Media organizations in the country have been told to prioritize coverage and inclusion of the peri-urban health, nutrition and environment issues especially in the area of sanitation in their programmes to find lasting solutions to issues and create resilient communities.
This will encourage provision of basic amenities, infrastructures, partnership with the community, own campaigns, advocacy and be involved in community activities for stronger results.
A Public Health Physician, Lagos State University Teaching Hospital ( LASUTH) Dr Aderinsola Anifowose made the call during a Green Action Week 2025, looking at how to promote community resilience to environmental protection, nutrition and hygiene in the urban communities with special focus on Alimosho Local Government Area in Lagos.
The stakeholders took critical look at traditional markets, sanitation, water hygiene therein and the need for accountability on the part of government to be able to provide adequate amenities and infrastructures to meet the needs of the progressively increasing population.
Dr Anifowose explained that, the benefits of community resilience coming together is important because it helps to reduce disease outbreaks but if there is poor sanitation, there is flood, infections can easily leak from one area of the state or from one area of the country to the other noting that it is easy to migrate infection.
”So if we are able to stand firm, if we are able to adapt and build a resilient community, we are able to stand and then advance these outbreaks. It also will help us to be able to achieve the sustainable developmental goal. “If we are able to build resilient communities, we are able to achieve the sustainable developmental goal, the sustainable developmental goal two of zero hunger, the three of achieving good health”. she explained
According to her, when people are not falling ill from diarrhoea diseases or malnutrition or different forms of ailment that could result from the poor environmental sanitation and poor nutrition thereabouts the the country would be better for it.
Anifowose stated, “People would go for open defecation because there is no water to flush through the proper sanitary method but if these are not available, people do open defecation”, This she noted affects food security and food consumption.
”There is diarrhoeal diseases amongst the people and more especially among the vulnerable population, the children and the women who are at risk in the region and then the results of malnutrition and it becomes a vicious cycle”. she explained
Explaining further, a malnourished mother will give birth to a malnourished baby, malnourished baby prone to different problems leading to cholera, diarrhoeal diseases, failure to thrive and death and so we have high cases of impact mortality death, high cases of maternal mortality rate and this brings us far away from the sustainable developmental goals which we seek to attain before 2030″.
To achieve the feat, Dr Anifowose Stressed the for every one to synergize in order to access good nutrition, manage waste properly in order to meet the 2030 target as proposed by the United Nations.
She noted that, the more the population, the poorer the sanitation because the agencies in charge of wastes are overwhelmed therefore making it difficult to appreciate the efforts.
” The population is huge and these are challenges that we face which is quite peculiar to Lagos state and then this poor sanitation will lead to poor waste management. How do we sort our waste? How much waste is being generated by this teaming population and then the limited access to clean water because we have limited access to clean water then people would take all from different water sources.
”Okay so we bear the highest health burden from this vulnerable population of children and women, we are the vulnerable we are the burden from environmental and nutritional challenges”.
The Executive Director, Healthy Living and Women’s Empowerment Initiative, HELWEI, Mrs Eberechukwu Okey-Onyema in her submissions noted that, supermarkets thrive because people do not want to go to go to dirty places in order not to mess up their legs but argued that visits to stores do not change the fact that foods passed through the market, hence the need for the thought provoking conversation.
She expressed concerns about the state of markets saying it should be a general concern.
”When you step out to Ikotun, Alagbado and Ketu, which are our traditional markets, we’ll have witnesses in the house. From the one that concerns you and I directly, to the one that the government will need to do”.
She expressed the hope that resolutions on the different roles, especially the media will play play a critical role to ensure there is a change. “Remember that we need to kick death to halt life”.
”We need to kick death in our traditional markets, in our respective environments, to be able to ensure that we have healthy lives”. She stated
Reporting By Julie Ekong