‘50 Million Nigerians Affected By Insurgency’

Prof. Isaac Adewole

Fifty million Nigerians are affected by insurgency, the Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, said yesterday. He noted that the proportion of the citizens directly or indirectly affected were all over the country and not just the over two million Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) in the Northeast.

Adewole added that more people were affected from fears generated by Boko Haram.

The minister spoke yesterday in Abuja at a special meeting on humanitarian programmes in the Northeast organized by the United Nations Funds for Population Activities (UNFPA) in collaboration with his ministry.

He described his ministry’s new slogan as “every life and death counts in the country”.

The Nation report continues:

The minister said he had met with the country’s chief medical directors and asked them to report to him monthly on the number of deaths that occurred.

His words: “If we fail to address the challenges of the Northeast, the consequence on the entire nation will be drastic.

“We are only looking at the tip of the iceberg by talking of two million internally displaced, of which 1.9 million are found in Adamawa, Borno, Gombe and Adamawa. But the proportions of Nigerians affected could be 50 million directly and indirectly because, even the people in Lagos and Ogun are also affected by it.

“There are fears and things are no longer the same; let us face the challenges to prevent it from snowballing”

Adewole added: “There is a thin line between life and death. Our slogan is that every life will count in this country; but as every life counts, every death will also count. I met with the chief medical directors yesterday and I said that every death will be accounted for.

“As we have counted life, we want to count death and prevent death. I told them that every month; they have to report back to us on the number of deaths that have occurred in the country.

“The Northeast is an agenda that is a priority. Just as we dealt with Polio and Ebola, I am sure that with a committed leadership and organized initiative and funds being made available, we will also do well in the Northeast; we will put healthcare in the door steps of those who need it.

“The Presidential initiative is to develop the health responds and provide leadership. What we want to see from this gathering is a submission that we can readily transcribe to the Presidential initiative so that we can address the challenges.

“We are working with other sectors, be in the education or military, to ensure that we deliver health to the people.

The minister said he was determined to reverse the usual practice in the ministry and its agencies.

“We are working with the National Primary Health Care Development Agency; we want to deliver primary health care under one roof and engage state governments.

“We will invest in them and want them to show responsibility; we want them to be accountable because nothing seriously is happening in this sector. You see people with malaria and eczema going to teaching hospitals, and that is not what the teaching hospitals are for. We need to address health care challenges at the primary healthcare level closer to the people.

“What we are trying to do in the next couple of weeks is to organize a pot of money and then call our partners to see what we have and how we can partner with them; and in doing this, we will need to be responsible to the Nigerian people. As we spend money, we need to be accountable to the people. It is not enough to just write programmes, but to also write financial reports.”