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Agency Reporter

A Medical Expert, Dr David Okorafor, has advised Nigerians to avoid unhealthy fatty foods and lifestyles that could lead to Non-Alcoholic Steatohepatitis (NASH).

He gave the advice during a webinar/Media Dialogue organised by Lafia Wealth Initiative, an NGO, to commemorate the 2021 International Non-Alcoholic Steatohepatitis (NASH) Day.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the day is marked every June 10 globally to raise visibility and urgency around fatty liver disease and its more advanced form which is NASH.

Okorafor, who described steatohepatitis as a type of fatty liver disease, characterised by inflammation of the liver with concurrent fat accumulation, said records had shown that 20 per cent of the world population have NASH.

He said “steatohepatitis is a silent killer disease because it has no major symptoms in the early stages.

“Obesity is one of the major causes of fatty liver, so there is need for people to cut down on calorie intake and know the appropriate and healthy fat for the body.

“We cannot do away with fat because the body needs it, but animal fat should be avoided to prevent fatty liver disease.

READ ALSO: 8 processed foods to beware of

“Exercise is also a good avenue to reduce or prevent obesity that may progress to fatty liver disease.

“Diabetes is also a leading cause of fatty liver disease.

“NASH disease is preventable, but the moment it progresses further to Cirrhosis (last stage of scarring of the liver),
nothing can be done to reverse it.”

According to him, five to 12 per cent of fatty liver disease usually progresses to NASH, leading to enlargement of the blood vessel.

On the prevalence of the disease in the country, Okorafor noted that there was no accurate data or statistics on NASH in the country.

He added that “statistics show that 20 per cent of the world population have NASH, but we don’t know the prevalence in the country because there is no information on it.

“Having such data or statistics will go a long way to help in implementing measures to tackle it.” (NAN)

The Anambra State government-owned Uhuowele/Oghalegbu Primary Health Centre in the Ihiala Local Government Area is unable to serve the residents amid an increasing need for healthcare services, no thanks to lack of facilities and medical personnel, writes FRANK IKPEFAN

The building is deserted; the wards are empty and personnel are absent except for a matron who signs her name in the attendance book – perhaps just to remind visitors that a human being exists in the hospital.

Like a plague, women now avoid the Anambra State government-owned Uhuowele/Oghalegbu Primary Health Centre in the Ihiala Local Government Area, despite an increasing need for healthcare services.

Since 2014 when the contract was awarded, the facility has been unable to serve the residents, particularly pregnant and nursing mothers, due to a lack of facilities and medical personnel.

 

N18m hospital

facility abandoned

 

In 2014, the contract for the building of the hospital was given out for N18million, but that only exists in the figure, as the people of the area had deserted the ill-equipped facility as a result of the absence of water, medical equipment and quality staff such as doctors and nurses.

This has left the fate of pregnant women and nursing mothers in the community to hang in the balance.

The healthcare centre currently boasts of only two nurses, perhaps just to mark attendance.

An Ihiala community advocate in the area explained how the state government had abandoned the facility and deprived the residents of quality medical care.

She said: “This is a project that was awarded in 2014 for N18million and the contract sum was actually N20million. But seven years after, here we are with a facility without common water and only one matron and one nurse. This is not acceptable.

“No fewer than 10,000 residents including pregnant women and nursing mothers should be using this primary health centre but it is moribund. This should serve as a wake-up call to the government.”

The government hospital in Oghalegbu Uhuowelle Ward in Okija has no fence and is vulnerable to attacks as there is also no security personnel.

“The hospital is like a ghost centre. We prefer to use traditional healthcare or private hospitals than to risk our lives in that hospital. They don’t have drugs. They don’t have doctors and they don’t have any standard. So, nobody is going there for any treatment,” a resident, Esther Adaobi said.

A worker at the hospital who pleaded anonymity stated that she hoped the state government would remember them one day and attend to the urgent needs and facilities lacking in the health centre.

 

Maternal   mortality

rate still on the high side

 

In Nigeria, maternal mortality is still on the increase because of poorly equipped government hospitals such as in the Ihiala.

According to the Journal of Global Health Reports, the maternal mortality ratio has remained high in Nigeria in the last two decades, with the country currently accounting for about 20 per cent of the global maternal deaths.

Nigeria’s Maternal mortality ratio (MMR) is alarming. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the MMR of Nigeria is 814 (per 100,000 live births).

