BY Ebunoluwa Olafusi
The Corporate Accountability for Public Participation Africa (CAPPA) has organised a training for journalists in the south-eastern region on trans-fat and its health implications.
The two-day event was held from May 6 to 7, in Enugu.
Eighteen journalists were drawn from Abia, Ebonyi, Anambra, Imo, and Enugu states.
Speaking at the event, Ikechukwu Obi, Enugu commissioner of health, said the training would be an avenue to pressure the relevant government agencies to pass the fats and oils regulations into law.
“As most of you already know, the high levels of trans-fat in foods consumed by Nigerians, from the fast foods to re-used oils, means we are sitting on a keg of gun powder that might explode at any time in form of cardiovascular disease of many kinds,” he said.
“We believe this training will contribute significantly to the body of knowledge in the public domain to educate Nigerians and pressure the relevant agencies of government at the federal level to gazette the regulations.”
Speaking on trans-fat regulation, Joy Amafah, in-country coordinator of Global Health Advocacy Incubation (GHAI), emphasised why the fats and oils regulation must be gazetted.
She said this would serve as a permanent solution for relevant government agencies to be able to monitor and have control over the oils produced for the populace to consume.
On his part, Jerome Mafeni, technical director at NHED, who spoke about understanding trans-fat and its health impacts, drew the attention of the participants to the seemingly increase in the sudden deaths of young people as he emphasised poor health systems as part of the health challenges.
Akinbode Olufemi, executive director of CAPPA, asked participants to engage all government representatives at the event to put more pressure on relevant agencies to gazette the bill.
The training was facilitated by local and international public health, media, and communications experts.
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