According to UNICEF more than half (600,000) of the 1.1 million children under five years old in Jigawa State are stunted. They are too short for their ages and in need of therapeutic feeding and care due to malnutrition.
To support and improve government led efforts to continue nutritious feeding the Jigawa state government in partnership with UNICEF initiated the Child Complementary Feeding Program into the Jigawa State Masaki Nutrition Program. Masaki is a Nutrition program started in July 2018 by the Jigawa State Primary Health Care Development Agency.
The Jigawa state government contributed 250 million naira and UNICEF contributed an equal amount of 250 million naira making it 500 million in total for the procurement of Ready-to-Use-therapeutic-Food (RUTF) for the treatment of acute malnutrition through community-based programmes.
There are 300 hundred sites where demonstrations on complementary feeding made from homegrown foods are done once in every week across the state to reduce malnutrition among children.
In an interview with the State Nutrition Officer Jigawa State Primary Healthcare, Saidu Umar Adamu clarified how the intervention fund for child nutrition grant by UNICEF in partnership with Jigawa State government was added to the Masaki Nutrition Program.
“250 million naira from UNICEF and 250 million naira from Jigawa State Government, making 500 million was used to stock up 12,400 cartons of RUTF which is expected to treat about 15,000 children with severe malnutrition in the state.”
He said the Child Nutrition program trained both lactating and expecting mothers on early initiation and continues breastfeeding, exclusive breastfeeding in the first two years of life, and adequate complementary foods from six months of age. The complementary feeding is made from homegrown foods, which are easy to access and cost effective .
“The programme is for pregnant women and women with children under the age of five years. Immediately a woman is pregnant she is enrolled into the program until the child is five years old that’s for the Masaki programme.”
“While the complementary feeding programme, the training starts right from maternal nutrition to appropriate complementary feeding that is 6 months to 23 months. So far mothers are accepting the programme for their children.” He said
The program targets the less privileged living in the rural area. The program first evaluates a child’s nutritional status to know the state of his nutrition before enrolling him into the program. The child is tracked to see its progress and is discharged only when the progress is evaluated to be normal.
“We don’t have sites in the urban areas the Masaki is for those in the rural communities. Right from the unset we use the community leaders to identify where we are going to set the site for Masaki.”
He also highlighted some issues that need to be addressed to make the program more effective, issues like bridging the distance between one settlement and the other and taking care of the hygiene around demonstration site, as most sites have poor hygiene due to lack of water and toilet facilities.
“The distance between one settlement to another is a barrier to the program. It takes about 6km or more to access the Masaki sites. When we run out of food for demonstration, food demonstration samples are gathered by the community or local government council. People who meet at the Masaki demonstration site come in hungry and might need food during the demonstration there is a need for additional food to help address that.”
“Also there is a need for a good source of water and hygiene in the surroundings where we do the food demonstration. There is a need for toilet facilities and a good source of water, sometimes people need to travel 50m or 500m to access water and most times people’s houses are used for toilets”
In an interview with a medical officer working at the Pediatric Department at General Hospital Dutse, Dr. Khadija Othman who lost two patients to Malnutrition complained about the recent high turnout of patients with acute malnutrition.
“I have not seen much change. In our OPD right now if I have like 40 patients, 30 of them are SAM patients that is patients coming with severe malnutrition. Yesterday I lost two patients from the SAM, they came in at a very late stage with severe acute Malnutrition and so need to be admitted”
She outlines some issues that must be addressed by Government, stakeholders and families to help reduce malnutrition among children.
“We as stakeholders must improve on community outreaches to educate people on the core concept of malnutrition, and what causes malnutrition. Some of it is poor dietary practices, so we need more awareness, more health promotion to educate them on available programmes.”
Also, she advised that the programmes should have a site in hospitals that way the pediatric and nutrition departments can work together on malnutrition cases.
A pediatric Nurse with the Dutse General Hospital, Faisal Muhammad Bello said although the mortality rate has reduced there is still a high rate of severely malnourished children and more cases of discharged patients coming back malnourished.
“On admission days like Monday, Wednesday and Friday in total, we get about 15 patients which is a high number. In the past, we get just about three to four patients in a week. Sometimes patients who are fully discharged come back Malnourished if the child is not taken to the Outpatient site (OTP) to receive the Ready-to-use-therapeutic-food RUTF after leaving the hospital.”
He blamed poverty, ignorance and a lack of awareness about the importance of child nutrition as the main causes of Malnutrition.
Furthermore, the Matron In-Charge Pediatric Ward General Hospital Dutse, Lami Dauda said that from January 2024 to date, there has been an increase in malnourished children compared to the past. She commented that the root cause of malnutrition is the lack of awareness and poverty as a lot of these mothers know nothing about food nutrition and the little with the knowledge can’t afford the food.
WikkiTimes went around the pediatric ward to see children on admission and to confirm with parents if they were aware of the Child Complementary Feeding Programme and its impact on their families.
Khadija the mother of Kamal a 1-year patient admitted to the pediatric ward acknowledged the Child Complementary Feeding Programme (Masaki) but complained that she didn’t get the ready-to-use-therapeutic-food RUFT.
She said the site is a far distance from where she lives and had to take a bike there twice but still couldn’t get the RUFT. The case got severe so they had to come to the hospital to be admitted.
“We were asked to go to Sukwai Unguwar Kware, it’s far from where I stay. I stay in Dangan Tsaure Sabon Kasuwa in Dutse. I took him to the site twice and they said they no longer give the RUTF, and that it has finished. That’s why we are here, today is our second day.”

Also Aisha from Kafin Gana Burnin Kudu the mother of another malnourished patient Al’amin 9 month old said she had never heard of the Child Complementary Feeding Programme (Masaki).

Sa’ade from Gauraki, Burnin Kudu the mother of a patient Adamu 1 year old said Masaki was in place three to four years ago but is no longer available.
“If the programme were still in place this child wouldn’t have been like this, we wouldn’t have been admitted here.” She said.
Most of the women interviewed by WikkiTimes know nothing about the Child Complementary Feeding Programme and the few who did claim it’s no longer in place.
The government and stakeholders must take a closer look at the gaps in the the Child Complementary Feeding Programme. The programme which aimed to reach about 15,000 children in Jigawa State has shown some improvements but still faces some major challenges that need to be dealt with. There is a great need for awareness among the caregivers. Most of the interviewed mothers reported having no knowledge of the Child Complementary Feeding Programme and had little or no idea about balanced diets. Also, the distribution site should be placed close to the beneficiaries for easy access. Many of the beneficiaries, especially those from remote areas, have to travel some distance to benefit from the program. In addition to this, there is a great need for more funding for the program. For every gathering, which occurs once per week in 300 centres, the provision of food, water, and toilet facilities would make it more comfortable and desired by the beneficiaries of the program.