Senator Sponsors Sickle Cell Bill After Witnessing Devastating Cases

• Senator Sunday Marshal Katung has championed the Sickle Cell Prevention, Control and Management Bill, inspired by personal encounters with families devastated by the disease.

Senator Sunday Marshal Katung, representing the Southern Kaduna Senatorial District, has defended his decision to sponsor the Sickle Cell Prevention, Control and Management Bill, saying it was inspired by years of painful encounters with families devastated by the disorder. He insisted that Nigeria cannot continue to ignore the world’s highest burden of the disease.

The Bill, which has passed its first and second reading in the Senate, is expected to provide succour to victims of sickle cell disorder who die prematurely in Nigeria. The legislation proposes the establishment of sickle cell treatment centres in all local government areas and centres of excellence in the six geopolitical zones, likely attached to existing tertiary hospitals.

Katung recounted that his advocacy began in 1991, following a harrowing encounter with a family whose two children lived with sickle cell anaemia. He recalled one child pleading, “Dad, Mom, please allow me to die so that you can rest.” The statement, he said, “broke me. It has stayed with me ever since.”

The senator disclosed that his first attempt to sponsor a similar bill was in 2016 while in the House of Representatives, but the effort stalled. Returning to the National Assembly in 2023, he revived the initiative.

“Too many people have died because of this disorder,” Katung lamented, citing cases including the children of the late Military Administrator of Kaduna State, General Mukhtar, who “kept going in and out of crisis, and died one after the other.” He described the bill as “long overdue.”

Citing global statistics, Katung warned that Nigeria could not afford to downplay the crisis: “Based on available data, 150,000 babies are born with sickle cell disorder every year in Nigeria—out of 350,000 globally. We have the highest burden in the world.”

DON’T MISS: Former Minister Ezekwesili Accuses FG of Committing Crimes Against Children

He also lamented the high cost of essential medications, noting that most drugs are imported and must be ordered months in advance. “It is very expensive. What we want to promote is local production. We have pharmacology centres and pharmacists—why can’t we produce these drugs here?”

Katung commended religious institutions for insisting on genotype screening before marriage, describing it as humane, not discriminatory, and noted that mandatory pre-marriage testing was strongly endorsed by experts as “one of the most effective ways to drastically reduce the burden” of the disorder nationwide.

He appealed to the media and public to support the bill, calling it a potential “game-changer” for affected families.

The senator also explained his recent defection from the Peoples Democratic Party, saying it was anchored in “gratitude” to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. “Even if I had remained in PDP, I would have still worked 100 per cent for him,” he said, citing legacy projects like a Federal University, College of Medicine, and Federal Medical Centre established in Southern Kaduna within 18 months.

Katung highlighted massive infrastructural deficits, collapsing health facilities, and socio-economic exclusion as urgent challenges for his constituency, particularly Kauru and Sanga Local Government Areas.

He revealed that during consultations preceding his defection, he tabled nine major issues affecting his constituents, emphasizing they were “not for myself, but for my people”, and that these communities “feel cut off from the rest of the country.”