The Nation Newspaper

Category: Health

  • The President, the Flagship & the greenhorn reporter

    The President, the Flagship & the greenhorn reporter

    By Femi Kusa

    Few things surprise me as the greetings and tribute I received from President Muhammadu Buhari  on  August 23, 2020, my 70th birthday. For about 15 years, I had been out of choleric media circulation, except for my Thursday Alternative Medicine column in The Nation newspaper. Since he became President Buhari’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity in 2015, I have not met or spoken with Mr. Femi Adesina. It must have been long, long before then that we had any contact. Ditto Mallam Garba Shehu, the President’s Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity. We have been professionally distant since our days in the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE) of the 1980’s when I was Secretary- General and he was a member of the national executive.

    As for the President, I tangentially met him once… at a cocktail of the government of Lagos State when  Commodore Gbolahan Mudashiru was Military Governor. It must have been just after it or before that I was detained by his government for one day, accused  of infringing Decree No 4 of 1994. Under that obnoxious Military law, which prohibited publication of information which was true but embarrassed public officials, two of my colleagues at The Guardian  newspaper, Tunde Thompson and Nduka  Irabor, were detained for a longer period, prosecuted and jailed for one year. They were released pre-term and granted state pardon by General  Ibrahim Babangida who succeeded (Gen.) Buhari in a military coup.

    I tipped Buhari to win the last two Presidential elections. My friends tease me about these events whenever anything appears to be dangerously going wrong in Nigeria and I do not see the need for the President’s resignation. The President has been humble enough to agree that the buck stops at his desk.  We have to always look into the larger picture to prevent ourselves from becoming  Shakespare’s Merchant of Venice. Only the future can sit in judgment over today, I always say. In that future picture frame we may appreciate President Buhari as a speed breaker. Nigeria was rolling downhill before he came. Goodness knows where it would have rolled into and how safe that would have been  for us all if he hadn’t come. It takes a lot of energy to stop a high velocity downhill motion and perhaps even double or treble that to roll the hustling mass uphill to the plains which are the dream of us all.

    With containment of that slide, the seeds of that harvest on the plains are being sown now. Allied to this thinking is one of  the lessons I have  picked up in my experiences over the years …Do not  expect from today only what tomorrow can bring. We all said the years before Buhari were soaked in corruption.  We say today that corruption is dripping everywhere in the Buhari years. But isn’t it interesting that while corruption was impregnable in yester years, resident in the protection of  government castles or fortresses, the castles and fortresses of today are exposing corruption residing within them?  Another plus I often give Buhari’s government is that two Christian Presidents before him failed to wage a war on Islamic jingoism and  insurgency,  President Buhari, a Muslim, is waging a full-scale war against them.  The head of a government should not be the one to always carry the cane if we all stand at our duty posts as watch-dogs of society.

    I belong, for example, to 150 or so  member GOLDEN CROWN CO-OPERATIVE,  a farmers’ group which, along with almost 100 other co-operatives, heeded governments call in the Anchor Borrowers Project to grow maize in Ogun State. Almost every member has about N200,000 stuck up or lost in the system for about five years now. The matching grants promised and trumpeted by the Central Bank of Nigeria are a mirage. Where it was released to an insignificant number of farmers, it came too late and dare-devil farmers who risked off season farming burnt their fingers. Where were the media to report this and set an agenda for investigative reporting? Who would go to the farms next time? While would maize not be expensive? Why would the nation not go hungry? Why would scarce foreign exchange not be spent on more food imports to avert famine? The farmers themselves are as guilty as anyone else. What did they do to bring their plight to the public agenda?

    Pathological critics of the President blamed him for banning importation of nutrient deficient and beriberi-causing rice in order to stimulate production of more nutritious home grown rice and create jobs, while saving foreign exchange. None of them has turned around to praise a vision which saved the nation from hunger during COVID-19 worldwide lockdown. With no shipments anywhere in that season, how would Nigeria have coped with the gap in rice supplies if local rice producers had not been busy on the farms before then? We always cry wolf about what is and don’t think about “what it would have been.”

    I still dream for Nigeria. Permit, please, that I mention some old dreams.  In the series of about 13 articles I wrote during the presidential election campaign entitled: Jonathan vs Buhari, The Rich vs The Poor, I restated suggestions for job creation and food revolution, which in the days of Military President, Ibrahim Babangida, I often made during media briefings of Augustus Aikhomu his deputy. They were predicated on Babangida’s IMF agenda to stop petroleum price subsidy. I thought then, as I still do, that the public would not mind if the subsidy went and was wisely invested. It may be shared equally among the six geo-political zones and invested in projects with multiplier effect that would later be sold on the stock market for the proceeds to be re-invested.

    About 10 square kilometers of forest land may be acquired in every zone and turned into farm towns with all social facilities. Each farm town may specialise in one type of agricultural product… tubers (yam, potato, cocoyam, cassava, etc), maize, beans, plantain, banana, rabbit, chicken, duck, goat, ram etc. Individual and household farmers with private holdings are to be encouraged to settle there and run their operations.They would be taxed for the land. The land may be leased from owners’ communities. Co-operatives would bring farm produce to town. I was involved in a similar venture at Oke-Aro, a border area between Lagos and Ogun States when Gen. Sani Abacha’s military regime proscribed The Guardian newspaper for one year. We were at that time about 3,000 farmers in that small settlement. I had no more than a standard plot of land. Yet, in one year, I raised about 300 pigs and piglets. At today’s price of about N80,000 per adult pig, that is more than N12 million on the table. Rabbits can fetch more from what I discovered while working with a gentleman on an NGO farm, which the late Brigadier Samuel Ogbemudia (rtd) was chairman and former President Shehu Shagari life patron.

    The dream continues… The town farms may be sold off the year after and their proceeds are added to the subsidy account for that year. This would produce two sets of capital for the second year.  In the Southwest, for example, this could be ploughed into the Lagos-Badagry rail project or the Tarsand/Bitumen Project in Ekiti State. This, too, could be sold off on the stock market to raise more funds for economic interventions in that region. Similar interventions would be carried out in other zones. Within four years, each zone should have enjoyed no fewer than six huge federal projects. Everyone would be busy investing that there would be no justifiable reason for banditry, kidnapping or insurgency. These ideas were thrown up during the campaigns to provide presidential campaigners for Buhari, ammunition for a work plan, given his credentials from the Presidential Task Force of Gen Sani Abacha’s regime. But democracy is not like military government.

