DNA: Tinubu’s priority for chaotic children’s healthcare

By Ikeddy ISIGUZO

STATISTICS on the health of Nigerian children are dreadful, dreary, depressing, and deadening. Death surrounds our children from conception to birth, for those who make it out alive. The Federal Government is disinterested in these issues that compromise the future – if there is any – of Nigeria.
In its place, the government waits for international organisations to lay foundations on which only the ruination of Nigeria can be built. Government officials have keyed into those hand downs that have permeated health, education, agriculture, and other sectors of what is left of Nigeria.
Here are some of the statistics on the health of Nigerian children:
.For every 1,000 live births, 41 babies don’t survive
.40% of children under age five are stunted and 8% wasted
.47% of children (aged 0–17 years) live in income poor households
.67% experience multi–dimensional poverty
.57% birth registration for children under age five
.2.1 million children have never been vaccinated, the highest globally
.1 in 4 primary school children are out-of-school, and 3 in 4 do not develop foundational learning skills
.One of every five households practises open defecation.
These facts are in The UNICEF State of the World’s Children (SOWC) 2024 report, “The Future of Childhood in a Changing World,” released in November 2024. The statistics depict governments’ lack of conviction in actions that could ameliorate the situations.
According to Heath Watch magazine’s analysis of the 2024 report, “UNICEF’s report underscores that solutions are within reach, provided Nigeria can rally the political will and allocate the necessary resources to implement them. Strengthening healthcare systems is a crucial step, involving investments in rural health centres, the training of skilled birth attendants, and the establishment of reliable supply chains for essential medicines. Equally important is scaling up nutrition programmes to combat stunting and wasting, particularly in conflict-affected regions where mal-nutrition has taken a severe toll”.
It continued, “Education must also take centre stage, with efforts focused on rebuilding schools in the North East, promoting girl-child education, and ensuring that learning environments are safe and conducive for all children”.
Governments have ignored these obstacles to children’s healthcare and well-being. The indifference is a blight on the future and contrasts with the attention that elections and healthcare get. It is obvious that government has unsustainable interest in the future.

What the Tinubu administration considers important, urgent, and very immediate is a policy on newly born Nigerians to undergo DNA tests for their births to be registered.
DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is the hereditary material in humans and almost all other organisms. Nearly every cell in a person’s body has the same DNA, according to genome.com. A DNA test is used to determine parentage.
Minister of Health, Muhammad Ali Pate during a stakeholders’ dialogue on strengthening family health and child protection systems, said consultations were on the card to make DNA testing mandatory for registration of new borns.
“Mandatory DNA testing at birth will address the growing cases of paternity-related conflicts, while also serving as a safeguard against child theft, trafficking, and illegal adoptions. It is a proactive step toward securing the rights of every Nigerian child,” Dr. Pate told the stakeholders.
The Minister said the move was aimed at ensuring every Nigerian child has a verifiable identity from birth, thereby enhancing national planning, legal protection, and social welfare delivery.
A verifiable identity of the Nigerian child is more important than combating multiple issues that make those who survive stunted adults, mentally and physically. This is the summary of the Health Minister’s stand on the state of the Nigerian child.
Pate is not a surprise. He is a globally renowned health expert that international organisations like to be around because of his convictions on their policies.
Pate’s humble beginnings in Misau Local Government Area of Bauchi State, some thought, would have seen him approach healthcare from the prism of access, especially, for both the rural and urban poor.
One of the issues in the proposed test is a call for subsidy so that Nigerians can afford DNA tests. Another subsidy for a project that would not improve health of even the children? Who would fund the subsidy? International organisations? Or the ever-borrowing government will borrow more to fund the current health priority?
Ali can do more with his global contacts than investing in more poverty for more Nigerians? There would be tensions.
What would be the fate of those who are unable to pay for the DNA test? Would they be denied the opportunity to deliver in hospitals? And would their children not be entered in the national births register?
The reasons for the proposed policy are tenuous. The speed of implementing it points to possible interests of foreign partners of the Federal Ministry of Health?
There are fears that the ever-ready, ever-willing leadership of Obong Dr Godswill Akpabio at the National Assembly would award approval to any bill on this issue in a matters days, or hours, if an approval would gladden the President.
Dr. Pate is an illustrious international scholar whose pedigree includes scholarly academic backgrounds as a student, and faculty at some of the world’s top universities. He had also worked at the World Bank for over a decade.
In 2019, Pate was appointed as the Julio Frenk Professor of Public Health Leadership at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He resigned, in 2013, as Nigeria’s Minister of State for Health to be Professor at Duke University’s Global Health Institute in the USA.
Dr. Pate was appointed Minister from GAVI where he was the Chief Executive Officer. GAVI’s dedication to vaccines often raises concerns about its interests.
Whose project is the DNA test? Is it the best the Tinubu administration can offer to Nigeria’s chaotic healthcare that creates a more doubtful future for the Nigerian child?
If Tinubu is in search of an area of impact in children’s healthcare, Dr. Pate should look at the 2024 UNICEF report again. Everyone described as pathetic and urged urgent actions.
The bad news is that the situations the 2024 report highlighted have worsened as would be seen when the 2025 report is made public in November.

Finally…
ODDITIES that issue from Anambra State, the consistent brutalities and terror that law-enabled officials inflict on ordinary citizens, in a possible test of their illegal powers, question the ability of Governor Charles Soludo to rein in those he appoints to responsibilities. The now-dismissed officials of Udogachi who invaded an NYSC female hostel, acting like armed robbery and kidnappers are not new in Soludo’s government. They get away with mild punishments, if that ever happens.
In March 2024, Wilfred Ezike, a.k.a Mgbilimgba, and an Onitsha businessman was repeatedly beaten with pestle, and machetes until his ankles and knees were crushed. The assaults were also by Anambra State task force officials. There is no record of them being punished.
On 11 October 2024, identified officials of Anambra State Waste Management Agency with armed policemen broke into the home of Okechukwu Akaneme, a former President of Onitsha Chamber of Commerce, former Chairman of Nigerian Union of Journalists, Onitsha Federated Chapel, beat him to stupor, and crushed his spinal cord. The matter was over unresolved waste management fees. Akaneme died in July after 10 months in hospitals.
The Anambra State Government remains incoherent about these extra-judicial measures that state officials use.
An NYSC hostel is like a diplomatic zone. Special courtesies are extended to inhabitants of such places. Traditionally, we do not treat guests the way these louts did.
What intelligence did the invaders have to force their way into the hostel? What is this craze about uncladding women?
Government agencies should do their work, but within the confines of the law. The reports from Anambra are not palatable. Governor Soludo should do more to contain his men.

Isiguzo is a major commentator on minor issues