Executive Chairman Bauchi primary healthcare board commends UNFPA over family planning support implementation
By Akanji Alowolodu, Bauchi
Executive Chairman of Bauchi State Primary Healthcare Board, Dr. Rilwanu Mohammed, has commended the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), for supporting the State in terms of family planning implementation.
He made the commendation on Monday at the opening of a 4-day training of stakeholders on Human Rights-based Approach (HRBA) to Family Planning in Bauchi State organized by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in collaboration with the State Ministry of Health and Social Welfare and State Primary Healthcare Board.
The EC however lamented that wrong religious teachings by religious leaders who are not versed in the scriptures are militating against achieving the set objectives of family planning implementation.
According to him, some religious leaders, both Muslims and Christians are preaching against family planning or child spacing, telling their adherents that God instructed humans to keep keeping birth to children and multiply.
He said that this posture is having grave negative impact of implementing the set objectives of FP programmes put in place by international partners particularly, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).
He however commented UNFPA for supporting the State Government in ensuring that FP support in the State got the required attention and backing.
According to him, “We have MOU which we signed that the FP commodities should be procured through UNFPA, and then the UNFPA has been supporting us in the area of renovation and equipping of our facilities, and then training. It’s very important because if you don’t train anybody, you can’t go anywhere in life because you have to train somebody to know what he’s going to do.”
“And this is what UNFPA is doing here in Bauchi State, though it’s a one-man show office, only one person that is very useful here. I don’t know how one man can do the work, but she’s trying her best with her staff around, the Ministry of Health, and all you are supporting this work to be done,” he emphasized.
Rilwanu Mohammed explained that, “The MOU that we signed is that we are going to procure family planning commodities and then through UNFPA. We have a liberty to procure direct, but we agreed that the best form and the best area where we can, where we are going to do this is through UNFPA, who can get us a correct commodities, and then the drugs that we are sure that is genuine, and then it’s important to us.”
According to him,”And last time when we did the procurement, it took a very long time. But everybody knew, take time. They said that this year, even if there’s any procurement, it’s going to be shorten because all the processes have begun before. It took us almost nine months to ten months to get the commodities. But now there is approval of N70 million this year, but last year it was N50 million.”
According to him, “And I pressed and they should pay the money. They said no, they put it in one special payment, and they say, the Governor returned the file last week and asked that, everybody are just writing approval of payment of this without budgetary provision, without writing budgetary provision. Our own, everyone we write, we have budgetary provision. So they returned the document. The money would have been paid by now.”
He added that,”I wanted them to pay instrumentally. They said we want to pay that N5 million. I said no, no, pay it in bulk so that we’ll be able to get it through someone there that will help us to get the drug. And we really appreciate UNFPA. The kind of work they are doing, recently they did the 72-hour makeover in six of our facilities, and we really appreciate that.”
The EC added that,”The support is coming in everything you can think of. And silently, you are making impact. And what is worrying me and what is making me happy is that it’s not credit, it’s not World Bank project that our grand-grandchildren will pay. In this one, we are not going to pay anything. It is actually grant.”
According to him,”UNFPA has two arms. There’s an arm that is doing free, and there’s one if you want to buy anything, you can come and buy genuine thing from them, particularly family planning commodities.”
He stressed that, “Now, in case of the FP, which we are having a lot of support from UNFPA, particularly this technical support and review of what we are doing along the state. The Child Act has been approved, but how about implementation? How about implementation of everything that we approved by the State Assembly?”
He retorted, “We look at it now. Who is implementing, who is going to supervise the implementation of Child Act? They just look at it. Look at anything that has been approved. Nobody is taking, and even the Ministry of Women Affairs, nobody cares about anything. Nobody thinks about anything. Even the environmental laws in Nigeria today has been approved. But who is implementing environmental laws in Nigeria? Nobody.”
According to him,”Before, one person was enough in the whole of Bauchi, when we were small boys, that were taking care of the whole sanitation of Bauchi town. And they have a stick. If they go to your house, they find out that you’re not taking care, they will deal with you. And then you will be crying because they will deal with you.”
“Now, people who molest young girls, that child rape, see, young ladies, most of them are their uncles. Most of these uncles are very stubborn. They are the ones that molest. You take them to court, they will do, they pay a lot of money, they will cover it up. They will cover it up. And some of them, I think, I don’t know whether they are mania, I don’t know whether they are witches, they must make love with those young ones. I don’t know why.”
He then urged the participants to make possible contributions during the training and at the end come out with workable and implementable recommendations that will improve FP uptake in the State.
Earlier, the Desk Officer of UNFPA at the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare who is also the Secretary of the State Technical Working Group (TWG) on FP, Zuwaira Baba welcomed the participants to the training which was long overdue.
She stressed that at the end of the training, participants should be able to define and explain human rights based and gender transformative approach to family planning information and services including how HRBA and GTA differ from and relate to each other as well as what specific rights apply to family planning and what values these approaches bring.
Also, be able to complete an assessment of the family planning programmes that they support and what the human rights obligations of their country are and programmatic weaknesses and gaps from human rights and gender perspective.
The participants are also expected to develop an action plan to address the identified weaknesses and gaps in order to strengthen human rights and gender equality in the family planning programmes that they support.
