Buba Mafindi, Chairman of Taraba State Planning Commission, says over 35 million Nigerians are facing imminent starvation due to insecurity and desertification.
Mafindi gave the warning in Jalingo on Friday during the Child Friendly Community Initiative meeting of stakeholders organised by the United Nations Children Education Fund (UNICEF).
It was imperative for governments to make “deliberate efforts at reconstruction and rehabilitation of displaced persons”.
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Mafindi lamented that most of the people living in the IDPs camps lacked access to the basic necessities of life.
Mr Bhanu Pathak, Chief UNICEF Officer in Bauchi Field Office, represented by the Health Specialist of the Field, Dr Zighe Mlakh, said that previous interventions by UNICEF did not yield a holistic result because different interventions were made to different communities.
Pathak said: “The Child Friendly Community Initiative was aimed at making the communities aware of what they are supposed to do for the children and to make them take charge in enforcing child rights and other child related issues.”
He said that based on statistics on ground, 129 out of every 1000 children under five years old died before their fifth birthdays, while over 57 out of every 100 children in the state were involved in child labour.
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Pathak noted that four out of every 10 girls were getting married before their 18th birthday.
He disclosed that the child friendly community initiative would provide a comprehensive package for children in education, WASH, C4D polio vaccination and birth registration.
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