The alarm raised by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and other humanitarian agencies that as many as 52% of Nigerian children are stunted, wasted and malnourished; and one in five children will die in northeastern Nigeria is a tragedy that should tug at the conscience of the nation and must be addressed immediately. If nothing is done, another socio-economic albatross of devastating proportion may well be on the way. With hunger and malnutrition, these Nigerian children were already marooned in a terrible socio-economic order that cares less about them. The situation in the northeast with the insurgency is double jeopardy. This is a clear and present danger to the future of the country and the Buhari administration must fashion durable solutions to halt the unfolding disaster and address this generational shame.
The Boko Haram insurgency is said to have already displaced 2.4 million people, pushing food insecurity and malnutrition to emergency levels. Worried by the high levels of severe malnutrition and desperate conditions facing children, UN agencies and partners have stepped up assistance even as the Acting UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Nigeria, Munir Safieldin, and UNICEF Nigeria Representative, Jean Gough, in a joint statement said: “We estimate that there will be almost a quarter of a million children under five suffering from severe acute malnutrition in Borno this year. Unless we reach these children with treatment, one in five of them will die. We cannot allow that to happen.”
The dire prediction follows the 2015 UN global report on children which found that about six out of ten Nigerian children under five years old are too short for their age (stunted), while more than half do not weigh enough for their height (wasted). The report analyzed nutrition status and underlying factors such as food security, water, hygiene and sanitation; resource allocation and institutional and policy changes globally in 193 countries and stated unequivocally that to combat malnutrition in Nigeria, an estimated N188.3 billion ($837 million) investment is needed, which would save 180,000 lives, and avert three million cases of stunting a year.
Childhood stunting and wasting remain serious problems and the numbers are simply mind-boggling. That Nigeria cannot adequately feed its children is unacceptable. According to experts, malnutrition results in impaired cognitive development in children, which has a direct bearing on their entire life chances and opportunities. The bleak fate of children in the northeast is symptomatic of the gory lot of their counterparts elsewhere. Those who do not directly suffer hunger and malnutrition are not spared the calamities of violence. Over 200 Chibok schoolgirls were kidnapped by Boko Haram and till now, forlorn is the hope of their rescue. Equally revolting is the enslavement of teenage girls with its attendant sex slavery while some are used as suicide bombers; others live on the streets.
Considering the challenges, deprivation, psychological trauma and emotional distress that the children in Nigeria, but especially of the northeast have passed through and are still going through, the situation also calls for a declaration of a state of emergency. Now, upon the unpleasant realization of this intractable socio-economic crisis, the government should wean itself of the hollow rhetoric of “change” and advance plans to concretely address the fundamental issues of hunger, malnutrition and social dislocation, by paying attention to the nutritional and health care needs of children.
Owing to their precarious situation, Nigerian children, from infants to those of school age, are beginning to witness in frightful clarity the bleakness of their future. Many are orphaned, while some are born in filthy, disease-prone environments, where sanitary facilities (even in their crudest state) are a luxury. An unsavory corollary of the danger posed by hunger and malnutrition apart from their direct, tragic consequences is that the future of those children not killed in conflict like others is bleak. So what is the future for these children?
Ordinarily, it is difficult surviving outside the Boko Haram killing fields even with parents, let alone when parents are displaced, dead, or missing. Their only recollections are sordid tales of tragedy and ugly images of carnage and death. What is happening now will adversely affect the northeast and the children in future. The future is, therefore, already in peril because, with little or no education, the children have insufficient ability to survive in a competitive world. But it is not only the children that will lose out; Nigeria, by the way it currently handles the situation befalling the children, will be the ultimate loser. Unfortunately, the current situation points towards that direction because there is no agenda to address the challenges facing Nigerian children beyond ad hoc responses.
While the incredible benevolence of civil society groups like the Dangote Foundation who have been giving some hope to these children is commendable, all relevant government agencies must, as a matter of priority, embark upon long-term and immediate responses to the plight of these children. As an immediate response, government should provide food, shelter and schools. In the long-term, government must give priority to education as one of the most veritable factors that ultimately defines Nigeria; the absence of which would retard the country’s progress.
There is urgent need for the Buhari administration to take decisive steps to break the horrendous cycle of misery in which Nigerian children are now trapped. Nigeria should enact or strengthen existing laws that mete out appropriate sanctions to abusers of children through rape, abduction and recruitment as child soldiers. The security of the future of the nation represented by these children should be one battle Nigeria must win. Nigeria cannot look forward to a rewarding future without ensuring robust investments in human capital and capacity building in the nation’s children. It takes a village to raise a child, so it is our responsibility as a country to end malnutrition not just to secure the future of these children, but also that of the country. The time to act is now.