    No President puts himself in power by his own might alone. On the day an elephant dies, that is  when an election is won, all sorts of long knives are unsheathed by all manner of hunters to take all sorts of cuts home. We sow seeds today. The harvest may come in tomorrow. One last point before I give Mr. President the last salute: Thompson knew nothing about the Gen. Hannania story which landed The Guardian into Decree No 4 trouble. He was the Diplomatic Correspondent, but not the purveyor of that copy. I was Assistant Editor of The Guardian then. Irabor was being assessed for competence in Newsroom management. He turned out to be one of Nigeria’s most terrific News Editors. Nena Uche was a greenhorn reporter. Her aunt, I believe, was the wife of the No 4 man in government, Ebitu Ukiwe, who over dinner the previous day, narrated to his wife how his day went in the office. Nena had dinner with them next day in the office, Nena had no story to present  her news editor. That was a newsroom sin in those days. Nduka picked her brain. The story dropped.

    The General was dropped as High Commissioner to the United Kingdom. The Army was said to be behind him. I cannot state here why he may have been dropped. It was said the story could ruffle some official feathers. Gen.  Tunde Idiagbon, the No 2 man, was enraged. Who among the four top men, who took the decision could have leaked it.  Certainly, he and Buhari did not. And that left two others under suspicion and, perhaps, before the guillotine or firing squad! Nena was a woman. Ukiwe was Igbo. Dealing with them could set up another ethnic crisis.

    Journalism demands that when a reporter’s source of information is going to be endangered, the reporter should be ready to place his or her life on the line. That was what Thompson, Irabor and I did.  I do not know how I got off the hook till this day. I understand Uche is no more in the flesh. Idiagbon, too, is gone. The wounds have long healed. We all joke about it now.  I hope that, someday, Thompson and Irabor will be accorded more professional recognition than has been their gain today.

     

    The Flagship

     

    This is The  Flagship OF THE NIGERIAN PRESS. The title came about when The Guardian newspaper came out of the blue in 1983 to immediately become the most-sought after newspaper. Two of the  staff of those days, Aaron Ukodie and Seun Ogunseitan are close to launching a 500-page book on life in The Guardian’s newsroom of those days. Simultaneously, Fred Ohwahwa is heading  a team which  has rallied  all old  staff to make donations to a fund from which anyone who helped to build that great newspaper and, meanwhile, has some discomfiture could be given  the OIL OF GILEAD. Tears rolled down my checks when Fred and Mrs Oyeyemi Gbenga-Mustapha visited me at home sometime in July to announce that I was a beneficiary of the Fund. ‘Yemi is the baby of the House! This refers to the last set of cub journalists I trained at The Comet newspaper before I retired about 1996. She never worked at The Guardian. She worked at the Health Desk of The Comet with Adetutu Folashade-Koyi, an ex- Guardian. Every year since I was 65 years old, Tutu would send ‘Yemi to me to sniff out what I would need as an “old man”. I always declined the gifts, including a water bed. They were younger and still struggling, why should I add to their bills, I wondered. Gbenga Omotoso, ex- Guardian and at that time Editor of The Nation newspaper was in league with them. Then at 70, their ranks enlarged to include the full house of THE GUARDIAN FLAGSHIP. This time, I couldn’t resist them. Everyone said I touched his or her life. Among them are university Professors, Senators, top media executives, former and current Commissioners and upward swinging business persons.

    They put aside my cherished sitting room  furniture of 35 years and sent it to another room in the company of the Chinese dining table of the same age. They went up to the bedroom as well to provide a brand new bed!  They also provided bulk money for medicines in respect of my vision! It was during an enlarged meeting with seven of them on another day that I learned the FLAGSHIP FUND had been registered and had intervened substantially in the affairs of two other gentlemen. They reminded me of the SEEDS and the HARVEST. Whatever we do today is a seed we sow. In our days, the Newsroom purchased 42 plots of land for staff who had worked for five years, and provided money also for Certificates of Occupancy. Our budget, which Mr Alex Ibru, the Publisher, permitted, also bought six hectares for The Guardian from Ogun Property and Investment Company (OPIC), on the  rear the  Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. Before my departure from the Flagship, THE GUARDIAN CARES was proposed. It was meant to be a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) through which the newspaper would give something back to the society. A percentage of its profit was to go into it.  It was to have a Fund Manager who would solicit subscriptions.

    For a long time, I have believed that IDEAS are like SEEDS. Once you think up an idea and it leaves you, you cannot tell where on the globe, far away or so near, that it would sprout, flower and fruit. This FLAGSHIP FUND is another testimonial that the carefully selected staff of The Guardian of those days were, indeed, a rare breed of journalists. For nowhere in the industry have we seen such a move by a newspaper company or the staff. The pivots deserve commendation by the Nigerian Union of Journalists ( NUJ), The Nigerian Guild of Editors ( NGE) and The Newspapers Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN). Everyday I walk through the sitting-room, sit at the table or lie in bed, it is not impossible for me not to remember my days in The Guardian’s Newsroom. Thank you all, my friends.

     

    The Cub Reporter

     

    It is a pity I am running short of space. This section is meant to express my gratitude to Mr. Taiwo Obe and Mr. Lanre Idowu, media trainers, and Flagship members who made me spend my birthday in a zoom training discussion with greenhorn journalists. But for want of space here, I would have liked to refer to suggestions on how the greenhorns can prepare themselves for a successful, respectable and financially rewarding work life in journalism. We cannot separate this from what newspaper management can do to improve media income and pay journalists better.

    Education beyond university handout is crucial. Alhaji Babatunde Jose, Chairman and Managing Director of The Daily Times of old, under whom my generation trained as the last set of Cub Reporters he moulded, told us once at The TIMES NEWSPAPERS TRAINING CENTRE: ” The  day a journalist stops reading is the day he dies. Reading and building a library of health books and journals enabled me make a mid-career shift from Mass Communications to Alternative Medicine. I have trained Cub Reporters who have gone ahead to become Lawyers, Professors, Senators and Representatives, among other professions. Moving into the field of Alternative Medicine has made me a multi-faceted editor with interest and ideas about other professions. Thus, I could easily start different sections in The Guardian newspaper, beginning with Housing and Environment, Agriculture, Jobs,  Natural Health etc. I managed to achieve all these with the right calibre of staff. Among many other professionals in other sections, I remember Architect Paul Okunlola and his successful handling of the Housing (Property Section).

