‘Nigeria May Have the Dullest Youths in Future if We Don’t Tackle Stunting Now’
Chairman, Senate Committee on Health, Senator Lanre Tejuoso in this interview with Martins Ifijeh, speaks on the urgent need for government to tackle stunting, which is currently affecting 11 million Nigerian children. He also talked about President Muham
What are your thoughts on the high level of malnutrition in Nigeria? Nigeria is contributing 14 per cent of the total number of malnourished children under five years to the entire world. We are second only to India, which contributes 20 per cent. Malnutrition in Nigeria is not just something happening today, but came to major highlight because of the establishment of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps as a result of the Boko Haram devastation.Due to the nature of the camps, it was easy to know the number and percentage of malnourished children in the region.
On a larger scale, we have over 11 million stunted Nigerian children. This means these children will not be able to develop the organs in their body to the optimal level. By the time they are 30 or 40 years old, their brain and other organs won’t have developed to that level, which means they will not be able to perform effectively in relation to their age. Their contribution to the society in terms of what they can offer and achieve will be very minimal as well.
How will being stunted make children unable to live their full potential as adults? This means the children would lack the necessary nutrients for proper development in the first one thousand days of life. Day one starts the day the woman gets pregnant, then, up to when the child becomes two years old. That is the time the organs of the body develop fully and optimally. Once this period is lost, it is irreversible.
Giving priority to the first 1,000 days is more important than the school feeding programme the government is talking about. If we concentrate more on that 1,000 days, we would have succeeded in solving a major problem. Of course school feeding programme is good because of the poverty situation in the country, but those children that are already in school would have developed their organs already or are in an irreversible stage of poor development due to malnutrition in their first 1,000 days.
The school feeding programme does not address poor brain or organ development, but will only be useful in maintaining the children, not for development. So if I have 10 naira, I will rather spend five naira on the first 1,000 days of life and then keep five kobo for school feeding.
How can the government support families for first 1,000 days of their children? First, we have antenatal classes. When the women are pregnant, they often go for antenatal visits. During these classes, there should be necessary support from the government for them to take care of their feeding and that of the baby inside them. When a pregnant woman eats well, it will also tell on the baby inside her. Since any mother that delivers need to continue hospital visits for at least the next one year, the primary health centres should design a way of continuously providing nutrition intervention to them. These women should be able to get all the goodness needed for the development of their children until they clock the first 1,000 days of life or two years old.
There should be a system that works with health facilities and midwives, such that these pregnant women and mothers, especially in rural areas, are given nutrition packs for themselves (if she is a pregnant woman) and for the babies (if she has delivered).
As a policy maker and the Chairman, Senate Committee on Health, what have you done to see that these plans become policies and are implemented? On our part, we have drawn more attention of the government and stakeholders to nutrition. When we came in, the budget for nutrition interventions in the entire country was two million naira (about $3,273). That is the least budget in the world for nutrition intervention. Yet we have about the highest burden of malnutrition, just second to India. That amount definitely could not take care of nutrition intervention in just one ward in the country. Nigeria has about 9,572 wards.
But in this year’s budget, we have been able to argue a case for its importance. There is over one billion naira (over $3.3 million) budgeted for nutrition intervention. Although the budget is still not correct because it is focusing only on malnutrition in children, where as nothing is allocated for pregnant women, because the intervention should even start from the womb.
Recently, you mentioned that money spent on nutrition for the first 1,000 days of life was never wasted. Adding that for every naira spent on the child’s early journey yields 17 naira. Could you elaborate on this? The reason your organisation sent you here to do this interview is because you have the capacity for it. If you were stunted, you won’t be here. The reason people contribute to their countries is because they are not stunted, which means their brains developed to its optimal capacity. But for a stunted child, by the time he or she grows into an adult age, which is when the country needs them to work in the civil service or in other types of services, such children won’t be able to to provide services because they haven’t developed to the level required.
Their age might be ideal, but their brain development will be too poor or small for such age. What this simply means is that we won’t have enough workforce for the country and of course the country will not be able to generate the income it suppose to. But for every naira you spend in making sure a child develops optimally and not stunted, when that child grows up, that investment returns back as 17 naira because he or she will be able to contribute in that measure to him or her self, and the society as well.
We have several people your age in this country, but not all are competent enough to do the job you are doing now. For such people, their brain can’t comprehend it.
Since Nigeria has 11 million stunted children, what would this mean for the country in future? What this means is that while other countries will be enjoying return on investment on early childhood development, Nigeria will be lagging behind because our major workforce will be persons who did not develop optimally during their early childhood yeas. We have 11 million children now that they are going to grow into adult with the brain of children. We won’t notice the damage now, but in future we will see it.
By that time when Nigerians go to America, everyone will be saying Nigerians are the dullest people, because those persons must have ended up not developing well. Now, Nigerians are glowing all over the world because we were not having stunting issues 10, 15 years ago. We hear reports they are doing well in universities in the U.S., United Kingdom because the youths and adults of now do not have stunting problems then. Their brains are
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