Most men in Northern Nigeria understand only one thing—impregnate their wives and wait for their delivery. What happens to the wives during pregnancy, childbirth and post-partum period is none of their business. It is exclusively reserved for the women to deal with.
The male in this part of the world have made a name for their lack of enthusiasm, to responsibly discuss with their spouses on their well being and safe motherhood with the view to ensuring that mothers and their children are well taken care of, especially during pregnancy.
Had they ignored their plight only, it wouldn’t have been so severe, but they go beyond that in many quarters—denying them access to basic health care even at the point of death.
The patriarchal system is holding sway—the men are in charge; they decide when, where, how and under what circumstances their wives access basic health care. This practice results in catastrophic consequences most of the times.
The importance of male involvement in maternal health has been documented by several research pundits and aid agencies, and lack of it is regarded as a major setback for women’s inability to access and utilize maternal health care services.
In Northern Nigeria, death of women of reproductive age is increasingly on the rise, and the behavior of men to addressing the imbroglio is not favorable.
They hardly discuss maternal health issues with their spouses; therefore don’t take joint decision on seeking good health care services when the women are pregnant—on an affair they jointly conceived.
But a local NGO, Community Initiative for the Promotion of Health and Education Sector, CIPRHES, is working assiduously to turn the tide. The NGO is funded by Global Affairs Canada through Plan International to implement the Bauchi Opportunities for Responsive Neonatal and Maternal Health, a gender transformative project that targets women of reproductive age.
To confront the socio-cultural norms that have systematically disadvantage and discriminated against women and girls, the NGO has made stride to involve all stakeholders at all levels. “Religious and Traditional leaders, families, opinion leaders and influencers, are key to addressing these barriers that are becoming toxic by the day” said Ibrahim Ladan Wunti, the Executive Director of the NGO.
Mr Ladan Wunti while reiterating the importance of religious and traditional leaders said “they are seen as custodians of moral and philosophical values, and they hold tremendous respect among members of the community.
“The project deems it necessary to train them, because doing so, would simplify our work. The spirit is, the religious leaders, through their sermons in Churches and mosques, will use religious jurisprudence to encourage men support their spouses access basic health care services especially during pregnancy”, arguing that it will reduce the number of maternal deaths in the North.
In addition to the traditional and religious leaders, the NGO has trained Male Champions and members of 100 Women Group to ensure that proper sensitization and awareness creation has reached every part of the communities where it is intervening. It has engaged the services of Community Based Health Volunteers (CBHVs) who regularly conduct house to house visits to accelerate community sensitization and collection of health data for Nigeria’s government to enable it have correct information in the health sector.
It has recorded tremendous successes so far, as testified by the executive director. “We have reached millions of people either through the CBHVs, male champions, members of the 100WG or the traditional and religious leaders in the five local government areas we are implementing the project. “And don’t also forget that we are reaching people via radio jingles, especially through community-radio stations”, he added.
The intervention has started yielding result. This writer had some conversations with Health Facilities In-charges in the five local governments where CIPRHES is implementing the BORN project. Asabe Yakubu is a Maternity in-charge, during an interaction; she tells me how the project accelerated the number of women accessing Antenatal Care Services in Bauchi LGA. “I can assure that we have had plenty women visiting this facility for one thing or the other. Some of them are coming with their husbands to access services such as family planning that was hitherto seen as a taboo”.
Lauratu Ya’u, a nurse at Guda PHC in Ningi local government also echoes Asabe Yakubu; “prior to this intervention, spouses in many communities are ignorant of the importance of accessing basic health care services, therefore are hardly convince to patronize services such as Family Planning, exclusive breastfeeding and so on. But I can assure you that it is changing gradually”.
Leveraging on the successes recorded so far, Ladan Ibrahim Wunti thank Global Affairs Canada, through Plan International and calls for more support; “we are grateful to our donors for their tremendous support. However, this project is piloted in ten LGAs out of the twenty that we have in Bauchi State, I’m calling on individuals and other donors to support us to enable us cover the remaining ten LGAs in the state.
The Bauchi Opportunities for Responsive Neonatal and Maternal Health (BORN) project is a four and a half year (February 2016-June 2020) gender-transformative project funded by Global Affairs Canada. The project is expected to ultimately contribute to the reduction of maternal and neonatal mortality in 10 Local Government Areas (LGAs) among marginalized and vulnerable women and new- borns in Bauchi state.
Haruna Mohammed Salisu writes from Bauchi. [email protected]
