By Marie-Therese Nanlong

In 2010, Abigail Ishaku (not real name) from Foron district in Barkin Ladi local government area of Plateau State who was 46 years old then was pregnant for the 12th time.

At that time, for three consecutive weeks, she left her native home in Foron at about 4.30am to Jos where she was making frantic efforts to register for her ante-natal care at the Plateau State Specialist hospital in Jos.

The three unsuccessful attempts really frustrated her efforts until a concerned staff offered to assist her in getting a number which would ensure she is registered.

Pregnant women have tales to tell about the herculean task of registering for ante-natal care in that hospital. Due to lack of personnel and space, only 30 to 33 women are picked on each registration day and those who don’t make the number have to try again or look elsewhere for such services.

When Mrs. Ishaku finally got a chance to register, she told the Nurse on duty she was 46 years old and had her first pregnancy in 1984, she never intended being pregnant for 12 times within 26 years but she had no choice but give birth each time she was pregnant.

When asked about taking a family planning service, she noted, “I don’t know what family planning is, if it will stop me from getting pregnant, I would like to have it.”

10 years after the incident, Plateau women especially those in the hinterlands are still at a disadvantaged position because some of them lack basic information about family planning, some have no access to family planning services, some patronize untrained facilities for family planning and some others can’t access their preferred method of family planning.

Not only do these matured women exposed themselves to either risk of unplanned pregnancy and unsafe abortion, young girls too are ignorantly engaging in getting family planning services from untrained personnel.

To curb these dangerous situations, stakeholders in the family planning advocacy group in the State are appealing for improved and active state and local governments’ involvement in family planning issues by making adequate budgetary provision and timely release of funds for the provision of proper family planning services.

The stakeholders, through training by Pathfinder International, a non-governmental organization have had their capacity built on advocacy and family planning budget tracking to ensure that relevant people disseminate the message of family planning to the grassroots as well as block all leakages from the point of release of fund to the point of utilization so that the needful can be done in providing the services.

It would be recalled that the State Costed Implementation Plan for Family Planning from 2018 to 2020 shows that within the health sector, family planning has been the most marginalized item on the budget considering that funds are not always available for planned family planning activities.

The document states that, “Annual budget allocation to health in recent times has been between 4% and 5% of the total budget, but most worrisome is the percentage of the allocation released that has been less than 4% in the last 2-3 years. This no doubt has its effects on resources available for family planning activities.

“Since 2014, stakeholders have been advocating for a separate budget line for family planning, an effort that paid off in 2016 with an allocation of N5m but no release was achieved. However, N19m was allocated in 2017 with only N5m released for planned activities, a step considered an improvement over the previous years.

“Similarly, the various Line Ministries such as Education and Women Affairs have no allocation for planned family planning related activities.”

Over the years, family planning in the State has been largely dependent on international assistance and support from the federal government; funding for other activities like personnel training, community mobilization, supportive supervision, provision of consumables and others have been very low hence the call for more commitment from the State and local governments.

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Cultural/religious barriers, poor quality of service, unmet needs, untrained personnel and lack of efficient facilities have also affected the effective provision of family planning services and not addressing the issues have overstretched available public infrastructure as the population has exploded especially in the Jos/Bukuru metropolis.

This unchecked birth rate has seen the influx of low or no income groups of people in the city centres struggling for survival hence the increase in the rate of insecurity, cultism, robbery and other forms of crimes. In 2019 alone, over 3,000 people were arrested by the Police for engaging in various forms of crime.

Speaking with Vanguard in Jos, a member of the State Advocacy working group on family planning, Wika Gofwen reiterated budgetary allocation for family planning in the State is grossly inadequate.

He said, “The N23m we were thinking will be the budgetary allocation for family planning this year; which is less than what we were asking for has been slashed down to N19m and that can hardly provide some of the commodities, the consumables, training of health personnel to be equipped with knowledge that would make them provide the family planning services. It cannot go anywhere.”

The Manager, News, Nigerian Television Authority, NTA, Lafia, Nasarawa State, Mark Agagwu who was part of the said training by Pathfinder International described the training as rewarding because, “As professionals, we need to know before we can sensitize the people about family planning. Government can help by increasing the budgetary allocations for family planning; it will help in the planning for facilities, consumables and other things so that it will make the job easier.”

The Lead Facilitator at the training, Yusuf Nuhu from Pathfinders International said family planning budget tracking is essential to understand the flow of resources from the point of allocation to utilization, stressing, “Budget tracking is done in order to ensure that one’s services are improved, that there are no leakages along the process of flow of resources from allocation to when they are utilized.”

Vanguard