The Bayelsa State Government in collaboration with the United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, says the era of malnourishment of children in the state would soon be over.
The duo gave the indication at a programme with the theme: ‘Prioritizing Investment in Maternal, Infant and Young Child and Adolescent Nutrition and the PARSNIP project —key to sustainable development’ held by UNICEF in partnership with the state government in Yenagoa.
The Tide reports that participants at the event include members of the Bayelsa State Executive Council, officials of UNICEF as well as legislators of the state House of Assembly, just as policy makers in both the health and agricultural sectors were also in attendance.
Speaking on the theme of the programme, ‘Investing in maternal, infant, Child and Adolescent nutrition — for sustainable development’, the UNICEF chief nutrition officer, Mrs. Nemat Hajeebhoy stated that in a poll of about 500,000 children studied in Bayelsa State, about 125,000 were discovered to have stunted growth and other problems due to poor nutrition.
She identified exclusive breast feeding as the panacea for adequate nutrition for children and infants, adding however that about 90 per cent of Bayelsa children were reported by their team to have gotten good breast feeding from their mothers.
Delivering his keynote speech, the state Governor, Senator Douye Diri represented by the Secretary to the Government, Dr. Konbowei Benson said the government was making concerted effort at winning the scourge called poverty.
He identified lack and want as the reasons for poor nutrition not only in the state, but in many parts of the nation, saying that the prosperity government under his leadership was more than ever committed to executing its mantra of prosperity for all Bayelsans through adequate planning and provision of enabling environment for all to prosper so as to end the causes of poor nutrition as identified by UNICEF in its report.
Diri lambasted the Federal Government for operating an imbalance federation, saying that the revenue accruing to the state from the federal coffers was not commensurate with the vault of wealth generated from natural resources tapped away from the state, hence, the government has been battling with just a few budgetary provisions for the running of the state which he identified as having contributed to the UNICEF report.
“Nigeria is a democracy, but the kind of system whereby resources are taken away from our state for the development of other parts of the country without giving us as a state what is commensurate with the amount of natural resources tapped from our land is our greatest worry”.
“These reports you’ve given us here ordinarily shouldn’t have been so if enough was coming to us as a state from the Federal Government. So we’ve to be doing away with the paltry sum that is given us from the much they take away from our land on daily basis.
“As a government, we’ll do our best to reverse the trend and create the enabling environment for our people to prosper so that our children can have better nutrition from their mothers”, he said.
Meanwhile, the wife of the Governor of Bayelsa State, Dr. (Mrs) Gloria Diri has said children of the state under her time as the first lady of the state would be given proper nutrition.
She stated this during her investiture by UNICEF as the ‘nutrition champion’.
The state first lady who commended UNICEF for the investiture stated that the programme was apt, noting that UNICEF was right to have chosen her for the investiture, just as she pledged her continuous commitment to bettering the lots of children with regard to their nutrition and wellbeing in the state as first lady.

By: Ariwera Ibibo-Howells, Yenagoa