The pervasive scourge of malnutrition in Nigeria

The fact that little Ibrahim and his mother are both healthy and thriving in Yalwa flies in the face of malnutrition statistics for Jigawa and northern Nigeria as a whole. Jigawa bears the highest burden of malnourished children in Nigeria, where 62.7% of children under-five are stunted, 11.9% are wasted and 40.2% are underweight. UNICEF estimates that a staggering 2.5 million children suffer from severe acute malnutrition in Nigeria, with an alarming 2.2 million (88%) of those children in Northern Nigeria.

These numbers are large, and the reasons behind them are many. The continued insurgency in the North-East, ravaging poverty, and illiteracy have all played their part in entrenching the malnutrition crisis in Northern Nigeria. Compounding the already dire situation is the consistent lack of nutrition funding by state governments in Northern Nigeria, lack of political will to implement existing policies, continued reliance on donor agencies and international partners to finance nutrition interventions, and to a large extent utter negligence of the growing malnutrition problem by local and state political office holders.

In the face of these challenges, little Ibrahim’s community of Yalwa seems to have found a way to beat the odds when it comes to nutrition. Ibrahim’s mother is full of smiles when asked how she has managed to keep Ibrahim so boisterous and healthy. She speaks Hausa haltingly, but is eager to share her story. “My son Ibrahim has been eating healthy foods since he was in my womb,” she says, then laughs as she continues to explain that when she was pregnant, she made sure she followed the advice given to her by the health workers in the Yalwa Community Clinic, as well as attending ante-natal clinic days. She and other pregnant women in Yalwa also received training on nutrition and hygiene from a special group of volunteers.

“I ate vegetables, carrots, water melon, soya beans, groundnuts,” she says, adding, “I used to buy meat and fish once in a while. I cooked eggs, and made sure my soup was full of tomatoes, spinach and palm oil. I also drank malt and milk.” She says that after the baby was born, she fed him with only breast milk for the first six months after which she introduced him to lighter foods such as pap made from moringa or groundnuts, eggs and soya beans.

Ibrahim has a brother who is four years older. His mother says that Ibrahim at his current age is healthier and smarter, compared to his older brother at the same age. She says this is because her older son was born at a time the community had no knowledge about child nutrition and how to keep their children healthy.

Evidence suggests that using community volunteers to both sensitize and teach pregnant women proper nutrition from locally sourced foods, combined with a nutrition-focused conditional cash transfer system may give communities like Yalwa added advantages in the fight against child malnutrition in Northern Nigeria.

According to the Director of Primary Healthcare in Buji LGA, an estimated 4,000 women are benefitting from the program in Buji LGA alone. “We knew malnutrition is the cause of many problems, but we never thought a program would come from either the state or local government or any organisation that could address this issue like this one is currently doing,” he said.

Despite these gaps, still, today in Yalwa, children like little Ibrahim are exclusively breastfed for six months, then gradually introduced to semi solid nutrient-filled foods like ground nut pap, soya beans, and moringa. Their mothers access most of these foods locally and keep themselves properly nourished while pregnant, with the help of a cadre of knowledgeable health workers, community volunteers and a conditional cash transfer system that provides them funds to purchase nourishing foods for themselves and their children. This is a significant achievement in light of the prevalence of malnutrition in northern Nigeria, and is an important reference point for others, be it state or local governments looking for models with which to tackle their community’s under-5 nutrition concerns in Nigeria.

-NigeriaHealthwatch

Bashar Abubakar