SHOCKING: 40,000 Nigerian Women Die Annually From Maternal Mortality — University Don

 

A former Vice Chancellor of the University of Ibadan, Professor Isaac Adewole, on Tuesday disclosed that no fewer than 40,000 Nigerian women lose their lives to maternal mortality every year. He also said the nation loses at least 800,000 children to infant mortality annually.

 

Adewole who made this disclosure during his screening as a ministerial nominee in the Senate, threw yet another bombshell, saying Nigeria is the largest contributor of Humano Immuno Virus (HIV) into newly born children in the world.

The university don who said he had largely been pre-occupied with the effort to reposition Nigeria’s health sector, advocated the need to consciously improve the health status of Nigerian women and children.

 

He also said along with some of his colleagues in medical profession, his entire life as a gynaecologist had been dedicated to the course of preventing both maternal and infant mortality.

 

Adewole also described the prevalent fallen standard of education in Nigeria as a deep-seated problem which according to him, arose from under-funding, moral and infrastructural problems, observing that Nigeria’s total funding on education is only 1.7 per cent of its gross domestic product (GDP).

 

According to him, Nigeria’s investment in education is so meagre that a survey of 41 countries revealed that the country’s spending on education only exceeds that of Sudan, Zimbabwe and Zambia.

 

He also argued that products being chunked out by Nigerian universities are half-baked because there is no educational policy or institution championing improvement in secondary school education.

 

Adewole also spoke about what he described as the burden of cancer disease in Nigeria, declaring that as a result of the rising cases of cancer in Africa, the country must brace up to tackle imminent cancer epidemic in future.

 

“Cancer is something that we have to deal with. We are talking about the burden of communicable diseases in Nigeria. But we are also looking at another aspect:-the demographic transition of this country, we are living longer, getting obese, exercising less and cancer is specifically a disease of the old age. And when we look at this demographic transition and the rising incidence of cancer, it is on the increase for Africa. So, we must be prepared for a potential epidemic in the coming years,” he said.

 

He also criticised the attitudes of Nigerians who travelled abroad for treatment, saying the country has competent human resources to do the job. He said the nation had a robust system that could aid  the delivery of effective healthcare system. He was however, swift to add that the number of patients flying out of the country had reduced from 1,000 in 2003 to 128 in 2013.

 

On Ebola, he said while Nigeria did well in its spontaneous fight against the disease, it must ensure that the status quo is sustained.

 

Also screened yesterday was Geoffrey Onyema (Enugu) who said he had lived outside Nigeria for almost 30 years working with various international organisations such as the Untied Nations (UN) and African Union (AU).

 

He recalled how he worked with the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Chief Bola Ige, on behalf of AU in the search for African technology.

 

As a lawyer, he advised Nigeria to speed up its justice delivery system to avoid delayed justice.

 

He also canvassed for the need to drive reform of prisoners as against the usual rush to criminalise suspects, and noted the need to develop small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

 

In the same vein, another nominee,  Ahmed (Kaduna), said Nigeria’s participation in the Extractives Initiative and Transparency International (EITI) had not improved the nation’s anti-corruption index, saying corruption in Nigeria is strange because it is done with impunity.

 

However, while asked to recite the national pledge, she could not recite it sequentially. She said: “I pledge to Nigeria my country, to be loyal, faithful and honest,” instead of “…to be faithful, loyal and honest.”

 

Ahmed who also admitted that Nigeria did not make much progress on Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), said the nation only made notable progress in the scheme in the areas of education and health.

 

Credits: Thisdaylive.com

 

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