USA Africa Dialogue Series - World Cancer Day: Matters arising

World Cancer Day: Matters arising

KAYODE KETEFE

Today is World Cancer Day! A day which is marked on February 4 every year to raise awareness of cancer and to encourage its prevention, detection, and treatment. The ideal behind the commemoration of the day, as conceived by the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) in 2008, is to work towards significantly reducing illness and death caused by cancer by 2020.
According to Nigeria's National Cancer Prevention Programme (NCPP), as many as 80,000 Nigerians die from various forms of cancer annually. It was further estimated that 10 people die from cancer every hour.
To appreciate the enormity of mortality unleashed by cancer in our society, we may do a brief roll call of popular Nigerians, including politicians and celebrities, who have died of the non-communicable disease.
The inevitable extrapolation then will be if so many popular people have been claimed by cancer, then hundreds of thousands of uncelebrated, common men must have been quietly killed by the dreaded scourge.
The roll call of Prominent Nigerians killed by cancer included the fire brand lawyer and civil rights activist, Chief Gani Fawehinmi SAN. Gani was a barbed thorn in the flesh of successive Nigerian governments, especially the military. He was a firebrand that spat venom against the broadside of governmental highhandedness and man's inhumanity to man.
Gani was arrested, incarcerated and even imprisoned countless number of times all on accounts of his outspokenness and vitriolic criticisms of governments' aberrations of rule of law. The following simple statistics tells a lot- He was locked in security cells 32 times and imprisoned eight times by different military governments! But his spirit remained irrepressible throughout but at last Gani succumbed to the cold hands of death through cancer of the lung! May his soul rest in piece.
Another prominent casualty was the former President, Alhaji Umaru Yar'Adua who battled with the killer disease for many years and eventually succumbed to the onslaught.
Ozidi King-turned gospel musician, Sonny Okosun, was carried away by the whirlwind of cancer at a youthful age of 61 on May 24, 2008.
The charismatic wife on the former Nigerian President, Mrs. Maryam Babangida who was popular for her novel programme Better Life Programme for Rural Women, breathed her last on December 27, 2009 as cancer fiercely bared its fang.
The talented broadcaster with the Nigerian Television Authority, Yinka Craig, eventually lost his battle with cancer on September 23, 2008. But Cancer was lurking in the same vicinity and struck only two years later when it claimed another NTA worker, Yusuf Jibo, in December, 2010.
On December 8, 2010, the wife of Edo State Governor Adams Oshiomhole, Clara, became the next casualty. The founder and publisher of Guardian newspaper, Mr. Alexander Ibru – a former Internal Affairs Minister - was similarly felled by Cancer on November 20, 2011 at the age of 66.
But the ravaging cancer was not done yet; it beckoned ominously to the Second Republic Senate Leader and a renowned powerbroker in the politics of Ilorin, Dr. Olusola Saraki, and the old man lost the battle on November 14, 2012.
In 2013, the first female Deputy-Governor of Ekiti State, Mrs. Funmilayo Olayinka, an accomplished banker and astute politician gave up the ghost after a redoubtable battle with cancer on April 6, 2013.
What about the indefatigable former Director General of National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) Prof. Dora Akunyili, who was Nigerian Minister of Information and Communications from 2008 to 2010? Her efforts in the bid to eradicate counterfeit and unsafe drugs will never be forgotten. Cancer was however unimpressed by this patriotism as it claimed her life on June 7, 2014.
Much more recently, Cancer reached out its ruthless tentacles and clasped it firmly on another celebrated Nigerian in the person of Mrs. Olabisi Olateru-Olagbegi who bided this world bye on December 17, 2015. Auntie Bisi, as she was fondly known, was a respected human rights activist and Executive Director of Women's Consortium of Nigeria (WOCON).
As we commemorate the World Cancer Day today, let us use this occasion to sensitise ourselves on how to imbibe a kind of lifestyle that prevents Cancer. This would certainly incorporate internalizing all the preventive measures hitherto empirically-validated.
This should go hand in hand with the practice of enlightened management of the affliction, which begins from early detection, ranging to religious adherence to regimen of prescribed diet, exercise and appropriate medication.
The National Cancer Prevention Programme (NCPP) also has a huge role to play in this through propagation of adequate awareness of the evil of Cancer and how to prevent it as well as how to manage the condition in the event of its occurrence.
Privileged Nigerians with adequate resources are hereby enjoined to contribute their quota to salvage their society by establishing or donating to foundations committed to fighting the scourge of cancer. Although there may not be a known cure for this mortal affliction today but collectively we can win the war. Cancer must fall!

Ketefe may be followed on twitter @Ketesco

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