The lifetime risk of a Nigerian woman dying during pregnancy, childbirth, postpartum or post-abortion is 1 in 22, in contrast to the lifetime risk in developed countries estimated at 1 in 4900.

According to the journal, the current evidence suggests that the high rate of maternal and neonatal mortality in Nigeria is linked to the three forms of maternal delay; one, the delay in making the decision to seek maternal health care; two, the delay in locating and arriving at a medical facility; and three, the delay in receiving skilled pregnancy care when the woman gets to the health facility.

Nigeria indeed has about 34,000 Primary Health Centres but studies show that maternal mortality in Nigeria would only reduce if there is an improvement in the quality of care provided within the health facilities.

 

PPDC intervenes

 

While the ill-equipped Uhuowele/Oghalegbu Primary Health Centre in Ihiala seems to be out of government’s attention, a civic organisation, Public and Private Development Centre, Abuja, which advocates for open contracting and procurement data, accentuated the plight of the facility in a recent outreach.

The PPDC officials sent monitors to the hospital and met with about 35 civil societies in the state and community leaders on how to salvage the deplorable situation.

“Our intervention under this project prioritises citizen engagement and mobilisation for action, by repositioning citizens in our pilot states to query contract outcomes across all levels and contribute to policy choices that impact their lives.

“Our strategy included sharpening advocacy and dialogue skills of local CSOs and their capacity; improving the local community’s capacity to understand and use civic-tech platforms for contract analysis and investigation, reporting, and advocacy for system improvement,” an official said.

The PPDC Program Officer, Nonye Akubuo, added that the activities of the trained CSOs in its programmes included contract monitoring and reporting.

It was observed that at the hospital, apart from the lack of personnel, there is also no provision for People Living With Disabilities.

“Like it is common with government hospitals where there is no special provision for physically challenged women – be it, pregnant women or nursing mothers – so you have in Ihiala. This is wrong and this is part of the advocacy that we are doing,” one of the civil societies’ officials said.

Meanwhile, PPDC Akubuo said, the team of monitors visited the Uhuowelle community in Okija on April 14 and engaged stakeholders to discuss the contract implementation of primary health care centres as it affected their respective communities – not only Ihiala.

“In attendance were the traditional heads in each community, women groups, youth groups, community health extension workers, and People Living With Disabilities (PLWDs).

“The engagement provided an opportunity to educate the community stakeholders on how to effectively monitor projects awarded in their communities and how to properly channel their grievances for immediate actions. Furthermore, it allowed the stakeholders to share their challenges being faced as a result of the poor state of the PHC and other pressing socio-economic needs which was documented by our team to use in ongoing advocacy strategies in the state,” she said.

Speaking for the Anambra State government, the Director, Community Health, of the Anambra Primary Health Care Development Agency, Dr Umeh Frank, promised at the meeting in April that the state government would attend to Ihiala hospital and other such hospitals in need of urgent facilities and provide them with the necessary equipment.

It is not clear, however, how long the residents have to wait for the government to commence work and fulfil its promise on the abandoned hospital.

 

The National Agricultural Land Development Authority (NALDA) was resuscitated on June 1, 2020 by President Muhammadu Buhari to develop rural communities through agriculture. JULIANA AGBO examines its role in the last one year.

In quest to produce what Nigerians eat and create employment opportunities for youth and women,  the National Agricultural Land Development Authority (NALDA) is supporting the drive for food and fibre security while assisting in diversifying the nation’s economy, improving household incomes, enhancing revenue mobilisation and generation.

The authority, which was established in 1992 but went into extinction in 2000, was resuscitated in 2020 to harness the full potentials of the vast arable lands in Nigeria to empower small holder and large scale farmers.

Presenting its one year scorecard to reporters, Executive Secretary of NALDA, Prince Paul Ikonne, said the Authority has identified and recovered its farm estates in Gombe, Borno, Adamawa, Taraba, Niger, Kebbi, Oyo, Imo, Katsina, Lagos, Ekiti, Delta, Bauchi, Yobe, Kaduna, Benue, Kogi, Osun, Anambra, Akwa Ibom and Abia States.

Ikonne noted that NALDA has commenced the reactivation in phases, said the Authority has recovered lands in 21 states so far.

However, stakeholders in the agricultural sector who commended NALDA’s initiative and achievement so far, said year-round employment will be generated in the rural area and increase the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

 

NALDA soil doctors

 

Under this programme, the agency said it would train and engage 30,000 youth as soil doctors across the 36 states including FCT.

