Nigeria’s First Lady and wife of the president, Aisha Buhari has sponsored a private bill at the Kano House of Assembly to tackle the menace of malnutrition in the state.
Concerned by the prevalent rate of malnutrition among children in Kano, with about two million children affected, the wife of the president through her foundation, Future Decides, is sponsoring a private Bill in the Kano House of Assembly to save the affected children.
Speaking to newsmen at a stakeholders meeting organized by the Aisha Buhari Foundation on Thursday, a member of the Kano State House of Assembly, Ali Isah Shanono said: “Already the state government has approved N4 Billion to tackle the prevalent rate of the menace of malnutrition among children”.
Shanono added that “apart from the N4 Billion approved funds to fight the malnutrition problems, there was also another N15 Billion set aside at the State Agricultural Development Agency”.
“We are highly concerned with the prevalence of malnourished children in the state, therefore urgent efforts to take decisive steps to tackle the issue will be taken”.
Theresa Maina, the Advocacy and Planning Director of the Aisha Buhari Foundation, said they have come together with stakeholders to come up with a desperate solution to the rising rates of malnutrition among children in Kano.
Maina said, “Malnutrition affects development by all standards as a stunted child could not even think well and that is why today many children could not pass their WEAC”.
“There is urgent needs to tackle the problem by exploring finances gaps that would make it easy to appropriate funds where necessary instead of just allocating monies to ministries without knowing their basic values” she stated.
Another stakeholder, Dr Omole Ukwedeh, who also spoke at the event said “today generally Nigeria is having the poorest budget on malnutrition. This is as 32 per cent of children are already having one form of malnutrition or the other.”
She added, “from every 100 children 58% were malnourished in 2017 still there are no desperate measures adopted to tackle the menace.”
