Bill to establish North Central Development Commission scales first reading in Senate

A Bill to establish the North Central Development Commission
(NCDC) on Tuesday scaled first reading in Senate.

The Bill titled: “North Central Development Commission (Est,
etc) Bill 2019” was sponsored by the Senator representing Niger
East Senatorial District, Mohammed Sani Musa.

The NCDC bill represents the third bill seeking to create a
development commission in some geopolitical zones of the country in
the last one week.

Others include the South East Development Commission Bill and
the South West Development Commission Bill.

The Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) and the North East
Development Commission was established in year 2000 and 2017
respectively through the Acts of the National Assembly.

With the presentation of the NCDC Bill by the Senate on Tuesday,
only the North West region is yet to present such Bill.

The purpose of the event with theme: Timely
Recognition Averts Deformity, sub-theme: Raise Awareness to Prevent
Noma, is to scale up awareness of the disease towards preventing
the disease in the country.

In his keynote address, the Minister of Health, Dr E.
Osagie Ehanire, said that Noma disease can be reduced and even
prevented, first by promoting national awareness of the disease and
improving nutrition including promoting exclusive breastfeeding in
the first six months of a child’s life.

He added that education on prenatal care, personal
hygiene, timely immunization against common childhood diseases,
improving environmental sanitation and poverty reduction are very
key while stressing that detecting Noma early and treating it can
halt and largely reverse the devastating impacts of the
disease.

While reiterating on the need to ensure that
immunization programmes reach all segments of the population, the
Minister charged participants drawn from over ten countries from
the African region to do their best to develop best practices in
preventing, controlling and managing Noma disease.

On the part of Nigeria, Ehanire disclosed that Nigeria
has established the National NOMA Control program in collaboration
with the WHO which aims to boost awareness of NOMA, its prevention
and care.

He also informed that the Health Ministry has embarked
on a number of national trainings, step down trainings and
sensitization activities in high burden States such as: Kebbi,
Sokoto, Jigawa and Akwa Ibom, in collaboration with the National
Orientation Agency and Nigerian Centre for Disease Control, to
increase surveillance, case finding and prompt disease
reporting.

 Ehanire further announced that the Federal
Ministry of Health, in collaboration with the World Health
Organization (WHO) and other stakeholders has developed the
National NOMA policy document and the triennial NOMA control action
plan [2019-2021] which was approved in the National council on
Health in August 2019.

 Earlier, the Permanent Secretary of the
Ministry, Mr. Abdulaziz M. Abdullahi, charged participants to
commit to finding workable ways to control and possibly kick out
the gory disease in the sub region, ensuring that the Ministry
would consider the outcome of the meeting for implementation with
relevant partners.

Also speaking, the WHO, officer-in-charge Nigeria, Dr.
Clement Peter, said ‘’NOMA has disappeared in the developed world
but 140,000 still suffer from Noma every year due to poverty and
malnutrition in the African Region. He however reiterated the
commitment of WHO to partner with Nigerian Government to ensure
that Noma is a disease of the past.