According to NALDA, the long term goal of the programme centres on engaging young Nigerian into the scientific method of farming to aid better crop yields and food security across the Nation.

It said the core essence of the engagement programme is geared towards creating a pool of qualified Nigerian youth who will carry out soil tests, soil management and extension services for farmers across the nation at a very subsidised rate.

“The programme is targeted at young Nigerian graduates who have a background in agriculture or sciences, the potential graduate must be passionate about agribusiness and food security in Nigeria.

“The young doctors will assist farmers to evaluate their soil, identify soil nutrients and prescribe fertilisers and crops suitable for their farm lands for a better yield,” it said.

Ikonne said the animal husbandry programme has recorded huge success as the agency has harvested over 30,000 litres of rabbit urine and 1,000kg of rabbit droppings, which are being used as fertiliser having subjected it to lab analysis and the rabbit farmers are making income from this.

“The beauty of the rabbit-rearing programme is in harvesting the rabbit waste (urine and droppings) which are sources of an organic fertiliser due to its richness in nitrogen.

“This will help us to grow organic food, which is healthier for human consumption and our aim is to export the organic fertiliser,” he said.

On training and empowerment of 30,000 soil doctors, Ikonne said the program had since commenced and over 500 Soil doctors have been trained in Borno and Jigawa states.

“The essence of this is to equip young graduates with agriculture or science backgrounds with the knowledge of extension services, which include soil testing and analysis and they are being given soil-testing kits in order for them to earn a living while ensuring our farmers are being equipped with best agricultural practices for greater output.

“This programme is in partnership with the state governments,” he said.

In line with NALDA’s mandate of achieving food security, he said they have embarked on establishing fish villages to engage rural women in fish production and packaging in some pilot States of Borno and Abia states.

“In Borno, we have started construction of the fish villages in 10 locations out of the 50 locations provided by the Borno State government to engage 2,200 women. While in Abia, the fish village in one location is 40 percent completed,” he said.

Bem Shija, a fish farmer, said with presence of NALDA in states, many young farmers have indicated interest to be trained in fish farming so as to get value for it.

While noting that NALDA has initiated a programme called NALDA Integrated Farms to be established in the 109 senatorial districts across the country, the executive secretary said they have reached out to the leadership of the Senate for Senators to facilitate land donation with the state governments.

In preparation for the wet season farming, Ikonne assured that NALDA is prepared for the wet season farming across the country on the recovered  farm estates.

He added that the state coordinators where the wet season farming will take place have been fully briefed and are prepared, as they have received more land donations from communities in Akwa Ibom, Cross River Yobe, and Adamawa States, among others.

Ikonne who also said NALDA engaged in dry season farming of rice in some pilot States of Adamawa, Niger, Yobe, Taraba and Bauchi, noted that farmers were trained on dry season farming of which they were not used to and we are expecting harvest in the coming weeks.

“NALDA provided all the farmers required for farming ranging from tractors, boreholes, pumping machines, planters and transplanters, fertiliser and seeds.

“We have a vision to position agriculture in the minds of young Nigerians as business.

“Our major aim is not only to achieve food security in Nigeria, but to show that Nigeria can work through this NALDA integrated farm estate.

This project is directly impacting the rural people in Nigeria, NALDA’s core mandate is to develop the rural area, develop agriculture.

“This will be owned by farmers from the community, that’s why we have reached out to senators so that every senator in collaboration with the state government will donate land within their senatorial zone so that we can have them integrated within the country.”

 

Economic benefits

 

Ikonne said the ongoing NALDA project will not only achieve food security, but will reduce unemployment drastically.

”The benefit of engaging our rural women into fish farming and production is not only for local consumption but also for export in order to earn foreign currency”.

An economic expert, Jide Andrew who spoke to The Nation, said the ongoing project initiated by NALDA would encourage industrial development.

”As demand for agricultural products rises around the world, this is the time for the country to grow agribusiness, we have a lot of resources to tap wealth from,” Andrew said.

By Laurence Ani

The absence of green spaces in most Nigerian cities often makes them no more than concrete jungles. Green spaces, of which parks are an essential part, enhance a city’s liveability, and represent a vital escape from the madding crowd. In their absence, a city loses its soul. Sitting amid the humdrum of traffic and straddling about nine hectares of land, the Enugu Unity Park is a welcome development to this urban decay noticeable in many cities.

