If there is a list of government establishments in Nigeria that are strengthening the country’s capacity to respond to a variety of challenges confronting humanity, Environmental Health Officers Registration Council of Nigeria (EHORECON) must be on the top echelon of the list.
EHORECON is an agency under the Federal Ministry of Environment charged with the responsibility of regulating Environmental Health profession in Nigeria. At the head of the Council is Yakubu Mohammed Baba as Registrar/CEO.
Indeed, there is something unmistakably Nigerian about this man. Born in Azare, Bauchi state, the 48-year old flaunts his ‘Nigerianness’ through his credentials on the strength of having received his education, starting from primary, secondary and diploma level training in Bauchi, before heading for the neighbouring Gombe, Higher National Diploma (HND) Environmental Health, School of Health Technology.
His educational sojourn took him to Nigeria’s South West, where he obtained a Master of Science (MSc), Environmental Health Management, LadokeAkintola University, Ogbomoso, Oyo State, after studying for a Bachelor of Science (BSc), Environmental Health, Houdegbe North American University, Cotonou, Benin Republic.
He then headed east to collect a Master of Public Health (MPH), Imo State University Owerri, Imo State; and returned to the neighbouring Abia state to earn a PhD in Environmental Health and Safety, Abia State University, Uturu.
All the measures that are put in place to prevent direct transmission of COVID-19 are all environmental health measures
It was, for him a dream come true, given that he has always itched “To assume a challenging position in order to meaningfully contribute to the improvement and achievement of organizational systems and objectives by working with team members, striving to attain excellence driven by innovation and creativity.”
And he comes well prepared for the position with the accolades, in terms of fellowships and professional memberships, he has garnered over his career so far, from being a Member of the Society for Environmental Health of Nigeria (SEHON) to being a Fellow of the African Institute of Public Health Practitioners (AIPHP).
The Registrar excitedly highlights the Council’s plethora of achivements in many various areas that have enabled EHORECON to strengthen Nigeria’s capacity to respond to local and global health challenges since he mounted its saddle.
For a start, the law governing the practice of environmental health in Nigeria dates back to 1958. In 2015, there was an amendment of amended upgrading of the National Environmental Health Practice Regulation. The then Minister of Environment also issued that regulation in 2015. That regulation has been the instrument that the practitioners are using today.
Another significant achievement of the Council is the issuance of about 17 guidelines that cut across various aspects of the practice — from sanitation in aviation industry, guideline for accreditation of our programmes in the training institutions to school sanitation – to opening up the profession to the private sector.
The Council has also opened a register and approved five practice areas in environmental health, namely: inspection of premises; public health pest and vector control; waste collection; air quality monitoring and healthcare waste management. These are the areas that have opened up for private sector to come and invest in. “We have issued guidelines where people can come and invest,” says Yakubu Mohammed Baba.
He has also effected the issue of the merging of licences. “When we started, all environmental health officers were using the single licensing protocol. But since the profession has grown, we have now de-merged our licensing,” he says. “Those that have Ph D and professors are called environmental health specialists, and we issue them license as such. By law, you cannot be signing some professional documents when you are not at some certain level. This was intended to bring sanity to the practice.”
In 2021, the Council was able to host the first National Environmental Health Summit, and one of the outcomes of that Summit was a roadmap for environmental health. The essence of the roadmap is to move the profession of environmental health to global standards.
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Joining EHORECON in 2005 as Senior Environmental Health Officer, Yakubu Mohammed Baba acted as acting Registrar/CEO from 2020 to 2021 before his elevation to the apex of the Council. In his career, he has also held the following positions in other establishments: Senior Environmental Health Officer, National Assembly Service Commission – Abuja; Senior Environmental Health Officer, Federal Staff Hospital, Abuja; Environmental Health Officer, Katagum Local Government, Bauchi State; Environmental Health Officer-in-Training, Katagum Local Government, Bauchi State.
His ability to deliver on the terms of his appointments has been enhanced by exposure to a variety of professional training programmes in different parts of the world — Dubai, United Arab Emirates; People’s Republic of China; Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso; South Korea, Malawi; USA and the United Kingdom.
He has given to his chosen profession as much as much as he has received, attesting to his intellectual standing and evidenced by his numerous technical publications in professional journals.
However, he acknowledges the persistence of challenges, one of which is how to, in compliance with the International Health Regulations, effectively deploy environmental health officers to mount what it calls “Health force” point of entries to Nigeria. He recalls that the first case of COVID-19 came from somewhere into the country, underscoring the need to strengthen the nation’s port health services.
He notes: “All the measures that are put in place to prevent direct transmission of COVID-19 are all environmental health measures.” These include social distancing, sanitization, etc., basic hygiene measures that were not strictly or stringently enforced in Nigeria until the pandemic.
In an interview with BusinessDay, Baba had reiterated the importance of environmental hygiene as a first step in ensuring a healthy population. “98% of the diseases that are causing hospitalization in Nigeria are sanitation-related diseases,” he said.
He further explained that by virtue of the Nigerian constitution, the power to ensure sanitation and enforcement of sanitation laws us vested in the local governments but they are relatively incapacitated, which makes his agency the primary defence for the country.
Does the local government really see the need to recruit the type of professionals that can handle environmental sanitation challenges? The answer is no, he said. They don’t even see the value of recruiting the range of professionals required. One more thing about this profession is there is no investment that brings dividends more than in the environmental services.
Giving a scenario, he explained that when one goes to the major cities like Kano, they would realise the truism of the adage “Whatever you give to the environment, that’s what you get in return.” And you also know that we are undergoing a vicious cycle of stretching our health facilities. You will contract a disease today, go to the best hospital in Nigeria, get the best care in that hospital; but you will return to the same environment where you contracted the disease. How can we break this vicious cycle?
In another scenario, he said; do you know that all of us are paying trillions of dollars in malaria tax? Why is this so? He went further to explain that epidemiology 101 says that if you want to eliminate any disease, attack the vector. But our health policies say we are rolling back malaria. But, as we are rolling back malaria, malaria is not going anywhere. So the reality is that everybody in Nigeria bears the burden of malaria, like a tax burden, because there is nobody in Nigeria who doesn’t contract malaria at least thrice in a year.
The cost of malaria treatment is about N1000, which amounts to N3000 annually per person. The projected population of Nigeria is 220 million. So multiply 3000 by 220 million. This is what we are paying for a disease that is related to environmental sanitation, a disease that can be eliminated.
And for him, the solution is simple – bring back the environmental health officers, give them the necessary equipment to work with. Environmental health work is a noble profession, because even during Nigeria’s Amalgamation (of the Northern and Southern Protectorates to form what became Nigeria), the chief sanitary inspector was already well known by people, he said.
