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#GlobalHandWashingDay:Toyin Saraki Warns ” If We Dont Wash Our Hands, It Will Ruin generations”

Published

6 years ago

October 15, 2018

Editor

By Toyin Saraki

Today, on Global Handwashing Day, the focus of the global health community is on the importance of handwashing with soap as a highly effective way to prevent the spread of disease and save lives. The evidence for handwashing is well-known – it can dramatically reduce the risk of diarrhoea and pneumonia, and thwarts the spread of diseases like Ebola. Access to clean water, good sanitation and hygiene is also a significant factor in the prevention of blindness caused trachoma.

Effective education and advocacy for handwashing is part of every successful plan to improve water, sanitation and hygiene conditions – commonly known as ‘WASH.’ Today therefore provides an opportunity to be a critical friend, to ask difficult questions about WASH standards in our own countries. Are we making sufficient progress towards achieving the WASH Sustainable Development Goals? Is a lack of investment in WASH putting the lives of thousands at risk as the spread of Ebola is made more likely? Are women and infants dying needlessly in labour rooms, with maternal sepsis taking a mother’s life at what should be the most joyous time?

When we ask these questions of Nigeria, the answers are deeply troubling. It is not just the current situational analysis which is so bleak, but also the direction of travel and the systematic failures to bring WASH standards up to an appropriate level for our population.

Last year the World Bank published its appropriately-named report “A Wake up Call – Nigeria Water Supply, Sanitation, and Hygiene Poverty Diagnostic.” I met with the water team at the World Bank this summer to discuss and analyse its conclusions, which were devastating. Only 29% of Nigerians have access to improved sanitation, and poor children are about four times more likely to get diarrheal disease than rich children due to poor access to WASH. Is this dire situation being effectively addressed? Well, 15% of completed works on public water infrastructure are considered to be of unsatisfactory quality, and nearly 30% of water points and water schemes fail within their first year of operation. Access to piped water on premises in urban areas has decreased substantially, from a level which was already critical. Across most water-utility indicators, Nigeria underperforms in comparison to African and global averages and needs to invest at least three times more than it does today to achieve the WASH sustainable development goals.

Nigerians, who have to put up with the daily dangers of poor WASH standards, can therefore have little confidence that future generations will be safer than they are. Can they really expect that their children and grandchildren will be able to bring their own children into the world safely, in a clean labour room? That their communities will not be ripped apart by diseases which could have been prevented with decent WASH conditions? WASH is at the heart of Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) and the fact that outbreaks of diseases have been so severe in Nigeria recently – with the WHO commenting that the Lass Fever outbreak this year was unprecedented – is no coincidence.

In truth, Nigeria is struggling to maintain its current infrastructure, inadequate as it is for the current population and entirely unfit for the years ahead. Government must lead the way, achieving economies of scale in densely populated areas by providing piped water and not forcing individual families or streets to rely on their own sources. As the World Bank report rightly highlights, this also allows for the proper regulation of groundwater, essential in the fight against pollution. For all of Nigeria, the tripling of current WASH spending is an absolute imperative.

There have been very recent encouraging signs from the Ministry of Water Resources in Nigeria, which is certainly embracing Global Handwashing Day enthusiastically, and in April of this year, the Federal Government declared a state of national WASH emergency, hinged upon a 13-year revitalization strategy. This must be properly funded and implemented across Nigeria.

Today I will be joining Wellbeing Foundation Africa’s outreach teams who are implementing our handwashing and WASH PSHE programme across Nigeria, reaching hundreds of children. That action follows our new partnership, announced last month, with Unilever Lifebuoy and Sightsavers. Together we have committed to improve hygiene practices and impact more than 2 million children over the next year. We are doing our part, as we have done for some time – now Nigeria must provide the necessary investment in WASH and honour its recent promises. Failure to do so will devastate generations of Nigerians to come.

Toyin Ojora Saraki is Founder President of Wellbeing Foundation Africa

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Breaking: Wike Plans to Attend Thursday’s PDP NEC Meeting

Published

1 day ago

April 17, 2024

Eric

By Eric Elezuo

The immediate past Governor of Rivers State, and Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Mr Nyesom Wike, may have concluded plans to attend the much advertised National Executive Council (NEC) meeting of the main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), billed to hold on Thursday, in Abuja.

Impeccable source, who is in the know, told The Boss that the minister, whose membership of the PDP is yet to be revoked even as he frolicks with the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), and serving in the President Bola Tinubu government as a minister.

