By Abubakar
Jimoh
The Bauchi State Traditional Ruler, Emir
of Dass, Alhaji Usman Bilyaminu Othman has said the traditional and religious
institutions in the State would continue to be in the forefront advocating for the
fulfilment of related commitments in child and family health by the government.
The traditional ruler made this known
during a dialogue session on child and family health with the media organised
by Federation of Muslim Women Association in Nigeria (FOMWAN) under the aegis
of Partnership for Advocacy in Child and Family Health (PACFaH) in Bauchi
state, during the weekend.
He said: “The traditional, religious
and community leaders will intensify advocacy to ensure sustainable routine immunization,
management of childhood killer diseases, apart from encouraging the communities
to embrace appropriate nutrition status. Also, Islam is
not against family planning and immunization. I therefore encourage parents to immunize
their children to build a healthy society.”
In a paper titled “PACFaH: A Roadmap
to Achieving Effective Child and Family Health in Nigeria”, Abdullahi Ibrahim
representing FOMWAN discussed extensively on PACFaH four issue areas— Family
planning, Nutrition, Routine Immunization, and Childhood Killer Diseases.
According to him, Nigeria currently
occupies the top position of the most populous country in Africa with a
population of over 175million people and ranks as the tenth most populous in
the world. “Women constitute a large proportion of this population.
The presenter noted that 576 women
out of every 100,000 live births, die as a result of these pregnancies and
childbirths (This figure translates to 111 women and young girls dying daily or
5 women every hour), revealing that up
to 30% of these are deaths can be prevented by increasing access to and uptake
of contraceptives.
He lamented that despite the progress
made in Family Planning (FP) through a supportive policy environment and
provision of free contraceptives in public sector facilities available evidence
shows that budgetary provisions for FP in Nigeria is grossly inadequate to
allow individuals and couples to anticipate and attain their desired number of
children and the spacing and timing of their births.
Ibrahim urged the traditional and
religious leaders on enhanced advocacy to policy makers for adequate funding
for Family Planning programmes implementation.
On nutrition, he explained that
nutrition is a multi-disciplinary issue best addressed through well-coordinated
and multi-sectoral approaches, stating that the adoption and implementation of
the National Strategic Plan of Action on Nutrition (NSPAN) 2014-2019 will
improve maternal and child nutrition in Nigeria.
Ibrahim emphasized that malnutrition
is a condition that occurs when people consistently do not consume or absorb
the right amounts and types of food and essential nutrients. “Globally, it contributes to nearly half of
all child deaths-that is more than 3 million children each year. The main
indicator for malnutrition is stunting- when children are too short for their
age. Stunted children have poor physical growth and brain development,
preventing them from thriving and living up to their full potential.”
The presenter urged the traditional
and religious leaders on intensive advocacy for the implementation of the
National Strategic Plan of Action on Nutrition at every level, with emphasis on
maternal and child nutrition by government in the state.
He called for strategic advocacy to the
government to: increase domestic budget for RI and ensure timely release of
funds for vaccines procurement and logistics; promote access to needed health
care; establishment of vaccine intervention fund (VIF) to draw contributions
from public and private sources;
strengthen the accountability mechanism for RI in line with National
Routine Immunization Strategic Plan, to make working groups (Finance,
indicators, advocacy and mobilization) more functional.
Ibrahim further highlighted that
childhood pneumonia and diarrhoea are leading killers of children under the age
of 5 years with over 1.5 million children die globally and more than 400,000 in
Nigeria. He called on the traditional and religious institutions to advocate to
government to take concrete steps for the reduction in the death of children
under age 5 through: adoption of Amoxicillin Dispersible tablet (DT) as the
first line therapy (FLT) in the standard treatment guideline for childhood
pneumonia and its inclusion on the Essential Medicines List (EML); adoption of
Zn/ORS as First Line Therapy for the treatment of childhood diarrhea; creation
of a specific budget line for Amoxicillin DT/Zn/ORS in the Ministry of Finance;
and increase (funding, procurement and distribution) of the child health
commodities-Amoxicillin DT & Zn/ORS co-packed.
The Chief Imam of Bauchi Central
Mosque, Ustaz Bala Ahmad Babban Inna explained that while Islam is not against
family planning, new born is recommended to be exclusively breastfed for two
years. “The essence of family planning is to secure the health of the mother
and child before going for another pregnancy. Religious Leaders will continue
to support all efforts to secure lives of mother and child through enlightenment
and education during sermons and other fora.
Also, the Chairman of Christian
Association of Nigeria (CAN) Bauchi State Chapter, Reverend Ray Maina
represented by the Association’s Youth Chairman, Reverend Mako Gwamis promised
that CAN will organize similar exercise to Christian faithful on the need to
embrace all policies and programmes aimed at improving child and family health.
Similarly, a representative of
Jama’atu Nasril Islam (JNI), Abdulrahaman A. Ghani reiterated that the Muslim
Community’s commitment in carrying out aggressive public awareness on the
importance of family planning and other child and family health related issues,
calling for concerted efforts toward proper upbringing of children to enable
them attain their full potentials to become better citizens.
