 |
| Gov. Dauda Lawal |
In a significant push to address one of Nigeria’s most persistent development challenges, Zamfara State Governor Dauda Lawal is part of a high-level Federal Government delegation currently in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, for a three-day Nigeria-Ethiopia Nutrition Leadership Exchange. The visit, running from October 7 to 9, 2026, focuses on strengthening subnational action on nutrition and drawing practical lessons from Ethiopia’s widely studied Seqota Declaration model.
President Bola Tinubu approved the delegation, which is led by Vice President Kashim Shettima. It includes governors AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq (Kwara), Alex Otti (Abia), Bassey Otu (Cross River), Babagana Umara Zulum (Borno), Ademola Adeleke (Osun), and Umar Namadi (Jigawa), alongside key federal ministers such as Budget and Economic Planning’s Abubakar Atiku Bagudu and Agriculture and Food Security’s Abubakar Kyari, as well as the Director-General of the National Emergency Management Agency. Shettima and some members of the team, including Lawal and Namadi, arrived in Addis Ababa on October 6 after departing Abuja.
The exchange builds directly on commitments made at the 148th National Economic Council (NEC) meeting, where the Federal Government launched the Nutrition 774 Initiative (N774). This programme aims to accelerate coordinated nutrition interventions across all 774 local government areas in Nigeria through improved governance, financing, and multisectoral delivery at federal, state, and local levels.
RECOMMENDED
☞ Zamfara at 30: Governor Lawal Highlights Progress on Security and Economic Recovery
☞ Zamfara Governor Lawal Urges Clarity on Wike’s Political Allegiance Ahead of 2027
☞ Zamfara State Signs Deal with XEJet for New Commercial Flights Linking Gusau and Abuja
Nigeria’s Stark Nutrition Reality
Nigeria continues to face a severe malnutrition burden that undermines human capital development. Recent data from the 2025-26 Nigeria Mini Demographic and Health Survey indicate that about 41.1 per cent of children under five are stunted, with 19.2 per cent severely stunted. The North-West geo-political zone records even higher rates, around 58.2 per cent. Nationally, roughly two million children suffer from severe acute malnutrition, yet only about one in five receives treatment. Earlier figures cited during the N774 launch put stunting at around 40 per cent, wasting at 8 per cent, and underweight at 27 per cent.
These numbers represent more than statistics. Stunting in the critical first 1,000 days of life impairs cognitive development, reduces educational attainment, lowers adult productivity, and perpetuates intergenerational poverty. Vice President Shettima has repeatedly framed the crisis in these terms, noting that malnutrition forms “the foundation of the calamities that limit productivity, learning and the nation’s growth.” The Tinubu administration has positioned nutrition as a core component of its human capital development agenda.
Zamfara presents a particularly acute case. Civil society reports and surveys have highlighted stunting rates as high as 64.2 per cent in some assessments (up from earlier figures around 50 per cent), with elevated underweight and anaemia levels among children and women. Insecurity, displacement, food system disruptions, low skilled birth attendance, and limited healthcare access compound the problem in the state. Governor Lawal’s presence on the delegation is therefore not symbolic. In late 2025, he inaugurated the Zamfara State Council on Nutrition and formally launched the state’s alignment with the N774 Initiative, describing malnutrition as both a health crisis and an economic barrier. His participation signals intent to translate national frameworks into state-level results in one of the country’s hardest-hit regions.
RELATED
☞ Nigeria Police Pay Families N2.3 Billion for Fallen Officers
☞ Fuel Subsidy Debate Intensifies as Rising Petrol Prices Strain Nigerian’s Daily Lives
Learning from Ethiopia’s Seqota Declaration
Ethiopia’s Seqota Declaration, launched in 2015, serves as the primary learning model. The government committed to ending stunting among children under two by 2030 through a structured, multisectoral approach involving nine ministries (including Health, Agriculture, Education, Water, Women and Children, Finance, and others). Implementation follows a 15-year roadmap divided into three five-year phases: Innovation (roughly 2016–2020), Expansion (2021–2025), and Scale-Up (2026–2030).
The model emphasises translating high-level political commitment into coordinated, financed, and accountable programmes at decentralised levels. It combines nutrition-specific interventions (such as complementary feeding, micronutrient supplementation, and treatment of severe acute malnutrition) with nutrition-sensitive actions in agriculture, water and sanitation, education, and women’s empowerment. Evaluations and modelling have shown measurable progress in averting stunting cases and child deaths in target areas, with projections of larger gains as the programme scales nationally. Field components of the Nigerian visit include practical site visits—such as a wheat farm and banana plantation in Oromia, the “Bounty of the Basket” Training Centre, household visits in Mojo, and related facilities—to observe how agriculture, livelihoods, and community systems link to nutrition outcomes.
According to Zamfara Governor’s spokesperson Sulaiman Bala Idris, the Nigerian team will specifically examine how Ethiopia has converted political will into funded, coordinated subnational delivery. This focus is deliberate: Nigeria’s federal structure and the N774 design place heavy responsibility on states and local governments for implementation.
Broader Context and Analytical Insights
The Nutrition 774 Initiative itself has evolved since its launch. In mid-2026, its High-Level Strategic Board, chaired by Shettima, adopted a domestic financing model to reduce reliance on external donors and close an estimated ₦500 billion funding gap. This includes activating instruments such as the Presidential Nutrition Intervention Fund and ring-fenced revenues from the sugar-sweetened beverage levy. Progress on establishing State Councils on Nutrition and Local Government Committees on Food and Nutrition remains incomplete in many areas, highlighting the governance gaps the Ethiopia exchange seeks to help address.
Selecting a mix of governors from different regions and political backgrounds—northern states with high malnutrition burdens (Zamfara, Borno, Jigawa, Kwara), and others from the South and South-South—reflects an effort to build cross-regional ownership. It also aligns with the National Council on Nutrition’s push for multisectoral plans of action at state level.
Challenges remain substantial. Insecurity in the North-West and North-East disrupts food systems and service delivery. Fiscal constraints at state and local levels, weak data systems in some areas, and the need for sustained political prioritisation beyond high-profile visits will determine whether lessons from Ethiopia translate into results. Ethiopia itself has faced implementation hurdles, including maintaining multisectoral coordination and securing consistent financing, offering both positive models and cautionary lessons.
From a development economics perspective, investments in early childhood nutrition rank among the highest-return public interventions. Reducing stunting can yield significant gains in GDP through improved cognitive capital and labour productivity over decades. For Zamfara and similar states, successful adaptation of Seqota-style coordination could help break cycles of poverty and insecurity by strengthening human capital at the foundation.
The exchange also carries diplomatic and peer-learning value. It represents government-to-government knowledge transfer between two African nations rather than purely North-South technical assistance, potentially fostering longer-term collaboration on food systems and human development.
As the Nigerian delegation engages Ethiopian counterparts this week, the test will not be the quality of presentations or site visits, but the concrete actions that follow upon return—budget allocations, strengthened state nutrition councils, integrated local government plans, and measurable improvements in coverage of high-impact interventions across Nigeria’s 774 LGAs. For Governor Lawal and Zamfara, where the malnutrition crisis is especially severe, the stakes are particularly high. The coming months will reveal whether this leadership exchange becomes a catalyst for accelerated, accountable progress or remains another well-intentioned dialogue.
Samuel O. Sulaimon is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Naijapiz. He covers News, Sports, Finance, Faiths, Education, Technology.
Post a Comment