12m people at risk, says NEMA II If adequate measures are not taken, 12 million people in seven states of the northern part of Nigeria are at risk of food insecurity and nutrition crises.
The Director-General, National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), AVM Mohammed Audu Bida (rtd), stated this yesterday at a one-day consultative meeting on “Potential Food Security and Nutrition Crises in the Sahel Region.”
LEADERSHIP reliably gathered that over 300 cattle have died in Sokoto State as a result of the impending danger of food crisis and malnutrition. “If animals are endangered, then we have no future in this country,” said Dr. Abdulkadir Usman of the Federal University of Technology, Minna, who has just conducted a research on food scarcity.
Bida said that improving nutrition and food distribution will not only help to better overall health and combat diseases but it will also enable children do well in school.
He said: “As an agency, we have predicted this pending disaster and we want the relevant agencies to work towards combating it. NIMET gave the overall prediction of the rainfall in the year 2010. With this prediction, a technical committee was set up in March 2010 and their report submitted in April which we had the consultative meeting yesterday (Wednesday).
“Already in Nigeria, we have a problem in the 12 northern states. If this is not addressed, the entire northern states will be thrown into disaster. The disaster will not only be on food crises and nutrition, diseases like cholera, malaria and others will be severe in the North-west and North-east, while North-central will suffer less effects.”
The head of NEMA said he was aware that food emergency had already been declared in neighbouring countries like Chad, northern Cameroon and Niger, which share boundaries with the affected states.
Bida said that NEMA was already working with seven states, which included Sokoto, Katsina and Kebbi, which have contributed N100 million to carry out a survey in June and November, adding that there was need to map out short and long term programmes.
It was gathered, the lean years started since 2006 in the food crises which spread gradually to 12 states of northern Nigeria.
Also speaking, Deputy Country Representative of UNICEF, Mr. Vinod Alkari, said that the prediction by NEMA on the impending disaster has prompted UNICEF to support the agency in combating the menace.
He said in the last few years, UNICEF has been in quite a number of states and putting a resources together to combat malnutrition.
Alkari, however, commended NEMA for the prompt disclosure of the impending danger and urged other agencies in disaster management to collaborate with NEMA in order to combat this menace.
The meeting attracted stakeholders in disaster management, including representatives of Defence Headquarters, Ministry of Health, universities, Ministry of Environment, and the Ministry of Science and Technology.