But it might have as well succumbed to the kind of municipal pressures that led to the unwholesome conversion of green belts in the first place, particularly given the early pre-eminence of Enugu owing to the discovery of coal deposits under its soil in 1909. The governor of the state, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, made allusion to this during the formal launch of Enugu Unity Park on Saturday, May 29. “The early colliery activity, growth in population and other commercial activities thus put pressure on land and housing in the city. The efforts of successive administrations to increase the housing stock in the city led to the de-zoning of most of the residual open spaces, green spaces and recreational areas,” he said.

These mindless conversions carried out in the past blighted the city’s ambiance and left its tourism potential sub-optimized. For a city steeped in such remarkable history, the residents yearned for a change. The governor’s approval of the development of the Unity Park, Enugu, in October 2019, was response to that yearning. The park’s location, formerly a motley of wooded land strewn with eucalyptus trees, originally served as eco protection for the openness of Okpara Square. Its greenery is an eco-friendly contrast to the concrete behemoths in Enugu’s three-arm zone comprising the house of assembly, high courts, the Government House, and sundry business organizations.

A major highlight of every visit to the Unity Park is a majestic sculpture of a roaring lion measuring 42ft high, 72ft long and 24ft wide. Remarkably, the lion sculpture wasn’t conceived simply as an artistic object. Its purpose is multifunctional, as the design includes an air-conditioned cavernous interior that can sit about 50 persons.

Designed by Dr. Okey Ikenegbu, a former director of school of art, design and print technology at the Institute of Management and Technology, the left frontal limb of the lion sculpture has a spiral stairway that visitors could use to ascend the hall and also descend. There is as well an emergency exit ladder and a void on the right frontal limb for possible installation of an elevator for the physically-challenged and the elderly. Ikenegbu who was assisted by 12 student-sculptors from IMT also drew on the expertise of professionals in fields such as architecture, engineering and quantity surveyor.

“It is widely believed that this masterpiece currently interrogates existing world record in lion sculpture, and we would apply to the World Records Organization to review this and allocate to us our rightful place in world history,” the governor said.

The Unity Park also features a 1.9km pedestrian walk, large, four feet-deep water pond with area of about 1500sq.m, deep enough to offer the hydro-dynamics for boat rides. Other features include sheltered relaxation areas, children’s play area with swings and sand dunes. In the night, the park is illuminated with 400 lamps powered by both the national grid and solar energy sources, further adding to its allure. There are, as well, well-kept lavatories for park users’ convenience, and perimeter fencing with a modern gatehouse.

So, it’s not an indulgent self-praise when Governor Ugwuanyi noted that the serene ambiance of the Unity Park is like no other, because few places offer a serene getaway from the hustle and bustle of municipal life as does the park. “It conduces to relaxation, deep reflection, and critical thinking. We’re glad to offer the people of Enugu State an opportunity to relive the past,” the governor said.

Indeed, there is hardly anyone who has not been bowled over by the Unity Park’s beauty. A Facebook post by Bianca Odumegwu Ojukwu, Nigeria’s former ambassador to Spain and widow of Eze Igbo Gburugburu, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, offers a glimpse: “Enugu now has a new and picturesque tourist attraction. I can’t wait to visit! Kudos to the visionary Governor of Enugu State, Dr. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, for saving this landmark stretch, in pursuance of his urban renewal drive. With this dexterous move, the forest reserve is secure and preserved for the people, and Enugu metropolis is better for it.”

The state’s culture and tourism commissioner, Ugonna Ibe, is just as excited. Beyond the park’s aesthetic splendour, however, he sees the potential economic benefits that its activities will have on the state’s income.

“Tourism is a veritable source of revenue to governments. It is estimated that globally in 2019, before the pandemic, the sector accounted for about 10.4% of world GDP, amounting to $2.9 trillion, while at the same period it employed about 334 million people globally directly or indirectly. It has the potential of creating other multiplier benefits in the economic and social life of the people,” he said at the park’s opening.

But for the many visitors who throng the park daily, the simple desire is to take a walk under a canopy of trees, feel the rustle of leaves under their feet, and experience the calm that comes from being lost in nature’s embrace.

• Ani, former editor of ThisDay – The Saturday Newspaper, and Saturday Telegraph, is a senior communications aide to the governor of Enugu State.