    I designed a kitchen experiment for Declan Okpalaeke, a brilliant Microbiology graduate from Lagos State University. Europe had just come up with VIAGRA for male sexual virility. I told Declan our elders had a parasitic root which regenerated aging bodies. The kitchen experiment involved about 20 male volunteers who took water extract of the root and recorded vast sperm count increases. I presented the laboratory results to the 70th yearly conference of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria held at the Airport Hotel in Lagos. The presentation was greeted with lukewarm attitude.  I took it to HEALTH CRAFT in England whose Marketing Manager at that time was a female English Medical Doctor, with whom  I spoke. The idea was for Health Craft and The Guardian to set up a company in Nigeria which would produce and export a pharmaceutical grade of the product and share profit. For The Guardian, the profit from the venture would trickle down to the staff in respect of their intellectual  property.

    Health Craft was not forthcoming. So, I encouraged Declan to enter it in as the African Journalist of the Year Award, which won FIRST PRIZE and a purse of 1.5 million Pounds sterling (or was it naira?). Declan could have gone on to write a book on this herb. Over at The Comet newspaper, when the seeds of Natural Medicine at The Guardian were bearing fruit in Nigeria, I tried to make that newspaper become the warehouse for all foreign herbs coming to this country. It was to use its niche energy in this area to do this. The Daily Times under Alhaji Jose did a similar thing with TIMES LEISURE SERVICE under Mr. Tunde  Savage as manager. This activity has its roots in the conception of THE NEW USES OF NEWS. Do not forget that one of the functions of the press is to facilitate economic development, and that whoever works at the altar eats at the altar.  Multi-faceted reporters connect their newspapers to society and the economy. Forward-looking newspapers recognise talented reporters and, with them, dig gold in the economy. The financial security of one is the security of the other. Once again, apologies for lack of space. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, The Flagship of the Nigerian Press.  Thank you, Taiwo Obe ( T.O.) and  Idowu.

  • Five benefits of hunger/ empty stomach

    Five benefits of hunger/ empty stomach

    By Dayo Mustapha

     

    · Empty stomach enhances productivity

    In the Yoga culture, they imbibe eating routines for flexible and healthy body. The power of thinking increases; understanding and ability of perception develop. It has been proved by great people in history that overfeeding reduces their productivity.

    · A hungry person understands the poor

    A person who is full does not understand how a hungry person feels. Thus, those with empty stomach appreciate it. Some communities are tested through plenty of blessings given to them while others are tested through hunger.

    · Prevents excessive sleep

    Research shows those who eat a lot sleeps a lot. Sleeping a lot darkens the heart, prevents the activities of the mind and working. Those who sleep a lot cannot fulfill their duties properly. Successful people around the world regard sleeping a lot as the cause of all catastrophes.

    · Enables the body to stay healthy and eliminate diseases

    The cause of many diseases is gluttony. Eating a lot is among the most important causes of stomach, intestine, heart and vascular diseases. Those physiological and biological disorders also cause mental and psychological disorders.

    · Helps others and attain happiness in both the world

    Feeling the happiness of rejoicing with a poor person and an orphan is the greatest happiness. It is among the important orders and recommendations of laws of life to look after the orphans and the poor, to meet their needs and to help others.

  • Stakeholders emphasise safety as Hybrid Group clocks 10

    Stakeholders emphasise safety as Hybrid Group clocks 10

    By Samson Oti

     

    Stakeholders have emphasised the needs for individuals and corporate organisations to embrace safety culture.

    They spoke at the 10th anniversary of Hybrid Group, a safety and health management firm.

    At the virtual meeting, Permanent Secretary of Lagos Ministry of Environment, Mrs. Ronke Odeneye said: “In Nigeria, we need to do more in appreciating people’s life. Individually, we need to protect ourselves, as well as to have the ability to orientate others in safe ways.

    “Government can regulate safety through sensitisation of grassroots and training whereby safety can be spread through our local ways, and should be communicated in a simplest term for everybody to understand.

    “It is time for us to appreciate human beings more than material things, this is the time to help each other, protect our lives especially at this critical time people lost jobs.”

    Executive Director, Safety Advocacy and Empowerment Foundation, Engr. Jamiu Badmus, said safety professionals have lots of work to do for laymen to understand how it relates to economic development.

    Read Also: Lagos health commissioner tests positive

     

    He said: “Without proper safety in any country, it will be difficult for economic growth. And as a matter of fact, human capital is the best any country can have, and that safety is key to such human capital.”

    “The cost of health and safety in any organization is hidden, and that is the fault of safety professionals, it is time to add value to the business and let the top managers understand the prospect of safety and proper orientation.

    “A safety professional should always have business sense and be ready to keep data and show videos to illustrate when dealing with managers at any level. Safety is all about well-being and every citizen should understand that.”

    CEO of Hybrid Group, Dapo Omolade, said: “We have laid a good foundation, and that is why we remain consistent over the last 10 years, right now, we are building more on what we have done and have been expanding our wings across the world through training and human safety to come greater when celebrating 20 years and more.

    “As a matter of fact, our vision has always been to impact safety knowledge in thousands of people’s lives, to let people understand beyond making money alone. No jobs should be done without safety and everybody must be responsible for safety.”

  • How Nigeria can benefit from COVID-19 crisis

    How Nigeria can benefit from COVID-19 crisis

    By Sola Solarin

     

    In the midst of the crisis that this COVID-19 pandemic has foisted on the world, there is an opportunity for Nigeria to re-assert its bonafides in the life sciences. It should reclaim its position as the leading center for training and research in tropical diseases.

    Less than 40 years ago, Nigeria was producing cholera and yellow fever vaccines at the Federal Government Laboratory, Yaba, Lagos.

    University College Hospital Ibadan, Oyo State was rated as the fifth best in the Commonwealth, and it had a pharmaceutical industry that had a globally-acclaimed standard.

    A constellation of factors, however, put the brakes on our progress, chief among which was the economic crisis of the 1980’s. Government agencies and institutions lost access to funding, facilities could not be maintained and Nigeria haemorrhaged its experienced and well-trained scientists. Our categorisation as a poor nation made us eligible for donation from different sources. All vaccines, including those we were making, were provided free by foreign governments and private foundations. We lost motivation to sustain our local vaccine laboratories.

