The minister of state for health and social welfare, Iziaq Adekunle Salako, has endorsed the international charity match to create awareness about cancer in the country.
Receiving the main organizing committee for the match in his office at the Federal Secretariat, Salako said it was a big honour for him to receive the eminent delegation, stating that: “This is a noble and laudable initiative. The challenge of cancer is enormous. Our efforts should be directed towards prevention and creating awareness. This project is commendable and should be well supported by all Nigerians.”
“Nigerians are crazy about football and the project will capture millions of our youth to drive home the message.”
He urged for transparency in governance structure with private investors having confidence in their finance.
He also suggested that such a laudable project should be taken to the grassroots to have the maximum impact with competition to drive cancer awareness and prevention.
“Promote awareness and advocacy around cancer prevention, detection, treatment and leveraging the platform of World Soccer Legends to reach diverse audiences worldwide,,” he suggested.
Speaking earlier, Dr Nandi Ishaya, from National Institute For Cancer Research and Treatment (NICRAT), said the essence of the visit cannot be overstressed with the main objective of creating awareness about cancer and prevention.
“We intend to also raise funds to assist cancer patients in their treatment. We want to also contribute to the national cancer health fund.”
The coordinator of the event, Jacob Onu told the audience that: “Our job is to use football to create awareness about cancer. We have reached out to several football legends across the globe who have keyed in to the project and will be here for the charity match.
“The committee has been working assiduously to achieve its objective. We are happy for the change of guard at the Ministry. Sports is private sector driven, we need to carry the ministry along too in all our activities. The coordinating minister directed that we should work with NICRAT. We need total support and cooperation from the ministry because of the caliber of footballers that are coming into the country.
“The Hon. Minister has already inaugurated the committee which is working and is on ground .We are here to intimate you about our progress so far and let you into our activities” Onu said at the brief ceremony.
Our correspondent reports that the organizer of the charity match have penciled down the likes of Christiano Ronaldo, Didier Drogba, Mark Fish, Samuel Eto’o , Abedi Pele and several other football legends to visit the country and trade tackles with stars like Jay Jay Okocha, Kanu Nwankwo, Mikel Obi to raise awareness about the dreaded disease.
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