Athena has frowned that Nigeria has built the measurement architecture of nutrition accountability without building its consequence architecture, lamenting that only nine of 36 states has formally established a State Council on Nutrition by April 2026.

Adding that establishment alone does not show that a council functions. It raised the concern during the Athena Policy Webinar with officials from the Office of the Vice President, the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) and the House of Representatives Committee on Nutrition and Food Security, tested where the nutrition accountability chain breaks.

It stated that Nigeria can measure child malnutrition. What it lacks are consequences that make weak implementation matter.

The webinar, From Measurement to Consequence: Fixing Nigeria’s Nutrition Accountability Gap, was convened by the Athena Centre for Policy and Leadership through its Olikoye Ransome-Kuti Institute for Health and Social Equity.

It tested Athena Policy Pulse No. 7, Political Incentives and Nutrition Neglect: Why State Governments Fail to Improve Child Nutrition.

Presenting the paper, Director of the Institute, Dr Danjuma Iyaji, said Nigeria has built the measurement architecture of nutrition accountability without building its consequence architecture. Under-five stunting stands at 40 per cent against an expired national target of 18 per cent. and establishment alone does not show that a council functions.

Athena Centre proposed four reforms: supplementary fund tranches tied to verified readiness, with need-based support protected; an annual state performance assessment; an escalation framework for non-performance; and annual legislative hearings, recommended to State Houses of Assembly.

Senior Special Assistant to the President on Nutrition/Public Health, Uju Rochas-Anwukah, said the diagnosis was right and located three breaks: commitment to release, release to delivery, and weak understanding among subnational leaders. “A stunted child is a lost asset that no bridge can build,” she said. She noted that the Child Nutrition Fund’s terms rest with UNICEF and its partners, not her office, and proposed a route for weaker states so that readiness rules do not leave high-need children behind. She called for passage of the draft National Food and Nutrition Bill so that accountability outlasts any one administration.

Director of Nutrition, NPHCDA, Dr Adebiyi Victoria Olatunde, said accountability must reach the primary health care facility, where therapeutic foods and micronutrients must be in stock. She warned that state figures can hide local failure.

“At times we have data for a state, and the issue may be in only two particular wards.” She proposed bottom-up data to ward and facility level and a root-cause review before any escalation.

Research Lead, Nutrition and Food Security Committee, House of Representatives, Abel Okechukwu, called conditional financing workable and urgently needed but proposed a two-part model: a protected lifeline, which he put at 70 per cent, covering items such as micronutrients and school feeding, and a 30 per cent performance incentive tied to functional councils, approved costed plans and published expenditure.

“Conditional financing should not punish the child,” he said. He said committees need five things for a hearing to be substantive rather than ceremonial, including a standard reporting template and reports submitted 21 days in advance. He said the committee would use joint oversight more aggressively in 2026 and 2027, and suggested an Appropriation Act clause tying federal grants to evidence of state oversight.

The exchange refined three of Athena Centre’s proposals: protect a share of funding and give weaker states a route to readiness; take the assessment below state level; and begin escalation with a root-cause review.