    Since the turn of the century however, changes in statutes allowed for private ownership of universities in Nigeria and this has attracted funding to biomedical research. Nigerian scientists are beginning to contribute to knowledge in the search for cure for diseases again, most especially those that are prevalent in Africa. Prof. Oyewale Tomori attracted funding to virology research as Vice-Chancellor of Redeemers University. His lab played a leading role in the diagnosis of Ebola in 2014. Prof. Christian Happi has continued the tradition by setting up the African Centre of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases (ACE-GID) in the Ede, Osun State campus of the same University.

    Happi’s lab sequenced the genome of the COVID-19 virus extracted from patients in Nigeria in record time. The lab also developed a diagnostic kit for COVID-19 that cost about USD3. A good knowledge of the genome of any virus makes development of therapy, diagnostic kits and vaccines possible. We should seize this moment.

    Fortunately, while the science of immunology has not changed much in the last 150 years, the technology that converts the science to useful therapy and vaccines has improved considerably. Cleaning and sterilisation of equipment for re-use in vaccine labs used to impose considerably cost and risk in the production of vaccine. The innovation of single use equipment has eliminated this, and it should be easier to set up a vaccine lab that meets requisite standards quickly and easily.

    In addition, the laws regulating outsourcing has evolved over the last 30 years such that an entity can focus on its narrow area of excellence, protect and monetise its intellectual property rights in that narrow area while outsourcing development and manufacturing to other countries.

    We are seeing this manifest in the United Kingdom with the team at Oxford University researching vaccines for COVID-19. Astra Zeneca, the pharmaceutical company is developing the product, and a factory in India gearing up for large scale production.

    The Central Bank of Nigeria has  just published guidelines to access a N50 billion grant for research and development of therapies and vaccines for COVID-19 and related infections. That is a good beginning. The initiative, with all its flaws, should ignite activities in the life sciences. While COVID-19 has been the spark, we must seize the moment to fund research into therapy and vaccines for infectious diseases that have been endemic in the country.

    The most embarrassing among which are Lassa fever and Monkey pox. They are infrequently found in other parts of the world, but we experience outbreaks every year. Meningitis is also quite common and mutating strains of the virus from year to year lead to high fatalities. ACE-GID has the people, and the equipment to research therapies and vaccines for these diseases and we should seize the moment.

    Read Also: COVID-19: FAAN loses N17.5b in 23 weeks

     

    Development and manufacturing of vaccines and diagnostics for viral infections is very labour-intensive requiring very high number of middle-level skills in the life sciences. Nigerian universities and polytechnics produce graduates in lab science, biochemistry, microbiology, biology, physiology, anatomy and pharmacology every year. The country will have no problem finding trainable manpower for this industry.

    The business side of the project will be tricky. We will still be eligible for free supplies of vaccines from United Nations Agencies, at least until 2025. A nascent industry may compete on quality but may face short on cost. Nigerian government will have to insist that any vaccines to be donated to Nigerian must come from its factories. It may require indemnifying against claims from defective products or subsidy on higher cost of producing locally.

    We have no option if we want to develop a local life sciences industry. Further development in this area will require input of the Intellectual Property Lawyers and Regulatory Affairs Consultants. Any funding for research and development in infectious diseases must provide for their inputs. This is imperative because it is the only way to develop therapies for diseases that afflict Africans disproportionately, and develop a local capacity for managing new diseases that a changing world may foist on us.

    Nigeria consumes between  $250,400 million worth of vaccines yearly. Potential market for Nigerian-produced vaccines can easily be doubled to almost a billion dollars if we include Central Africa and the ECOWAS region. This is enough to sustain an industry.

    However, we must confront the vested interests that benefit from donor-funded vaccines imported yearly. That will require all our diplomatic, political and economic heft.

     

    • Solarin is Managing Partner, Savante Consulting Limited/Vice President, Industrial Pharmacy Section, International Pharmaceutical Federation
  • Experts call for more action to tackle protein deficiency

    Experts call for more action to tackle protein deficiency

    By Adekunle Yusuf

     

    TO prevent malnutrition, achieve food security and sustainable development, Nigeria needs to show more seriousness in health and nutrition financing.

    This was the consensus of experts at a Protein Challenge webinar, designed to address protein deficiency crisis in the country.

    The event, with the theme, ‘The UN Decade of Action on Nutrition – Connecting the Dots for Nigeria,’ was organised as a part of the Nigeria Protein Deficiency Awareness Campaign (Protein Challenge), a media campaign meant to create awareness about Nigeria’s protein deficiency crisis and rally stakeholders to collaborate in addressing the problem.

    Presenting an overview of the Sustainable Development Goas 2 in Nigeria, Foyinsola Oyebola, a social development expert with over 25 years’ experience, said the country is facing a nutrition crisis on multiple fronts, especially with rising insecurity, which has worsened food insecurity.

    According to her, another problem that has exacerbated the crisis is the low level of awareness of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly the SDG 2 (zero hunger and poverty) and poor monitoring and evaluation framework. This, she added, is a challenge that has been made worse by the COVID-19 restrictions, which were put in place to limit the spread of the contagious virus.

    If Nigeria is desirous of rising above the crisis, Oyebola believed that efforts were urgently needed to bridge the gap  between policy statements and implementation. This should also be accompanied by efforts that can seek to end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition as well as promote sustainable agriculture (SDG 2 goals) into the programmes of government at the state and local government levels.

    The social development expert insisted that Nigeria needs to address nutritional needs of adolescent girls, pregnant and lactating women and older persons as well as double the agricultural productivity and incomes of small-scale food producers if the country aims to achieve international targets on stunting and wasting in children under five by 2025.

    ”There should be effective coordination of, and collaboration, among  stakeholders in the nutrition space, to educate Nigerians on local sources of protein, where to get them and, most importantly, how to prepare them such that the nutritional value is not lost,” Oyebola added.

    Another discussant, Collins Akanno, a community nutritionist and founder of Diet 234 (a resource for healthy nutrition and inspiration), said Nigeria need to give individuals adequate health and nutrition education in order for the country to achieve the SDG goals on nutrition. As far as he is concerned, adequate nutrition is not only about availability and affordability of foods, stressing that not all foods are nutritious.

