Tackling snakebites in Mokwa Local Government Area, by Ike Willie-Nwobu

Snakes are biting people to death in Mokwa Local Government Area of Niger State. According Ndagi Zakari who represents the area in the Niger State House of Assembly, snakebites are a leading cause of mortality in an area that is populated by peasants whose main occupation and source of livelihood is farming.

According to the legislator, treatment for snake bites cost as much as two hundred thousand Naira which many of the farmers cannot afford. As a result of the exorbitant cost of the treatment, many of the farmers are unable to access it, resorting to traditional healers instead. The net result is that many of them die from snake bites.

The cry for help of the lawmaker resuscitates a reckoning with the difficulties of living in rural Nigeria, where access to the basic needs of life remains challenging.

In many rural parts of Nigeria, there are no good roads, no pipe-borne water, no medical facilities and no quality schools. Many rural areas lack employment opportunities beyond subsistence farming.

As insecurity has flared into a raging problem in the last decade, the livelihoods of farmers have been threatened and often destroyed. Terrorists raiding and burning farms and killing villagers have caused many farmers to abandon their farms and communities. Repeated altercations between farmers and herders have only worsened the issue.

The attendant effects of these conflict have been the chief driver of food insecurity, causing the price of foods to skyrocket, and causing Nigerians who farm for a living to slide further into poverty.

Snakes remain a major issue in many of Nigeria’s rural problems where many are bitten sometimes at home, but many times in their farm.

According to the ministry of health, Nigeria records 20,000 cases of snakebites every year with Gombe State accounting for about half of all incidents.

About 2000 people lose their lives every year to snakebites, while another 2000 have a limb amputated to save their lives. These are massive numbers in a country where many people run the risk of close encounters with the deadly reptiles.

Nigeria has a snakebite treatment and research center in Kaltungo, Gombe State. Patients of snakebites need at least two vials of anti-snake venom with one vial costing over eighty thousand Naira which is unaffordable for many rural farmers.
Gombe, Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Nasarawa, Plateau, Enugu, Kogi, Kebbi, Oyo, Benue and Taraba states have been identified as the states with the highest incidents of snakebites.
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Apparently, the government does not budget enough for the treatment of the victims of snakebites. Access to treatment is also very difficult for those in the rural areas.
For many of them, once bitten, they quickly go beyond saving before they can access proper care. Resort to traditional healing methods usually end up complicating the problem.

Nigeria aspires to become a developed country. The truth is that it will never be considered a developed country until the
Most vulnerable among its population are made to feel some security as a result of improved conditions and quality of life.

Peoples who make their living out of tilling the earth often have to contend with the weather but also with other living things as competition for nature’s increasingly scarce resources grow fiercer.

Nigeria can do more to ensure that no one has to die from snakebites. There are too many needless deaths in Nigeria as things stand, and the government has a responsibility to help Nigerians live for as long as nature allows.

Improving access to healthcare is key, as well as improving the general quality of life available to even the poorest Nigerians.

Ike Willie-Nwobu,
Ikewilly9@gmail.com