Ogbeh: FG to Query Source of Renal Disorder in Children

James Emejo in Abuja

The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh has said his ministry would work with the Federal Ministry of Health to query the sources of kidney and liver disorder particularly in children of only about seven years of age.

Specifically, he said it was baffling to find young children bedridden with differs diseases particularly renal dysfunction at the Garki General Hospital in Abuja at such a tender age.

Speaking in Abuja during the inauguration of the sub-committee on nutrition, he said poor dieting may be suspect in the health disorder. The minister said: “We have reports that in Garki hospitals here, there are children as young as seven years down with kidney and liver failure. I can’t understand why a child of seven should have problems with the kidney.

“And we will be working with the minister of health to query and trace the source of this affliction for a child who is seven years old – something must be there that the child is consuming – probably very bad water.”

He said in dealing with malnutrition in the country, emphasis would also be on the increasing crisis in the food sector, where there’s a great deal of self-poison in dieting.
Ogbeh noted that one of the tasks for the committee would be how to educate Nigerians on proper nutrition as well as to persuade people to change their eating habits.

He said: “Most of what we swallow is either cassava, maize, yam and other grains. There’s no harm in eating these but if that’s the main diet, then it becomes harmful to those who consume them.”

He told the committee: “Your assignment will also include issues around food and health. We can cut down disease infection by taking the measures we are about to take. We have go begin with the most vulnerable children, pregnant women because a mother too who is very poorly fed has no good milk to give to her children – so it begins at that level.”
Continuing, he said: “So the assignment you have is a very serious one; it may not attract the headlines but one of the problems we have in Africa is that we don’t pay attention to serious things.

“The best time to develop a child’s brain is in the first five years. Once there’s a damage done at that level, there’s nothing you can do to repair. We don’t have money for medical trips abroad. If we have access to water, a great deal of typhoid and cholera that afflict our people will definitely be eliminated. So prevention through measures we are about to take will do this country far more good than importing vaccines and medicines from foreign countries.”

Separately, the minister charged the committee on cocoa expansion to undertake a research and properly advise government on what is necessary to reposition the country as a major producer and foreign exchange earner from cocoa.

He said with the collapse of oil prices and the vulnerabilities it has created, materials for improved cocoa production and expansion must be harnessed.
He said: “We have to earn foreign exchange and cut down on imports. When you come up with formula to solving these problems, the next stage is publicity and education of the public.”