Accelerating malnutrition in Nigeria worries UN

BY ANDY ASEMOTA, Katsina

United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Nigeria, Matthias Schme, has raised an alarm over increasing nutrition crisis in Nigeria.

Mr. Schme, who echoed the deep concerns of various circles, during a courtesy visit to Katsina State Governor, Aminu Bello Masari, in Katsina yesterday, blamed the nutrition scourge on three key drivers: poverty, insecurity and ignorance or lack of knowledge.

While heightened malnutrition in North East remained a priority issue to all critical stakeholders, he said, the situations in other parts of the country were no less acute.

“It is really a problem that needs to be addressed; there is crisis in Katsina and elsewhere,” he told Masari as he warned that, “it seems there is nutrition crisis in Nigeria.”

Gov. Masari, in his remarks, noted that cultural issues and insecurity were making the nutrition challenges so acute not only in the North East but also in the entire North where an average couple give birth to a minimum of eight to nine children.

He appealed that whatever interventions that would be made available to address malnutrition in the country should be focused on North East and North West geo – political zones.

The governor, who also expressed concern that more than 99 per cent of the available land in Katsina had been cultivated yet majority of the populace could not produce enough to meet their demand, called for more interventions for the more families to be adequately empowered to produce nutritious food for their children.