    Citing his online survey, which revealed that the majority of Nigerians do not know that proteins can be got from plants, he said it is surprising that many Nigerians don’t know how to organise a healthy eating plate. A healthy eating plate refers to how food portions should be sectioned in a typical meal. The main message of the healthy eating plate is to focus on diet quality. For example, the type of carbohydrate in the diet is often said to be more important, because some sources of carbohydrate—like vegetables (other than potatoes), fruits, whole grains, and beans—are healthier than others.

    The National Coordinator, Media Centre Against Child Malnutrition (MeCAM), Nigeria, Remmy Nweke, said Nigeria needs to increase its  health budget, placing special emphasis on nutrition.

    To achieve result, a portion of the nutrition budget should be channelled towards creating public enlightenment campaigns on nutrition and healthy eating, he said, adding that there was an urgent need to review the school feeding programme, boost small-holder farmers and improve nutritional status of mothers, infants and young children. “I agree that people need to be educated about nutrition; the importance of proteins and the hazards of malnutrition. These campaigns can be taken around the country and translated into various indigenous Nigerian languages, with special attention on women as champions of the cause,” Nweke said.

     

  • Sanofi: war against polio worldwide not yet over

    Sanofi: war against polio worldwide not yet over

    By Adekunle Yusuf

     

    As Nigeria celebrates the milestone of being certified polio-free, Sanofi Pasteur, the world’s single largest producers of vaccines, has warned that the victory will not be complete until the world is rid of the deadly virus.

    Having recorded no news cases in the requisite period of three years since it last reported cases of wild poliovirus, Nigeria, the last wild poliovirus-endemic country in the region, received the much-awaited status after the independent Africa Regional Certification Commission (ARCC), the body responsible for certifying the eradication of wild poliovirus in the WHO Africa Region (WHO-Afro), granted the region ‘wild poliovirus free’ status.

    Its Vaccines Head for Africa, Charles Wolf, said the journey that culminated in the milestone was long and tortuous. In Nigeria, Sanofi Pasteur has been working, in collaboration with stakeholders such as the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), WHO, UNICEF and  multi-lateral and non-governmental organisations in the national immunisation programmes for children under five, he added.

    “The ambition to eradicate polio from the world has been a long journey. The recent declaration by ARCC certifying the WHO Africa region as free of wild poliovirus is a watershed for the WHO and all partners in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI).

    ‘’For over three decades, we, at Sanofi Pasteur, have been supporting the global public health coalition on polio through our expertise and the provision of innovative vaccines to support national, regional and global immunisation programmes for children under five years of age,” Wolf said.

    Read Also:‘Nigeria has spent $17b on Polio eradication’

     

    Polio is a highly infectious viral disease that is transmitted from person to person, mainly through a fecal – oral route or, less frequently, through contaminated water or food and multiplies inside the intestines.

    One in 200 infections leads to irreversible paralysis, usually in the legs. Among those paralysed, five to 10 per cent die when their breathing muscles become immobilised. Polio mainly affects children under five. There is no cure for polio but the disease can be prevented through administration of a simple and effective vaccine, given multiple times. This is why efforts are underway across every country to rapidly boost immunity levels in children and protect them from polio paralysis.

    Wild poliovirus cases have decreased by over 99 per cent since 1988, from an estimated 350,000 cases in more than 125 endemic countries, to 33 reported cases in 2018.

    Of the three strains of wild poliovirus (type 1, type 2 and type 3), wild poliovirus type 2 was eradicated in 1999 and no case of wild poliovirus type 3 has been found since the last reported case in Nigeria in November 2012.

    In 1988, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) was launched by several stakeholders involved in global public health and led by the WHO. At that time, polio was endemic in 125 countries with more than 350,000 children paralysed yearly.

    Since then, with the strong collaborations across the GPEI, there has been a 99.9 per cent decrease in paralytic cases.

     

  • Golden question @70: How do you stand?

    Golden question @70: How do you stand?

    By Femi Kusa

    MAN: HOW DO YOU STAND? This is an ageless question in the spiritual work which has been my unfailing companion and guide for 43 years. It leapt before me again last Sunday morning as I rose from Saturday night sleep. Forty-three years ago, I would have replied in my thoughts: How time flies ! But I knew as long ago as 1977, at 27, that time does not fly. It is eternal, unswerving and immovable. In 1978, I was privileged to be the editor of CROSSCORPER magazine, published yearly by Youth Corps members in Cross River State. As the editor, I wrote  the lead article, Time Stands Still. It was a response to banters of How Time Flies among Corps members set to go home.

    Last Saturday morning, I remembered the beery voices, the dimly lit dance halls as Corps members bade their hosts bye. I remembered other striking events in my life, such as my first Out Of Body Experience (OBE) in 1974 at 24, the passage of my mother at 31 on  August 5, 1959 during her fifth child birth, the passage of my father on August 26, 1998 at the age of 76, the birth of my brother on  August 26, 1954, that is 66 years ago and the fact that August always had important messages of the two poles of life and death for me. It couldn’t have been an accident that I was born on August 23, 1950… I was 70 years old last Sunday.

    Please, forgive me for holding down the cat in the bag. There was no revelry. This is not only a  COVID-19 season. I am not a limelight person;  I am a chip of an old block as well. At 40, I yielded ground half-way to my wife and her uncle, restricting the gathering to only siblings and very close friends. By 50 and 60, she had understood me better. The old block I spoke of was my father. He declined a 70th birthday party. The day before his birthday, he travelled to his village. By 6.30am on his birthday, he was kneeling before the altar of the village church all alone, no Priest, no Sexton, but certain of the nearness of his Creator and offering thanksgiving prayer. Before noon, he was back to Lagos!

    For me, the setting for such a stage was provided in 1974 in my first OUT OF BODY EXPERIENCE (OBE). It made me recognise that existence, especially on earth, was not just a question of being born, growing up, finishing school, getting married to just anyone, making babies, getting a job, hitting the pinnacle of a profession, becoming a grandfather or grandmother and…passing away someday.  In my first OBE, I not only came out of my body, I actually saw myself distant from my body, which was fast asleep in bed. In fact, I had to engage in physical scuffle with a darkly figure which wished to attack that physical, earthly part of me in bed. I was neither dreaming nor in a trance. I was DAY CONSCIOUS as I am now, writing this column. I was screaming. We were fighting. We ran into my writing table and one of the four legs broke. The standing KDK fan fell.  So did the refrigerator. I lived with other tenants in an eight-room bungalow. The residents gathered by my door. So did some of our neighbours in nearby houses. Somehow, I pushed him towards the door and managed to undo about three security devices. It was when I rushed into the corridor that I awoke in bed.

