Oswald Agwu
The Ebonyi State Government has expressed its dissatisfaction with the family planning indicators in the state, vowing to enhance investment and structures to promote the uptake of services.
The Commissioner for Health, Dr. Moses Ikenna Ekuma, made the commitment at a news briefing to mark the 2025 World Contraception day.
The briefing was held on Friday at the ministry’s headquarters, Centenary City, Abakaliki.
The commissioner emphasised that the ministry has already prioritised activities that promote awareness on family planning/reproductive health, increased capacity and access to method mix, stressing that it would continue to advance strategies to ensure commodity availability and method uptake.
Decrying the negative indicators: low contraceptive prevalence rate and high unmet needs for family planning in the state, Ekuma said the Ministry with its partners: MSI-Nigeria Reproductive Choices, Engender Health Nigeria, and United Nations Population Fund, have intensified rural outreaches across the state and multimedia awareness campaigns.
He emphasised: “The state contraceptive prevalence rate (CPR) is still as low as 7.4 percent while unmet need for family planning is still as high as 29 percent (NDHS 2013-24)
“It is for this reason that the state is leaving no stone unturned in setting structures and investing in ensuring FP commodity availability.”
Speaking on the theme for this year’s celebration: “A choice for All – Agency, Intention, Access,” the Commissioner maintained that reproductive right is a human right, which bestows on a woman the right to freely choose whether, when, and with whom to have a child without coercion, fear, or judgement.
He added that maintaining an ideal gap between two or more pregnancies can help couples prepare financially and otherwise for their children’s educational and other needs while adolescents, youths, and older women who are not mentally, physically, and economically ready for pregnancy can benefit from using contraception.
Speaking to journalists during a road walk to commemorate the day, the family planning Coordinator for Ebonyi State Ministry of Health, Christiana Ifunanya Ikechukwu, said the essence of the celebration was to create awareness of the availability of contraception in the various health facilities in the state.
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Ikechukwu emphasised that prevention of unwanted and unplanned pregnancy is a way of preventing maternal mortality, stressing that family planning is safe and vital for family unity, love and happiness.
She noted that in as much as adolescent promiscuity is rightly condemned in most cultures and religions, adolescents and young, sexually active people should be allowed access to contraception and other family planning services as a matter of right and for the interest of their future.
She paid glowing tribute to all partners with the state in family planning, including Engender Health Nigeria through the Catalytic Opportunity fund; MSI Nigeria Reproductive Choices; and UNFPA.
She noted that the partners have assisted the state so much in areas of training and capacity building, products donations and other logistics assistance, and applauded Governor Francis Nwifuru for creating a health friendly environment through his massive investment in the health sector of the State.
In an interview, the South East regional manager, MSI Nigeria, Elvis Umeh, emphasised that a well planned family fosters economic growth and stability, improves maternal and child health, and prevents unwanted pregnancies.
He debunked as misconception the insinuation that access to family planning and reproductive health services for young people would encourage promiscuity, emphasising that it would rather secure their future and reduce school dropouts due to unwanted pregnancies among sexually active youths and adolescents.
“We are here to create awareness so that people will know that family planning is necessary irrespective of one’s marital status,” Umeh stressed.
Others who spoke during the event: Director of Public Health in the Ministry, Dr. Hyacinth Ebenyi; State Reproductive Health Coordinator, Dr. Emmanuel Ogharu; and Executive Secretary, State Primary Healthcare Development Agency, Dr. Phillip Ovuoba, also stressed the importance of contraception and other reproductive health services.
They commended Governor Nwifuru and his wife, Mary-Maudline Uzoamaka Nwifuru, for their numerous interventions in the state health sector.
World Contraception Day is observed annually on September 26.
