A non-governmental organisation, Advocacy Nigeria, in collaboration with McArthur Foundation and Women’s Rights advancement and Protection Alternative, has organised a town hall meeting with the various governorship candidates of political parties in Zamfara State. The meeting, which held in Gusau, the state capital, was aimed at strengthening their capacity to plan towards effective healthcare delivery when they assume office.
The event is one of the strategies developed by Advocacy Nigeria to woo the candidates to see the greater need of the healthcare sector as a key sector which should be their main concern when they assume office after the forthcoming governorship
election.
The event also highlighted how corruption had become a road block and eventual hindrance to the effective and efficient healthcare delivery system in the country as the politicians were told to be more committed and accountable so as to institutionalise anti corruption and accountability in health sector.
The meeting was attended by governorship candidates cleared by the Independent National Electoral Commission while those of the ruling All Progressives Congress and the opposition Peoples Democratic Party were absent as a result of intra-party squabbles rocking the two parties.
Explaining the absence of representatives of the two parties, the organisers said the APC was not represented because the party was yet to field a gubernatorial candidate while the PDP was not in attendance because the two candidates vying for the governorship position of the party were still in
court.
However, four out of the six political parties invited to the meeting were in attendance. They are, National Rescue Movement represented by its governorship candidate, Senator Sa’idu Mohammed Dansadau; Peoples Redemption Party represented by its governorship candidate, Alhaji Bala Aliyu; Labour Party represented by its governorship candidate, Alhaji Sani Abdullahi and All Progressives Grand Alliance represented by its deputy governorship candidate, Alhaji Aminu Umar Jabaka.
Addressing the participants at the meeting, the project officer of Advocacy Nigeria, Mrs Jibrin Ahmed, told the gathering that the meeting was necessitated by rampant cases of death of women and children during childbirth due to inadequate health facilities.
Jibrin, who blamed politicians for poor budgetary funding in the health sector, maintained that, this negative attitude must change if the country was to safeguard the health of its
citizenry.
According to her, Nigeria was rated as 187 out of 191 countries in the world in terms of poor health delivery system, while Zamfara State was worst hit with more than 1,000 deaths for every 100,000 lives as indicated in the 2014 health report. The state has also higher death rate of children as 104 deaths are recorded in every 1,000 births.
Jibrin further explained that Nigeria has never met international standard of 15 per cent budget allocation to health sector, lamenting that “only 3.9 per cent was allocated this year,
while in Zamfara State, the state allocated only N5.1billion or 5.3 per cent of the budget.” She expressed disgust at the way medical personnel were leaving the state to other places in search of greener pastures due to poor remuneration.
She stressed that it was one of the responsibilities of Advocacy Nigeria to draw the attention of politicians to the issue of corruption which is responsible for inadequate funding of the health sector as they go round for campaigns.
