Nigeria’s First
Lady, Aisha Buhari on Saturday, November 12, 2016 in Abuja humbled
herself by leading many Nigerians to a walk to draw attention to the
increasing rate of malnutrition in Internally Displaced Persons camps in
the North East.
The event which was also attended by
some victims from selected IDPs camps in Abuja, with the theme: “Charity
Walk Against Malnutrition: Serve a meal to save a soul”, was jointly
organised by Victims of Violence Charity Foundation, a Non-Governmental
Organisation; World Medical Relief, Detroit, USA; Society of Petroleum
Engineers and supported by SUNTrust Bank.
Apart from Aisha Buhari, other
personalities who participated in the walk include the Managing Director
of SUNTrust Bank, Muhammad Jibrin; wife of Governor of Zamfara State,
Hajia Asmau Abdullaziz Yari; chairman/CEO of Victims of Violence Charity
Foundation, a Non-Governmental Organisation, Sulaiman Gumi; West Africa
Coordinator, World Medical Relief, Detroit, USA, Dr. Isa Abubakar
Saddiq and FCT section chairman, Society of Petroleum Engineers, Salau
Tahir.
The First Lady who was represented by
wife of Nasarawa State governor, Hajia Miriam Al-Makura, said the walk
would have a great impact on the fight against malnutrition in the
country, particularly in the North East.
She said, “This is an awareness walk;
for people who don’t know, when they see us walking, they will ask what
is happening. And people will tell them this is an awareness walk for
people with malnutrition in the IDP camps. I think it will go a long way
in uplifting the life of people living in the IDP camps.
“The First Lady has asked me to
represent her in this very laudable project. Like you know she (Aisha
Buhari) has a passion for women, children and the youths of this country
and her program “Future Assured”, has done a lot in collaboration with
other organisations to uplift the living standard of people living in
the IDP camps in Maiduguri, Yola and other places.
“That is why she has asked me personally
to be here to represent her and she has asked me to call on
well-meaning Nigerians to come to the aid of the people living in the
IDP camps. That is why we have an organization like this, the Federal
Government cannot do it alone. We need people and philanthropists to
come out and assist in whichever way they can.”
The wife of Governor of Zamfara State,
Hajia Asmau Abdullaziz Yari, said anything that has to do with
malnutrition campaign for children and the less-privileged would be
interesting to wives of Governors.
“Wives of Governors will play a
passionate role in that and I think we are all aware of what the First
Lady Hajia Aisha Buhari has done about malnutrition and we have all
keyed into this programme. As wives of governors, this is something like
creating awareness for Nigerians to see where the problem is, how to
tackle it and how to go about it. So, really this is charity walk and it
is really worth coming out, it is really worth doing. I am proud of the
organisers of this walk”, she stressed.
According to her, although Zamfara State
“is a very conservative state”, she would convene a women’s forum and
other stakeholders that would show them the extent of malnutrition,
adding “but not necessary a walk.”
Gumi recalled that before he went to
Bama it was between five to six children dying of malnutrition almost
everyday, adding that after about two months with intervention from
VoVCF and other INGOs, “we stopped seeing death rates and people started
recovering.”
He said, “The malnutrition is there but
it only gets exposed when diseases like cholera and diarrhoea comes into
play and start claiming children. At that time, dysentery and was
claiming the children but after sometime, it got better. The beauty of
what we are trying to advocate for is that we have the local ingredient
that was used to solve the issue of malnutrition.
“We have sava meal which is produced
locally, we have been giving the IDPs, we keep it as part of the drugs
in all our mobile clinics, we give the child what to eat so the drugs
can work and that work wonders. The next step is to teach the IDPs what
to use to make the sava meal. It is very easy, you can source it from
local ingredients: sorghum, soya beans and groundnut which is readily
available instead of feeding the children with rice and spaghetti being
donated to them to help the children grow better and survive any kind of
disease.”
Also speaking, Saddiq suggested the use of local nutrition to check malnutrition in the IDPs camps.
“We can replicate the effects like soya
beans. It is not expensive; we have given the formula to victims of
violence and they are handling it. When victims of violence went to
Bama, the death rate was 40 children per day. But within two to three
weeks when they started using local diet as food nutrition, the death
rate reduced to zero per cent.”
The Vice chairman of Majiji IDPs camp in
Abuja, Bello Mohammaed, said VoVCF have been providing all the medical
facilities, food items and schools for the camp.
He said, “We have people from Adamawa,
Yobe and Borno stated in our camp, I am from Borno state. We are very
much eager to go, we are not comfortable, its only NGOs that help us,
government does not even recognise us as a camp.
“We are about 250 in Karon Majiji IDPs
camp along Airport Road. Apart from malnutrition, we still have issues
of food security, beddings, clothing and toiletries. We have about two
critical cases of malnutrition but they were able to rescue them. We did
not witness food diversion in our camp but there are others who have
been complaining of this but things are In order now.”
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