It is the most populous Black nation in the world, the fifth largest producer of oil and Africa’s most popular country. Yet, reports from development organisations show that attaining the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), especially the health and poverty compenents, is near impossible for Nigeria, write OYEYEMI GBENGA-MUSTAPHA and WALE ADEPOJU
United Nations Secretary- General Ban Ki-moon holds job that compels him to scoff at global warming, rail against global violence and condemn poverty. But, when he, not too long ago, went on the offensive against maternal deaths, it was with some personal touches. He brought the reality to life and stressed that the millions of women and children who die from preventable deaths are not just mere statistics but people with names and faces.
Said he: “We must, therefore, do more for the teenage girl facing an unwanted pregnancy; for the married woman who has found she is infected with HIV Virus; and for the mother who faces complications in childbirth and for newborn who succumbs to infection for want of simple injection and for the young boy who will never reach his full potential because of malnutrition.”
Ki-moon touched on three of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which, eleven years ago, Nigeria and 188 other countries made a pledge to, within 15 years, address. The three are: reducing child mortality, combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, and eradicating extreme poverty and hunger.
Two of these 8 goals, which the then President Olusegun Obasanjo promised to fight, can only be achieved with a sound health sector. They are: improving maternal health and combating diseases. Significantly too, these two goals are somehow tied to the first goal of eradicating poverty.
A development expert in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Ibadan, Bolatito Lanre-Abass says: “Poverty is also a major cause of maternal mortality, as it prevents many women from getting proper and adequate medical attention due to their inability to afford good antenatal care.”
Recent reports show that attaining these aims remain a mirage. The New York-based Centre for Reproductive Rights report entitled Broken Promises: Human Rights Accountability and Maternal Deaths says: “Nigeria has done little to address them.”
The World Bank 2012 World Development Report (WDR) on Gender and Equality released September 17 does not score the country high with the Co-director, WDR Mr Sudhir Shetty saying: “In the case of Nigeria, what is observed is that the maternal mortality is still quite high, which is also a big issue in almost all parts of Africa. There is a need for necessary improvement in health care delivery.”
He adds: “The second issue is that female farmers have lower yield than their male counterparts and this calls for discussion on the need to improve women’s access to resources through window mechanisms, window access to productive resources, improved technology and education.”
A World Bank report says the chances of Nigeria meeting the 2015 deadline to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are slim.
The report released at the just-concluded Annual Meeting of the bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) listed only four African countries as likely to attain the goals.
The report reads: “Four countries: Cape Verde, Ethiopia, Ghana, and Malawi will likely achieve most of the Millennium Development Goals by 2015 or soon thereafter. Despite success, serious development challenges remain in Africa.”
The report says about half of the continent’s population live on 1.25 dollar per day; about 645 women die during pregnancy while child birth per 100,000 life birth.
The report, however, observe that maternal mortality is on the decline.
“Child mortality rates are also declining, the rate of HIV infection is stabilising , primary school completion rate is rising faster than anywhere else in the world and the percentage of people living in extreme poverty falling,’’ it says.
The United Nations Human Development Report also offers scary details which have made experts rule out the possibility of being able to combat diseases effectively and reducing maternal mortality. The report put Nigeria’s life expectancy at birth at 48.4 years, a little above the 47.7 years recorded for the country last year. The 2010 report put the country’s Human Development Index (HDI) at 0.423, making the country 142 out of 169 countries with comparable data.
Nigeria is not within the high Human Development rank, neither did it make the High Human Development rating. It was not also ranked among the countries that made it to the Medium Human Development strata. Rather, it is in the lowest ranking nations in the Low Human Development category. It is in the twenty-seventh position, counting from the rump.
The report puts under-five mortality stood at 186 out of every 1,000 live births. Low life expectancy impacts on the nation because it retards a country’s development.
About 10 countries account for nearly two-thirds of the world’s maternal mortality, with India contributing 22 percent or 117,000 deaths. Nigeria accounted for 10 percent of the deaths with 59,000 maternal deaths, according to a 2005 study. This translates to one death in 13 live births. Many diseases are occurring and reoccurring. HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, cardiovascular diseases, including hypertension, diabetes and cancer are taking their tolls on Nigerians.
President of an anti-maternal mortality organisation, Oops I’m Pregnant (OIP), Mrs. Osaze Ebinda, says: “ The possibility that something could go wrong makes pregnancy less appealing for many. There is need for government to show greater willingness and enthusiasm to have communication and collaboration with ad-hoc health service providers and strive to provide government machineries to reach and serve relatively more deprived areas and people.”
According to the President Society of Perinatal Medicine of Nigeria (SOPMON), Prof Godwin Ajayi, Nigeria is still at the lower rung of the ladder in the attainment of MDGs, particular in prevention of deaths of mother and child during childbirth. A lot of women and children, he adds, are dying from preventable diseases while the country needs to build capacity and improve on infrastructure to address this problem.
Significantly, the MDG Office saddled with the responsibility of tracking the progress towards attaining the MDGs was, last year, written off by the Senate as a conduit pipe for corruption. Closely related to this is the fact that the Ministry of Health, headed by Prof Onyebuchi Chukwu, which claims to have blueprints on how to revamp the sector has been unable to do so. The challenges to actualising these plans to guarantee a healthy nation have always been hydra headed, the most daunting being Nigeria’s expenditure on public health which is just 1.7 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
The parlous state of the sector has left many Nigerians to seek medical attention overseas, a development which a former Commissioner of Health in Lagos State, Dr Leke Pitan condemns thus: “It has become a shame to start sending the sick abroad. There is no health care abroad that is a miracle. Things should be done properly to get result. There are Nigerian experts who are super qualified, but the working environment must be conducive for them to work. If the country wants them back and contribute to the health care delivery system, it should put in place infrastructure. Inadequate infrastructure, adversely affect the sector’s growth.”
And with an enabling environment not in place, chances of reducing maternal mortality and combating diseases appear slim. However, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is optimistic that if efforts are intensified, the lost grounds can be covered in four years. Time will tell.
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