By Etta Michael Bisong
Abuja
A non-governmental organisation, Connected Development (CODE), has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to declare Shikira, a small rural mining community in Niger state, a “national emergency,” to address the lead outbreak epidemic that infected 65 persons in March, 2015.
The call, according to the Chief Executive of the organisation, Hamzat Lawal, to reinforce the assessment plan released by the Response Planning Development Committee on outbreak of lead poisoning in Niger state.
Lawal, noted that nothing meaningful had been done about the crisis since submission of the Committee’s report which recommended that N500 million should be approved to clean-up the community of lead contaminates that claimed the lives of 28 children.
He lamented that such attitude was even more shocking as the outbreak left other children with many anomalies such as fever, pallor, abdominal pain, vomiting, convulsion and altered level of consciousness.
The situation, he said, may look bad when assessed outwardly, but inwardly there was solutions, adding that Doctors Without Borders are presently on ground to provide free medical services. He armstwisted because they needed government to first clean-up the area before any meaningful intervention could take place.
“We strongly blame this onslaught of human lives on administrative recklessness and lack of “will” by political actors to tackle the plights of the citizens,” Lawal said.
He said as part of contributions to address the menace, his organisation (CODE) has proposed a stakeholders dialogue in the state which will bring together representatives of government as well as locals in the community.
