A university don, Prof. Priscilla Utoo has lamented that if 21 per cent of children under-five are stunted, 23 per cent are underweight, and 13.6 per cent are wasted in Benue State which is the food basket of the country because of malnutrition, then Nigeria is not safe in terms of food security.
Utoo, who is also the state deputy coordinator, Civil Society-Scaling Up Nutrition in Nigeria (CS-SUNN), disclosed that the above statistics are obtained from the Nigeria’s Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS 2018).
She as well attributed the non-approval of the State National Strategic Plan of Action for Nutrition (NSPAN), has hinder the multi-sectoral approach to tackling the problem of malnutrition among women and children in the state
This is even as Utoo informed that NSPAN has been domesticated in Benue since 2021 to provide a multi-sectoral approach to tackling the problem of malnutrition among women and children, but unfortunately, this strategic plan is yet to be approved by the Benue State government.
The university don who disclosed this during a visit of the association to the commissioner for health and human services, Dr. Yanmar Ortese in Makurdi to intimate him of the dangers of malnutrition on the citizenry explained how malnutrition can lead to stunting with adverse outcomes such as poor brain and cognitive development, a loss of two-to-three-year, poor school performance and diminished productivity in adulthood.
According to her, “malnutrition has remained a public health concern in Nigeria, which is also a major cause of death especially in women and children.”
To tackle this menace, she said, “the Nigerian government in collaboration with key stakeholders developed the National Strategic Plan of Action for Nutrition which sets out costed, nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive interventions with measurable targets to be achieved between 2014 and 2019”
Earlier, the commissioner for health and human services, Dr Yanmar Ortese said Gov. Hyacinth Alia has put health of the citizenry top most of his agenda as it can be seen in his move to be the first governor in the country to allocate 15 per cent of the state’s budget to the health sector.
According to him, “what the governor did was to comply with the Abuja Declaration of 2021 which clearly spelt out that 15 per cent of the government’s budget be allocated to health for the betterment of its citizenry.
