The wife of Abia State Governor, Mrs. Nkechi Ikpeazu, has been decorated as the number one family planning champion in the state by the Abia Advocacy Core Group on Health and The Challenge Initiative, on family planning for her role in women and the girl child support.
Ikpeazu, who was crested in her Government House Office in Umuahia, assured the group of her unalloyed support to see that family planning succeed in the state.
According to her, “I have limited knowledge of TCI, activities on family planning but now that this has been brought to my knowledge I will relay it to the Governor whom I know places premium on quality health care for Abians will definitely do something about it” She said.
Earlier, the State Cordinator of family planning in Abia, Dr. Obasesem Edet, said that family planning means a lot to TCI, hence the increase in advocacy, sensitization and seeking government to play their role of counterpart funding to achieving the desired goal.
However, Dr. Edet laments that family planning is very low in the state noting that many families are willing to key in but lags the necessary information due to poor funding.
According to him, “TCI, is in the tail of leaving the state due to poor funding but if the government is willing to pay it’s counterpart fund, the major donor, Bill and Melinda Gate Foundation has no option than to fund the programme.
Contributing, a member of the group and chairman Christian Association of Nigeria Abia Chapter, Apostle Emmanuel Agonmuo, said that the challenge facing the programme is finance without which we cannot achieve results.
“We are here to seek your support to garner funding for family planning because if we fail in the area of family planning we have failed in numerous area including economic planning.
Though the government through the state house assembly had previously approved fund but that funding remain inccessible due to some bottlenecks hence this call for your support to assess those funds for maximum impact of the programme in the state ” Agonmuo said.
