Nigerians have taken a swipe at the Muhammadu Buhari administration after the Federal Ministry of Health, led by the Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, announced plans to borrow $200 million (N82 billion) to buy mosquito nets.
The Ministry of Health had submitted a 2022 budget proposal to the Senate to borrow the said amount.
According to the Permanent Secretary, Mahmuda Mamman, who defended the budget before the Senate Committee on Local and Foreign Loans on Tuesday, October 26, 2021, the proposal is captured in the ministry’s Malaria Programme of the coming year.
Mamman said that the fund would be used to fight malaria in 13 states. The coverage is expected to spread across 3,536 primary health care centres in 208 local government councils across the federation.
The Senate, however, stood down the request of the ministry dismissing it as another money-making scheme that will only benefit creditors.
Nigerians, despite the decision of the Senate to reject the proposal, swarmed on the current administration, via already-banned Twitter, as they queried why the ministry thought of taking a loan in the first place when there is the option of working with local manufacturers.
They also argued that rather than purchase mosquito nets, the government should have fashioned out how to tackle the root cause of malaria in Nigeria.
The constant borrowing and Nigeria’s current external debt further made Nigerians from various quarters lament what the future holds for generations yet to be born.
The position of Nigerians over this event is not unconnected with the high rate of corruption which has been witnessed in past and current administrations and there is no end of it in sight.
This development is coming after the World Health Organisation recently recommended the widespread use of the RTS,S/AS01 (RTS,S) malaria vaccine to specifically fight high P. falciparum malaria transmission.
The P. falciparum is the most deadly malaria parasite globally, and most prevalent in Africa where it kills more than 260,000 children under the age of five annually, with Nigeria one of the worst affected.
