manager of Save the Children, Zamfara State, Babatunde Lawani noted that in response to the malnourished status of the region, Working to Improve Nutrition in Northern Nigeria (WINNN) project was conceived in 2011 by the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID) and supported by three other consortium, the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF), Save the Children (SC) and Action Against Hunger (ACF).
According to him, these partners have made a concerted effort to reach 5 million children under the age of five since the inception of the programme in these states, saying, ‘the idea was to reach 11 million children by 2017. In all these states, with the support of both local and state governments we have established Community Management Acute Malnutrition(CMAM) centres to cater for the welfare of the malnourished children. In the same vein, counselling units were established to offer advice to mothers on exclusive breastfeeding. According to him, in some of the affected states philanthropists have come to compliment the efforts of the international agencies by providing drugs to these children among other logistics. In the same vein, pregnant women were given adequate care at these centres before delivery.
Indeed, over the years, the WINNN programme in these states have witnessed some degree of successes. For, instance, the Maternal Newborn and Child Health weeks have been observed in these states since the commencement of the programme. Also the Food and Nutrition committees had equally been set up in these states to tackle malnutrition. It was gathered that through advocacy , some state governments like Zamfara and Jigawa have created a budget line of N20 million and N100 million respectively for nutrition activities in their respective states. To this end, reliable sources disclosed that so far 1 million children have been reached with vitamins and food nutrients in the affected states.
Findings also revealed that at the same time, within the period under review, thousands of children had died. For instance, the Director Primary Health Care, Ministry of Health, Zamfara state, Alhaji Yusuf Musa said over 2,000 children have so far died in the state.
However, if the feelers emanating from Zamfara are true, that the state governor had released the sum of N3 million for nutritional activities then one could easily conclude that there is a ray of hope in tackling malnutrition in the country.
But the big question on the lips of the participants at the workshop is, what happens if these partners decide to pack their belongings and leave after 2017? Are we then saying that is the end of providing succour to these helpless children?
In their separate presentations, both Dr Yinka Adekugbe and Alhaji Yusuf Guru who spoke during the five-day training noted that there is the need for an holistic approach in order to end the menace. They posited that both the federal and state governments must provide palliative measures to end the scourge. According to them agriculture should receive a major boost so that there will be enough food for the people.
‘Once food is readily available malnutrition will be reduced to the barest level,” they stated.
This point was also collaborated by the Permanent Secretary, Katsina State Ministry of Health, Dr Ahmad Muhammad while receiving members of the health team in his office. He stated that agriculture is one of the major priority of the state government under Governor Aminu Masari.
He said apart from distributing fertilisers to farmers in time, plans are in top gear to repair all abandoned and dilapidated dams in order to boost irrigation farming. According to him, the essence is to ensure that food security is guaranteed.
The resource persons also argued that women empowerment, provision of health care facilities, training of health personnel, funding and publicity are factors necessary to tackle the menace of malnutrition.
No comments:
Post a Comment