    I was to learn years after, in the course of striving to discover the meaning of existence, that I may have had an ASTRAL or ETHEREAL experience. It was possible the body was roused by ambient noise and disturbed sleep as it often is with the banging of doors or knocks on the door. It was possible the embattled soul through feedback mechanisms was alerted that the body housing it was up and the Silver Cord pulled it in. The silver cord, like the umblical  cord which connects the foetus to the uterus, is the connecting link of body and soul at the solar plexus. What we call dreams are experiences of the soul outside the body which are transmitted through waves of energy through the Silver Cord to the solar plexus and from there through radiations of the blood to the back brain, the cerebellum, from where, in pictorial form, it goes to the frontal brain, the cerebrum, which decodes the impressions into thought or the spoken word. The degree to which we vividly remember our dreams or fail to do so is related to some variables in these mechanisms.

    Diet, atrophy of the back brain from disuse and position of the bed head away from the true geographic north are important factors. Another is the number of vectors (age of objects) which point to the bed, directing energy into it. Vectors throw off energy. The body and soul are forms of energy. Maintenance of energy equilibrium in the bedroom is crucial for restful night in which the travelling  soul can successfully and easily transmit its experiences to the body and the body can receive high fidelity communication. If the body was roused by ambient disturbance, a feedback mechanism automatically alerts the soul to return “home”. Failure to do so may weaken body-soul connection and even cause physical death. Sometimes, the soul does not key itself properly into the body on its return. That is probably why some people say they got out on the wrong side of the bed. Slight or serious headache, tiredness and laziness may be the tell tales when a refreshing night rest ought to have restored the physical vessels to equilibrium.

    To cut a long story short, I woke up. Spiritual events take place at faster speed than physical ones. Imagine that the speed of light is 186,000 miles per square second, that the light we speak of belongs to gross matter, that the spirit is far above coarse gross matter,  medium gross  matter,  fine gross matter (astral world),  and that it has its origins in  the spiritual realms,  where, as we are informed, one day is the equivalent of about 1,000 earth years! My co-residents called my grandmother who lived in the next street. A Christ Apostolic Church prayer warrior, she set the house alight with prayer and songs the rest of the night, joined by the residents. Next day, one of my uncles came for me. He was more experienced than anyone in the family about native solution to such experiences. He took me to his own apartment.

    I could not sleep day and night, afraid that my attacker would come again. My uncle procured a wooden device which had etched inscriptions. I was to keep it under my pillow. If you live in a neighborhood infested with armed robbers, you are likely to trust the Inspector-General of Police if you see hundreds of policemen on patrol than if he gave you assurance that they were “on ground”. So, I trusted the “juju” and slept well. But I had two problems with that. First, I was due to start higher education in three months at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. What would my roommates think of me if they saw “juju” under my pillow? I wanted to get to the bottom of the event and acquire that “power” of the unseen world not to harm other people or to disturb them, but in self defence.

    The OBE educated me that there was another world distinct and tangible like the physical one of which all of us are aware. The priests of my church could not help me out. I was not persuaded by explanation or cosmic mysteries made by many organisations. Finally, I turned to the LOBSANG-RAMPA books series. As I would later discover, he was limited to only the immediate astral environment of the earth. I got off his train when, he said GOD did not exist, and offered the Lobsang-Rampa touch stone for “protection”  and  “good luck”. That wasn’t what I wanted. What if I forgot to carry the touch stones in my pocket some day? I needed no-one to teach me how to induce an OBE. It came naturally to me. On one occasion, I became day conscious in a dream, knew my body lay in bed and I was somewhere else, that I did not have to walk but float, that whatever I wished automatically happened in The Law of Thought which we all trivialise on earth. So, I abandoned Lobsang-Rampa and went to Nsukka without my uncle’s “juju”. Memories of the OBE faded in the Nsukka years, but not to the point that I did not remember the experience once in a while. Some of my room-mates belonged to “esoteric” group.  About one month from my degree examination in 1977, I sighted an exciting advertisement in the SundayTimes newspaper at the news stand. It was about three volumes of a book titled IN THE LIGHT OF TRUTH THE GRAIL MESSAGE by ABD-RU-SHIN. I cut it out and kept it at the bottom of my box, with the aim of getting in touch with the publishers whenever I had a settled Youth Service Corps address.

    Youth Service took me to  Uyo and later to Calabar. I often left the Uyo camp to buy esoteric books at EDEKE’S BOOKSHOP. I acquired such titles as CHARIOT OF FIRE and SECRET OF THE ATOMIC AGE. One day, I asked RITA ANDREWS, the shopkeeper, if they did not sell more striking books. She said one set of the three volumes of the  GRAIL MASSAGE was available. I paid a deposit and went back for it the following day. I am a slow reader. I strive to form conceptions and pictures of what I read to properly understand and absorb it and, then, to apply its inherent lessons or principles. So, it took me eight long months to examine the GRAIL MESSAGE. I thought Rita was at the time more knowledgeable about it than I was, and so, asked her who, really, the Author was. I believed her when she said he was one of the three wise men, because the knowledge put forth was beyond intellectual conception.  I was to discover she either deceived me to protect me against premature judgment, or was ignorant.

    By the time I returned to Lagos, my perception of life and existence had completely changed, and I did not wish to slide back into the old. For example, I could no longer attend club shows of Aigbe Lebarty and  his semi-nude Sex Bombers. Wherever I turned, conflict tended to envelope me, with a view to pulling me back. Members of Christian scripture groups became terrible antagonist. They had told all sorts of lies about THE GRAIL MESSAGE to prevent me from reading it. One of them was that the MESSAGE denied the divinity of Jesus Christ. Yet there is no single lecture in this Work which does not acknowledge the Lord Jesus as the LOVE and SON OF GOD. I am yet to see a geniune Christian who has read explanations of The Ten Commandments and The Lord’s Prayer who had not wished to share them with fellow Christians.