The Source told The Boss that Wike’s impending presence at the NECeeting on Thursday is not unconnected with plans, already hatched with some governors, to weaken the opposition PDP.

“Yes, we have on good authority that FCT minister, Wike is planning to attend the NEC meeting tomorrow all in a bid to weaken the fabrics of the PDP, and pave the way for the continuation of the Tinubu administration come 2027, and by extension, relapse Nigeria to a full blown one party state.

“From every indication, Wike and his co-travellers, are bent on unleashing the same crisis ravaging the third force, Labour Party, and Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso’s Nigerian National People’s Party (NNPP) on the PDP for the APC to remain the only political party in the country, and ensure that Tinubu has no challenger, come 2027,” the Source said.

It would be recalled that Wike has boasted over and again that there’s no opposition against Tinubu’s re-emergence in 2027, and that they have made sure of that. He has been compensated with the Ministerial job after he withdrew support for his party, and supported the APC and Tinubu to emerge as national government.

The Source further revealed that in the attempt to actualize the intended one party state, a lot of funding is ongoing to ensure that concerned stakeholders are ‘settled’ handsomely.

Wike, prior, during and after the 2023 general elections, has been floating in between the two major political parties; the APC and the PDP. While he claim to still be a member of the PDP, he is functioning as a minister in an APC government, mocking the inability of his party to discipline him.

Political stakeholders have concluded that the outcome of Thursday’s PDP NEC meeting will determine the path Nigeria’s political trajectory will take, and that it may portend the end of multi-party system and political democracy if Wike succeeds in his plan.

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Bribery, Corruption: APC Suspends National Chairman, Ganduje

Published

4 days ago

April 15, 2024

Eric

The All Progressives Congress ward in Ganduje, Dawakin Tofa Local Government Area, has suspended the party’s National Chairman, Dr. Abdullahi Ganduje.

The party ward legal adviser, Halliru Gwanzo, announced the suspension while addressing newsmen in Kano State on Monday.

Gwanzo cited allegations of bribery against Ganduje levelled by the Kano State Government as the reason for the suspension.

“We decided to suspend Dr. Abdullahi Ganduje from the party due to the seriousness of the allegations against him,” Gwanzo said.

Meanwhile, efforts to contact the Chief Press Secretary to the APC National Chairman, Mr Edwin Olufo, failed as his mobile phone was unreachable.

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Akpabio Commits to Collaboration with Tinubu, Governor Umo Eno

Published

7 days ago

April 12, 2024

Admin

The President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, has stated his commitment to working closely with Nigeria’s President, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and Governor Umo Eno to ensure the delivery of democratic benefits to the people of Akwa Ibom State.

Akpabio stated this in his country home, Ukana, Essien Udim Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom, while briefing his constituents on the journey so far as their representative in the red chamber.

He assured the people of Akwa Ibom North West Senatorial District of his commitment to their welfare in appreciation of their total support for him, President Bola Tinubu and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in last year’s election.

The Highpoint of the constituency briefing was the distribution of over 10,000 bags of rice and other essentials for his constituents from the wards, to the local governments.

A statement by his Special Assistant on Media, Jackson Udom, quoted Akpabio as saying, “I am here once again, to thank you for standing by me, our President and the party, before, during and even after last year’s elections. I have come to say thank you and also bring Renewed Hope to you all.

“As the President is doing his own, the Senate President is also doing his bit and being complemented by the state governor, Akwa Ibom would be the better for it. We have finished elections and politics, we are now into governance. The governor of the state must touch you, because he is the governor of all the people in the state irrespective of political affiliation.

” As I am touching you now from the political angle, I will also touch the state without any political party affiliation. Most of the projects we are putting in place would be used by people resident in the state. Relax, things are getting better.”

The former Governor of the state, assured his constituents that his current position as the Senate President would be used for the development of the state in collaboration with the President and the Akwa Ibom State Governor.

Hear him: This Senate President is not the one that would be fighting the state government. I will collaborate with , I will collaborate with , to make the state better for us all. We cannot be out of government for a long time. You have to go to a government that carries you along”

Akpabio promised to work for his constituents and Nigeria with all his strength, noting that, “as the President of the Senate, I am for the Southern region and the entire country. I may not come here regularly to tell you what I have been doing for you, but you will be feeling the impact on way or the other. Our unemployed youths would be gainfully employed. I will construct a mini stadium in all the local governments in the district, for our youths to develop their sporting potentials. ”