The Kano State House of Assembly has called on Governor Abba Yusuf to take urgent action to contain a severe diphtheria outbreak that has reportedly killed an unspecified number of children in the Rano Local Government Area (LGA).

The resolution followed a motion of urgent public importance moved on Monday by the member representing Rano Constituency, Ibrahim Muhammad, during a plenary session presided over by Speaker Ismail Falgore.

Moving the motion, Mr Muhammad reported that the outbreak has hit the Ridin and Sabuwar Kaura communities hardest, resulting in several pediatric deaths.

He said the scale of the outbreak demanded an intensified emergency response.

“Although initial emergency measures have been taken, including the procurement of medication and deployment of health workers—further intervention is critical to containing this outbreak,” Mr Muhammad said at the plenary.

He urged the governor and the Commissioner for Health to dispatch additional emergency relief and medical supplies to the area.

The lawmaker also voiced deep concern over the recurrence of the disease, noting that a similar outbreak claimed several lives in the constituency last year.

Seconding the motion, the member representing Kiru Constituency, Usman Tasiu, revealed that the infection has already crossed LGA boundaries, spreading to neighbouring Kiru communities, including Kwarin Dangora, Dangora town, and Yelwa.

Highlighting the human toll of the crisis, Mr Tasiu shared that a local youth leader in Kiru lost two children to the disease in a day.

He called for the immediate establishment of a joint emergency task force to coordinate containment efforts across Rano, Tudun Wada, Kibiya, Bunkure, Bebeji, and Kiru LGAs.

Joining the debate, Saleh Ahmad, representing Dawakin Tofa Constituency, stressed the highly contagious nature of diphtheria and urged the government to rapidly scale up vaccination drives and preventive health measures before the disease spreads further.

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Meanwhile, House Majority Leader Lawan Husseini advised the executive arm to invoke the provisions of Kano State’s Health Protection Law.

He pointed out that the legal framework authorises the government to deliver free healthcare, issue emergency relief, isolate affected communities, and restrict movement where necessary to curb infectious outbreaks.

Following deliberations, the House unanimously passed the motion. It directed its Committee on Health to engage the Ministry of Health on enforcing the Health Protection Law and delivering immediate relief to the affected communities.

Abubakar Nabulisi, the spokesperson of the state Ministry of Health, could not be reached immediately to comment on the incident. His phone call didn’t connect on Tuesday afternoon.

The African Democratic Congress, ADC, presidential running mate, Rotimi Amaechi, has disclosed how he paid pregnant women N10,000 each for attending antenatal care while he was governor of Rivers State.

Amaechi disclosed that the money was part of efforts to boost the health of pregnant women because Rivers State was rated second on the maternal-child mortality index while he was governor.

Amaechi became the governor of Rivers State on October 26, 2007, and stayed in office until May 29, 2015.

He served for two terms after a Supreme Court ruling brought him to office.

Reflecting on his time as governor, Amaechi harped on the importance of women’s health, stressing that he built hospitals and employed doctors in villages across the state.

Speaking at the ‘Her Health, Her Power Conference Africa 2026’, in Abuja on Tuesday, Amaechi said, “On the issue of health, you certainly cannot make the female look healthier and stronger if the economy is bad.

“In a global economy like that of Nigeria, 40 percent of women are farmers, so we need to do more as politicians to see that women live healthier.

“No matter how much grammar we speak in our different states as governors, we need to do more for our women and another thing we need to do is to make sure that they get educated, they make better leaders when they are educated.

“If you follow what happened in Rivers State when I was a governor, we were rated second on the maternal-child mortality index and to cure that we had to establish health centres in every village.

“Each village has a medical center, we employed two doctors and nurses while we paid N10,000 per woman that went for anti-natal, so our health centres were full every Friday because they were sure of going home with N10,000.

“They are not coming there for their health but for the money and that N10,000 is economy. It’s key that we can’t separate the health of women from economic growth.”