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Obinna Odogwu, Abakaliki
The aim of the recent distribution of antimalarial nets in Ebonyi State may eventually be partly defeated if the concerns raised by many residents of Abakaliki, the state capital are not urgently addressed.
More than 1.7 million long lasting insecticidal treated nets have been made available by the Government in partnership with the presidential malaria initiative of the Government of the United States of America (USA) for distribution to the households in the 13 Local Government Areas of the state.
According to the state Malaria Elimination Programme Manager, Ministry of Health, Mr Lawrence Nwankwo, household mobilization campaign for the distribution of the nets started on the 19th to 27th October, after the mobilizers were trained. The distributions happened from 9th to 13th of November.
But after the date of the distribution was over, many residents of Abakaliki cried out that they were neither given the net card nor the net itself. In fact, some of them claimed that they went to the distribution points but were not give the net because they were not in possession of the card.
Series of accusation was laid over why some parts of the capital city did not get the card. While some claimed that the nets were being hoarded for onward distribution to friends of the distributors, others claimed made other unpleasant allegations.
A resident at Hausa Quarters, Abakaliki, Mrs Irene Okike, lamented that the net distributors did not come to their area alleging that residents of the area were not covered.
Asked about her challenge with getting the nets, the angry Irene said: “I am very angry. See, they said that they shared card but we did not see anybody in my compound. Even my close neighbours, I have been asking them but they said that they did not see card.
“Now, we went there to collect net but they said that they will not give us net. This thing I am telling you, I will not take it lightly with them. I will go and report them.
“Now, they will say that governor did not give them the chance for them to share the card. Moreover, I will ask my brother that is in government to report them through the governor’s office.
“I can’t take it any longer. It is not good. I have small children and we need that net. My husband and everybody at home will need that net”.
Another resident at the same location who simply gave her name as Ms Marvellous corroborated Irene: We didn’t see the paper at all. There is nobody to my knowledge that has the card. They did not come to our side because all the people we asked said that nobody came to our side; that they are still waiting for them.
“We don’t know what to do. We are pleading with them to come to our side and give us net. We really need it”.
Many other residents of different parts of Abakaliki also complained about the same issue. They said that no tangible reason was given as to why they were not given the nets.
Reacting to the allegations, Mr Nwankwo said that he had received pockets of reports about households that did not get the nets. He said, however, that the allegations being bandied by some people were not true.
Nwankwo said: “We have received pockets of reports about missed out households and we have already and immediately strategized to ensure that we reach as many households as are in Ebonyi.
“We are working with a target of reaching out to 1.7 million households and this is what we started through a micro plan we did in July this year. That gave us an idea of the estimated number of households.
“We didn’t actually conduct census of the households in Ebonyi. We had to use the 2006 census projection to arrive at what we have and what we are working with. We also added some percentage in case the estimate is not correct.
“The household mobilization started on the 19th of October to 27th of October. Thereafter, that is after training the household mobilizers, there was the distribution which happened from 9th to 13th of November. We had only 5 days for that.
“But again, because of the complaints of missed out households, we also arranged that those households that were missed out should also go to distribution points nearest to them where these nets were being given out to document that they were missed out.”
He stated that those documented were to be covered during the mop up period on 14th and 15th of November, noting that the mobilization periods included two weekends so as to capture very busy and working people.
“To the best of our knowledge, that is unfounded. I know that households were missed out in some areas because of, probably, they were not available as at the periods household mobilizers came or they travelled and they came back to discover what is happening”, he explained.
