The critical stakeholders in the health sector expressed divergent opinions on the movement of the Senate to establish a national agency for malaria eradication.
The interested parties did not agree in Abuja during a public hearing on the bill sponsored by Senator Neda Nwoko (APC, Delta-North), seeking to establish the agency.
Nigeria is qualified to have annual malaria deaths worldwide, representing approximately 31% of all malaria deaths worldwide in 2023.
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The figures of the World Health Organization (WHO) indicate that of an estimated 597,000 global malaria deaths registered in 2023, Nigeria only contributed approximately 185,000 deaths, which makes it the leading country in malaria mortality.
The country that approached Nigeria more in the table was the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with approximately 12% of malaria deaths from 2023.
The need to strengthen eradication efforts was mainly the impulse behind the bill, but interested parties did not reach a consensus on the need for the proposed agency.
First to kick against the establishment of a new agency for the eradication of malaria in Nigeria, he was the main state lawyer in the Federal Ministry of Justice, Imarha Reuben. He argued that creating such an agency would be a duplication of those that already exist and would be contrary to the implementation of the Steve Orosanye report on the realignment of public and parastatal agencies.
He told the session: “The Federal Ministry of Justice is against bill 2025 of the National Malaria Eradication Agency (establishment) 2025, SB 172, to avoid a duplication of functions of similar existing agencies online with the implementation of the Orosanye report.”
Tribune Nigeriano recalls that the Oonsaye report, commissioned by the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan in 2012 and led by Stephen ornsaye, was an integral 800 -page document focused on rationalizing and restructuring the Nigerian civil service to address duplication, inefficiencies and reduce government costs.
Among others, he recommended the reduction and consolidation of government agencies.
For example, of 541 federal, parastatal and commissions agencies, the report recommended discarding or merging 220 entities.
Specifically, he proposed to reduce legal agencies from 263 to 161 abolishing 38, merging 52 and returning 14 to the ministries as departments.
An important benefit foreseen by the report was the savings of costs in the operation of governmental businesses. If implemented, the report projected savings of more than N862 billion between 2012 and 2015 by reducing unnecessary agencies and discontinuing government funds for professional organizations and advice.
By the way, Jonathan, who commissioned the report, did not implement it. Successive administrations after Jonathan's -Muhammadu Buhari's and Bola Tinubu, have not been able to implement it completely.
Also kicking the proposed agency, the president of the Malaria Technical Working Group in Nigeria, Dr. Kolawole Maxwel, argued that, instead of establishing an eradication agency, the Government at all levels in the country should present efforts concerted for the total elimination of malaria.
He recommended: “We recommend that the current eradication goal is changed to elimination.
“We are also suggesting that the malaria program should be lodged within a coordinated government structure to avoid fragmentation and for easy coordination.
“If malaria is removed as an agency, it leads to another fragmentation of the health sector.”
A representative of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Fraden Bitrus, suggested that the efforts made towards the eradication of malaria should be strengthened, but should not involve the creation of a new agency.
But, the president of the Association of Environmental Health, Chapter FCT, Ismaila Haruna Dankogi, supported the movement for the establishment of the proposed agency.
According to him, the proposed agency will help the country to change its approach to treat the malaria of a curative to a preventive.
Also speaking, the executive director of the community vision initiative, Dr. Chioma Amajoh, firmly supported the movement for the establishment of the agency.
By explaining his position, he said he would serve as a springboard required for coordinated actions against malaria.
Dr. Amajoh, who is called with love 'Mama Malaria', passionately appealed to the committee to allow the proposal to see daylight, adding: “The clinical management of malaria cases in Nigeria throughout the decades, has not expressed the scourge.”
The president of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, in a comment to open to the audience, said: “It is time to move from seasonal campaigns to an institutionalized eradication, backed by law, science and responsibility.”
Senator Ipalibo Banigo (Rivers-West), who presided over the session, thanked all those interested in their contributions to the proposed legislation, assuring them that the Senate would do justice to their contributions.