    I was told, but did not accept, that only Christians would be SAVED from eternal damnation. But the Lord Jesus taught that the only passport to paradise was fulfillment of The Will of God. Islam means submission to the will of God. Messages brought by Zorasta to Iran, Lao-Tse to China, Bhuddah to India and Mohammed to Arabia all emphasise HIS WILL. The Grail Message informs us that all these messages were willed by God but were distorted after their bringers departed and converted their messages to religions which became instruments of power and influence in the hands of priests who did not necessarily know  God or serve HIM. Were this not the case, says the Grail Message, all teachings, by today, would have formed a single ladder from the earth to Paradise. Isn’t it instructive that Islam recognises Jesus as THE SPIRIT OF GOD and Prophet Mohammed as the Messenger of God? Many human beings have thus become prisoners of religions from which the Grail Message seeks to liberate them. I was liberated.

    Finding a wife was difficult thereafter. Even my father was shocked when, after graduation from the university, I insisted on paying house rent in his property. That was not heard of in Yorubaland. The MESSAGE taught me that children have no claims over their parents and that my father’s property is not mine but his. If I could see my father’s property in this light, why should I seek to plunder public property for self use? When I took a job and encouraged my colleagues and subordinates to work, it was often a tug of war. I invited them to take a cue from Creation which bears the Will of God. The Sun, the Soil and the Moon have not gone on a strike since I was born. They work at the command of the Creator to provide a hospitable dwelling  for us. So do the stars, the seas and oceans.

    Why do we grumble over small tasks and hunger after huge pay?  If I don’t like the pay, why do I not quietly quit the job? Work should be tended with LOVE. That is what Creation teaches us. I would not behave otherwise at work. The GRAIL MESSAGE hits hard at SPIRITUAL INDOLENCE. Man has become religious and not spiritual in the search for his Creator and Worship Of Him, although he is a spiritual being. The spirit is too lazy to ask questions when it is fed with obvious lies about his home and MAKER. He thinks worship in vigorous “prayer” and that prayer is a long prattling in words. As for womanhood, she has mistaken motherhood for the purpose of her existence on earth.

    Man has turned education upside down, believing that the intellect is the Lord in Creation. Forgetting that the intellect is only the perceptive capacity of the brain, which does not survive earthly demise, being, like his body, bound to space and matter, he has allowed the intellect rule over his intuition the “voice” of the Spirit. Inevitably, this has stunted the spiritually- receptive portion of his brain, the cerebellum or the “small brain”. The GRAIL MESSAGE explains that this is THE FALL OF MAN. By being no longer able to navigate the worlds beyond the earth with INTUITION, which now lies suppressed by the over-cultivated INTELLECT, the “large” or frontal brain, spiritual man cut himself off from his home, PARADISE. He cannot therefore obtain high values from home which would suffuse his earthly affairs.

    Marriage is thought to be compulsory, whereas it is not. Marriage is given merely as a gift for complementary souls to help them achieve the purpose of their existence on earth. This purpose is the attainment of self consciousness, which should lead to the recognition of GOD and his WILL in CREATION, followed by unconditional submission to this WILL. Every social institution is a gift to man to help him attain this goal, be it work, parenting or marriage. Where this purpose is unfulfilled, many people do not know, as even evident from mass media interviews, marriage is USELESS and a terrible waste of earth-life. Many people are imprisoned in marriage in the wrong conception that it is a MERGER, but the MESSAGE explains to us why it is a UNION. Even Gibran, author of THE PROPHET, would say a man and his wife may have a drink together, but not from the same cup, thereby suggesting a degree of distancing which permits healthy exercise of free will.

    In my view and those people who have examined it for higher values which transcend religion but nevertheless leads the way to God, there is no subject on the face of this earth that the GRAIL MESSAGE does not address. The teachings have been the foundation of my behaviour since 1978. I do not claim to be a saint. No human being is. One of the  reasons we are on earth is to recognise our faults or weaknesses and  work on ourselves to abandon faults and develop Spiritual attributes which still lie slumbering in all of  us. I have merely explained the driving motive of my activities and relationships. And, regularly, I release myself for inner self examination to see how far  and well I may have come near that flowering and fruiting spirit of this wonderful Creation that the Almighty Creator and Ruler of All the Worlds expects me to  be.

    So much has been invested on me in this regard. Thus, when I retire into sleep at night, I  like to visualise Creation , remembering the golden question the Lord asks all the time: MAN: HOW DO YOU STAND? Firmly or weakly? Progressive homewards or retrogressing low-wards? Sharing my time equally between earthly affairs and their external models, or cutting myself off more from On High? So, last Sunday, as I rose from sleep to yet another beautiful day, a Sunday such as the day I was born 70 calendar years ago,  I could not but remind myself of that golden question: MAN: HOW DO YOU STAND in respect of the fulfillment of the purpose of my existence on earth, and of my relationship with God. Then, I thought it should be worth sharing with you.

    Man, how do you stand?

  • Dangote seeks more health funding

    Dangote seeks more health funding

    Our Reporter

    Chairman, Aliko Dangote Foundation and Africa’s foremost philanthropist, Aliko Dangote, has urged governments to increase budgetary allocations to the healthcare sector to enhance improved basic healthcare for Africans.

    Dangote spoke at the formal certification of Wild Poliovirus Eradication in Africa during a virtual forum by the World Health Organisation (WHO) Regional Office for Africa.

    He expressed deep satisfaction at the final eradication of wild polio in Nigeria, and by extension Africa after years of hard work and collaboration among stakeholders.

    The renowned humanitarian, who was commended alongside Co-Chair of Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Bill Gates by President Muhammadu Buhari for their vital interventions in the strengthening of Routine Immunisation (RI) in Nigeria, pledged to devote more of his wealth to support the provision of adequate quality healthcare to curb maternal and child mortality.

    READ ALSO: Dangote Cement promo produces 15 new millionaires in Ogun, Kwara

    Dangote, who played a major role through his Foundation in the eradication of Polio in Nigeria, said: “Ending wild polio in Africa is a giant leap forward. We have shown that if we stay clear-eyed and committed to a goal, we can get results.

    “We must always be tenacious to get where we want to go. I know Bill understands that too. We need to apply the same mindset on public health across Africa, beginning with us here today. The onus is on us to continue this push forward until polio in all its forms is gone forever.”

    He added: “There is no better time than now. We must be dedicated to this fight, and make the sustained investments in immunisations, medical workers, and public health that will make a difference.

    “We must also make a sustained political commitment – until the job is done – that we will achieve this goal. And that we will hold ourselves accountable for the results, good or bad.

