The wife of Niger State governor, Dr. Amina Abubakar Bello has said that 11 million Nigerian children under five are stunted, the second highest in the world. She said this is due to malnutrition resulting from mothers’ refusal to practise exclusive breastfeeding.
Addressing policymakers and nutrition stakeholders at an advocacy meeting to scale up nutrition in the state, Dr Bello expressed the readiness to adopt the national strategic plan of action for nutrition (NSPAN) in a bid to fight malnutrition in children.
She ssaid, “11 million children under five are stunted in Nigeria. This is the highest in sub-Saharan Africa and ranks second highest in the world with 37 per cent of children under five years classified as stunted and 18 per cent wasted.
“Nigeria is leading unfortunately in a bad way in maternal mortality and child stunting growth in the world despite government programmes and policies. We need to work towards ensuring that these indices drop.”
According to her, while adopting the national strategic plan of action for nutrition, Niger state will develop its own strategic plan of action for nutrition and intensify monitoring and supervision strategic plan to ensure proper implementation of the plan at various MDAs, local government areas and primary health care centers.
The governor’s wife also lamented that exclusive breastfeeding, which can address malnutrition for children under five years, is being sabotaged by health workers, stating that there is need for renewed aggressive campaign for aggressive breastfeeding.
“Exclusive breastfeeding have not been working in Nigeria because even the health workers who are supposed to be involved in the campaign do not believe in it. The health workers are sabotaging the exclusive breastfeeding programme in the country.
“We need to emphasise on exclusive breastfeeding. It is sad to note that 30 per cent of women in Niger state are not breastfeeding at all,” she said.
Bello added that malnutrition is preventable and that everyone should make the effort to control and eradicate it in Niger State.
She said advocacy campaigns should be done in the communities instead of the heath centers while the current school feeding programmes by state and federal government should be extended to all primary pupils.
According to the Head of Nutrition in the Federal Ministry of Health, Dr. Chris Isokpunwu, Nigeria needs N182.4 billion to operationalize the National strategic plan of action for nutrition over a period of five years while Niger state would need N2.8 billion to operationalize its strategic plan of action for nutrition for five years.
Isokpunwu said if the will reduce stunted rate to 20 per cent and save 123,000 lives yearly.