Lagos — Last week the former Minister of Health, Professor Adenike Grange, former Minister of State for Health, Gabriel Aduku, Senator Obasanjo-Bello and others were arraigned in court for their alleged unlawful siphoning of the staggering sum of N300 million from the Ministry. This news formed the headlines in most of the country's newspapers last week. Suffice it to say that Professor Grange and others had earlier been sent packing in the Ministry for their alleged guilty mind in the alleged graft.

The cleaning-up of the Federal Ministry of Health is a pre-requisite to the cleaning-up of the country's primary health care delivery system. Therefore beyond the ritual of simply arraigning these suspects in court after which they are likely to regain their freedom and start walking the streets unmolested, I think that the current cleansing exercise in the Ministry of Health should aim at bringing the Ministry thieves to justice as well as reforming the entire Ministry to make it play more pivotal role in the country's healthcare delivery system. Even Prof., Grange recognized the need for such reform when she stated in her defence: "As a professional and technocrat, I must admit that the level of decay and corruption within the Ministry and the whole Nigerian system as we all know glaring need to be decisively tackled and purged".

I completely agree with Prof., Grange. The Federal Ministry of Health has outlived its usefulness and therefore is in dire need of urgent reform. The Federal Ministry of Health was established to develop health policies and programs that will, among other things, strengthen the country's health system. But unfortunately the Federal Ministry of Health is behaving like the Federal Ministry of Death. Instead of performing the above function, the Federal Ministry of Health, in conspiracy with United Nations Agencies like United Nations Fund for population and activities (UNFPA) and Department for Internal Development (DFID), World Health Organization (WHO), The John D & Catherine T-McArthur foundation, Planned Parenthood Federation of Nigeria (PPFN) etc, has largely been promoting contraceptives, abortificients and sterilization instruments like Depo-Provera, IUCD, postinor 2, Lo-femenal, Norplant, suction tubes, Vasectomy (male sterilization), tubal ligation (female sterilization) etc among the Nigerian public. For example, there is a division in the Federal Ministry of Health called the Reproductive health division which is solely concerned with promotion of "safe-sex" and abortion among Nigerian women and teens. Under the guise of fighting maternal mortality, the Ministry of Health is promoting the sterilization of Nigerian women. Right now I have a book in front of me published by the Federal Ministry of Health entitled: "Federal Republic of Nigeria. National Family Planning/Reproductive Health. Service Protocols". The pages of this book are littered with different methods of performing vasectomy and tubal legation.

In 1991 the Federal Ministry of health canvassed for the legalization of abortion in Nigeria. Between March 30 to April 5 1998, the WHO and the Federal Ministry of Health visited the then First Lady, Maryan Abacha, to canvass that Nigerian women should be given free access to abortion clinics. Before her appointment as Minister for Health, Prof., Grange had been working with WHO and Federal Ministry of Health in the promotion of Adolescent Reproductive Health Services in Nigeria, that is, giving the Nigerian young the right sexual pleasure and abortion right. In the 90s she was the advisor on Reproductive health matters at the office of WHO Representative for Nigeria. In her paper published in the WHO Newsletter of June, 1998, Prof., Grange clearly supported the legalization of contraceptives and abortion in Nigeria.

In 2004 I attended the Reproductive Health Summit at Sheraton Hotel, Abuja co-sponsored by the Federal Ministry of Health and all I saw littering the lobby of the Ladi Kwali Conference Centre, Sheraton Hotel were nor-plants, suctions tubes for abortion, neo-sampoon vag foam noristerat 200 mg.inj, IUCD, excluton, microngynon, Depo-Provera, postinor 2, Lo-femenal etc. In his keynote address at that Summit, former Minster for Health, Professor Eyitayo Lambo shocked many of us when he stated that the Federal Ministry of Health was making adequate arrangement to flood Nigeria with "modern contraceptives". Therefore, from head to toe, the Federal Ministry of Health is oozing out with corruption-financial corruption. moral corruption, policy corruption and staff corruption.

The questions in the light of the above revelations are: how do we stop the Federal Ministry of Health from abusing its powers? How do we stop the Ministry from conspiring with UNFPA, WHO, DFID and others and imposing the most abrasive immoral health policies on Nigerians? Why do we continue to have abortionists as our Health Ministers? The answers to these questions call for a complete reform of our Federal Ministry of Health. First, our next Minister of Health must not be an abortionist. The Reproductive Health Division of the Federal Ministry of Health should be scrapped. The National Contraceptive Logistics Management System (CLMS) adopted by Nigeria in 1995 without inputs from stakeholders should be scrapped. The participation of UNFPA, DFID, McArthur foundation and others in our health care delivery system should be probed.

We need a new Federal Ministry of Health that is properly focused to perform its proper health functions. Right now the country's primary heath delivery system has collapsed. Many preventable diseases in the world are still ravaging Nigeria. Nigeria has the highest number of maternal deaths in the world after India. Nigeria is ranked among the top countries in the world with the highest number of malaria deaths. Nigeria occupies the unenviable top position among the countries with the highest number of malnourished or kwashiorkor children. According to Prof., Grange, 8 million Nigerians are afflicted with glaucoma while 300,000 Nigerians stand the risk of being blinded by the disease. The latest startling revelation is that a wave of measles and Cerebro-Spinal Meningitis (CSM) is taking a heavy toll of ten Northern States. This is not surprising. Our public hospitals are not working. At Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), for example, there is no water. The patients have to scurry about with empty pockets in search of water for their use. Today many poor people who cannot afford the exorbitant medical fees in private hospitals are just sitting down at home and waiting for death.

Therefore, we need a new Federal Ministry of Health that is truly committed to the promotion of the real health of Nigerians. We don't want a Ministry of Death anymore. Nigerian women need improved nutrition, pre-natal care and emergency obstetric care, not abortion. Nigerian babies and children need good vaccines and inoculations against modern diseases, not "safe-sex". Our rural men and women need clinic and dispensaries where they can go and be given simple drugs to stay alive. The average impoverished Nigerian villager needs food and medicine to stay alive, not suctions tubes and Manual Vacuum Aspirators (MVA) for performing abortion. The Federal government should urgently set up a new specialist eye-hospital for the treatment of glaucoma. We need specially-treated mosquitoes-nets to stay away from catching malaria. Health is wealth. A country that ignores the primary health care of its citizens is a country heading for extinction.