    “I also pledge to continue helping in this fight any way I can. I believe the private sector and government are natural partners.”

  • Nigeria, Africa free of wild poliovirus – WHO

    Nigeria, Africa free of wild poliovirus – WHO

    Moses Emorinken, Abuja

    The independent Africa Regional Certification Commission (ARCC) for Polio Eradication officially declared on Tuesday that the World Health Organization (WHO) African Region is free of wild poliovirus.

    This marks the eradication of the second virus from the face of the continent since smallpox 40 years ago.

    The last case of wild poliovirus in the region was detected in 2016 in Nigeria. Since 1996, polio eradication efforts have prevented up to 1.8 million children from crippling life-long paralysis and saved approximately 180 000 lives.

    In a statement made available to newsmen, the ARCC Chairperson, Professor Rose Gana Fomban Leke, said, “Today is a historic day for Africa. The African Regional Certification Commission for Polio eradication (ARCC) is pleased to announce that the Region has successfully met the certification criteria for wild polio eradication, with no cases of the wild poliovirus reported in the Region for four years.

    “The ARCC’s decision comes after an exhaustive, decades-long process of documentation and analysis of polio surveillance, immunization, and laboratory capacity of the region’s 47 member states, which included conducting field verification visits to each country.”

    In 1996, African Heads of State committed to eradicating polio during the Thirty-Second Ordinary Session of the Organization of African Unity in Yaoundé, Cameroon. At the time, polio was paralysing an estimated 75,000 children, annually, on the African continent.

    In the same year, Nelson Mandela with the support of Rotary International jumpstarted Africa’s commitment to polio eradication with the launch of the Kick Polio Out of Africa campaign. Mandela’s call mobilized African nations and leaders across the continent to step up their efforts to reach every child with the polio vaccine.

    The WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, described Africa’s attainment of the wild poliovirus free status as a momentous milestone for Africa. She said that future generations of African children can now live free of wild polio.

    “This historic achievement was only possible thanks to the leadership and commitment of governments, communities, global polio eradication partners, and philanthropists. I pay special tribute to the frontline health workers and vaccinators, some of whom lost their lives, for this noble cause.

    “However, we must stay vigilant and keep up vaccination rates to avert a resurgence of the wild poliovirus and address the continued threat of vaccine-derived polio.

    “The expertise gained from polio eradication will continue to assist the African region in tackling COVID-19 and other health problems that have plagued the continent for so many years and ultimately move the continent toward universal health coverage. This will be the true legacy of polio eradication in Africa,” she said.

    READ ALSO: JUST IN: WHO declares Nigeria, Africa polio-free

    While the eradication of wild poliovirus from the WHO African Region is a major achievement, 16 countries in the region are currently experiencing cVDPV2 outbreaks, which can occur in under-immunized communities.

    According to the Coordinator of WHO Polio Eradication Programme in the African Region Dr. Pascal Mkanda, “Africa has demonstrated that despite weak health systems, significant logistical and operational challenges across the continent, African countries have collaborated very effectively in eradicating wild poliovirus.

    “With the innovations and expertise that the polio programme has established, I am confident that we can sustain the gains, post-certification, and eliminate cVDPV2.”

    Thanks to the dedication of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, polio cases have reduced by 99.9 percent since 1988, bringing the world closer than ever before to ending polio. The initiative is a public-private global partnership comprising national governments; WHO; Rotary International; the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; UNICEF; the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance; and a broad range of long-term supporters.

    The WHO Regional Director for Africa appointed the 16-member Africa Regional Certification Commission for Polio Eradication in 1998 with the mandate to oversee the certification process and act as the only body to certify the African Region to have eradicated the wild poliovirus.

  • Malnutrition: 68 children die in Niger

    Malnutrition: 68 children die in Niger

    Justina Asishana – Minna

    No fewer than sixty-eight (68) children have died as a result of severe acute malnutrition in Niger state.

    The Niger state Nutrition Officer, Hajiya Asmau Mohammed disclosed this at a two-day review meeting on allocation, releases, and utilization of nutrition budget with key stakeholders from the Legislature and Nutrition Line Ministries in Niger state organized by the Civil Society Scaling Up Nutrition in Nigeria (CS-SUNN).

    It would be recalled that in March, the state Nutritionist had said that 46 deaths had been recorded from October 2019 to March 2020.

    Speaking to Nutrition stakeholders during the review meeting, MOHAMMED said that the deaths occurred in the Community Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM) centre And Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) centres in the state.

    She said that the centres had recorded 3999 admissions of malnutrition cases with over 397 defaulters.

    Giving the breakdown, she said that the CMAM Center in Mariga during the period under review got a total admission of 3,595 discharging 3,135 adding that there were 379 defaulters and 35 death.

    In the SAM Centers which is in seven secondary health facilities across the state, there was total admission of 404 with 298 discharged adding that 55 are currently on admission and there have been 18 defaulters and 33 deaths.

    The Nutrition Officer who commended the government for the release of funds for nutrition in the state said that there has been an improvement in the releases of funds but stated that more needs to be done in order for the state to get away from the negative indices of malnutrition.

    The Executive Director of the Niger state Primary Healthcare Development Agency, Dr. Ibrahim Dangana stated that the activities of the Agency have been severely hampered by the non-release of funds.

    READ ALSO: Fear over malnutrition heightens

    He said that there are no adequate logistics to embark on monitoring and evaluation of funds released to primary healthcare centres to ensure that the funds are used judiciously.

    Dangana said that the Agency needs motorcycles and Hilux vans to carry out adequate monitoring and evaluation of the services offered and the acceptance of the people towards this serviced.

    In his remark, the Speaker of the Niger state House of Assembly, Honorable Abdullahi Bawa Wuse stated his support towards ensuring that there is an improvement in the funding and release of nutrition budget in the state.

    The Project Manager of Civil Society Scaling-up Nutrition in Nigeria, C-SUNN National, Okonkwo Sunday stated that one of the critical challenges that drive malnutrition is lack of funding which the pre-budget review meeting seeks to address.

    “The truth is that allocations are made but they are not released as at when due and even when little resources are released, sometimes, they are not usually used for what they are supposed to be used for, we are here to look at some of the challenges, proffer solutions, and push that whatever decisions are made should be implemented.”

    He said that the objective of the meeting is to resolve the best way to move forward and eradicate malnutrition in the state totally.