Governor Kabir Yusuf of Kano State

By Mustapha Muhammad

The foreign scholarship of the Kano state government has been making significant progress and achieving its desired goals as the 1001 students keep returning in batches.

Among the recent graduates who excelled in their Master’s programs, 54 students from India stood out, particularly in healthcare-related courses.

Notably, seven students specialised in Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART), a course focused on reversing infertility. This expertise is especially valuable in the north, where no hospital currently offers this technique.

The students, through their postgraduate study on Embryology, had transferred this technique from the prestigious university  Symbiosis International University, India, back to Kano state in Nigeria, with the intent to impart more to the staff under the Obstetrics and Gynaecology department.

Strategically, the Kano state government, led by Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf, plans to deploy these newly trained health officials to the Muhammadu Abdullahi Wase Teaching Hospital’s Obstetrics and Gynaecology department to introduce Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART). This pioneering initiative in the region aims to provide relief to many struggling with infertility in the north.

With this development, one can say that the foreign scholarship program of the Kano state government is not only a blessing to the indigene of Kano alone, but the entire north.

The Hospitals Management Board, under the leadership of Dr Mansur Mudi Nagoda, is up and doing to ensure that all that it takes to start implementing the new technique of ART is in place.

I have an insight into the ongoing preparations, including meetings between the Hospitals Management Board and the health officials recently returned from India, at Muhammadu Abdullahi Wase Teaching  Hospital (MAWTH).

These discussions focus on identifying gaps and assessing needs, such as equipment and medication, to effectively launch Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) and address infertility.

The beauty of the knowledge transfer, particularly on this ART, is that more health personnel would get to know how to do it, and it will keep spreading to a larger population within the obstetrics and gynaecology departments across the state and the entire northern region.

I was also hinted that the processes of the ART that cost above three million naira (N3,000,000) would be sponsored by the State Governor, Alhaji Abba Kabir Yusuf, meaning it is going to be free, like free maternal and postnatal care in the northwestern state of Kano. This is good news to all persons with infertility problems in Kano and the north.

No doubt, the state government’s gesture on free maternal and postnatal care reduces maternal and morbidity rates in Kano, and with the implementation of this new technique of ART, infertility will be reduced to the barest minimum.

This shows how Abba Kabir Yusuf’s administration values human lives and human development.

Once Assisted Reproductive Technology is implemented, infertility will no longer be a barrier to having children in Kano and the wider northern region. Hence, the Kano Foreign Scholarship is a blessing to the entire North.

Mustapha Muhammad, Chief Press Secretary to the Kano State Governor, writes from the Ancient City of Kano.