Why Bauchi is partnering with Dangote, Bill Gates to eradicate Polio –Yuguda

How long will this Programmes last?We intend to sustain this programme. Our giant slide in health sector will also be sustainable because the next administration will have the same vision with me. We are determined to serve the people and make sure that service delivery is performed excellently in line with international best practice. We […]

How long will this Programmes last?
We intend to sustain this programme. Our giant slide in health sector will also be sustainable because the next administration will have the same vision with me. We are determined to serve the people and make sure that service delivery is performed excellently in line with international best practice. We don’t expect any set back because we will share the same vision with the next administration.
 What inform your decision to enter into partnership with these developmental agencies?
We are supporting them so they can commit a lot of their resources in the eradication of polio. Dangote has committed a lot of resources in polio eradication just like other governments all over the world. We do not have that kind of resources at their disposal to effectively eradicate this unfortunate scourge and the partners are committed towards the eradication of polio.
Dangote and Bill Gate foundation are supporting us in polio eradication, and in eradicating other diseases like malaria, measles, maternal mortality, child birth. They are doing it to ensure that there is no internal breakage of such diseases. So it is a privilege to partner with them.
Kano started it first and we are the second state to do so.  They are partnering with us and hopefully other states will follow after us so that we will derive benefit from these interventions. There are intervention funds which will be given to Bauchi state on annual basis to fight the unfortunate diseases that are killing our children and women.
And for polio, we have only three countries that have not been able to eradicate polio, these are Pakistan, Nigeria and Afghanistan, and we must eradicate polio because I know we have received threats especially from Saudi Arabia that if there are prevalence of polio in our country, they will not allow our people to go for pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia and given that Bauchi is predominantly a Muslims state, people should be very serious about this.
 How is your administration handling the prevention and eradicating of cholera and other diseases?
If you don’t have good sanitary conditions,  and you don’t have safe drinking water, there is the probability of spreading cholera, but we are very grateful today because as you know we had a  cholera outbreak epidemic in 2007/2008 and three wards were evacuated for cholera patients in the specialist hospital.
You know Bauchi had no adequate drinking water and people were drinking from infected wells because their latrines are very close to their wells.  We have been able to provide safe water especially in Bauchi metropolis and other affected wards. If you see cholera raising its ugly heads, it is as a result of people who burst pipes into their houses.
Imagine that you burst a pipe that is in a gutter where the water will get infected, that has been very dangerous and that has been some of the challenges we are having in the health sector, but we are very grateful to God that we had the capacity as a matter of urgency then to stop the spread of the diseases and cure those that are affected.
We disinfected wells, so far we have disinfected over 30,000 wells in the state and that has gone a long way in producing safe water to the people.
So with these kinds of efforts, the government has trying to ensure that people live in clean environments to avoid cholera outbreak.
 How much is Bauchi state spending on this MOU and how is the state government intending to implement the agreement?
 We are contributing N360m while they are contributing N700m so it’s about N1.1b annually for the next three years and with these we believe that we will partner with them because they have already gotten the necessary mechanism to compliment government efforts.
It’s more like team work. We are partnering, they have their own team and we have our own team,  but primarily we will use the PHC centers because we have constructed over 1,200 health care centers all over the state, most of them we have not been able to commission. So we need resources to ensure that all of them are functioning, we will train staff and utilize PHC centers as centers for giving immunization and also treating patients.
 With the influx of displaced persons in the Bauchi state, are you not worried that the state would have a resurge of polio after a 13 months victory of no polio case?
Well, it is something that is a challenge to us and we cannot stop people from coming to Bauchi state to stay. You are all living witnesses to the migration that we have from Zamfara state. They were very impressed and if you go round you will see them, , a lot of people, women and children migrated to the state because of the security challenge they have there. We don’t turn them back immediately they come into the borders of Bauchi, we look for a place where they will settle and we settle them.  
We try as much as possible to provide boreholes for them, provide shelter for them to settle down, and we intervene by giving them polio immunization and we tell them that while in Bauchi they should respect directive from Government, so most of the IDPs are very cooperative and positive when it comes to immunization. And as long as we can develop the capacities of many refuges as possible, we will be able to address that aspect.  Right now we have over three million IDPs, In fact we have commanded our agencies to rehabilitate the refuges, it has never happened anywhere in the world where people are displaced in such large numbers.
When you come there, you will not notice that  they were displaced persons, immediately they come, we resettle them, even some good Samaritans normally accommodate them in their houses, so you will not see them in either camps or schools but they are all over southern Bauchi, Northern Bauchi, Central Bauchi and all over the state.