Nigeria’s First Lady, Sen. Oluremi Tinubu, has emphasized the importance of cancer awareness and early detection across the country.
She noted that public awareness is vital to combating the disease, as it promotes early detection, which is essential in addressing this life-threatening illness.
Similarly, the Founder of Medicaid Cancer Foundation, Zainab Shinkafi Bagudu, echoed the call for greater public awareness about cancer, stressing that it is the most effective approach to combating the disease.
The First Lady gave this advice on Saturday in Abuja during the Medicaid Cancer Foundation’s 10th annual Breast Cancer Awareness Campaign, titled “Walk Away Cancer at 10.”
The 5-kilometer walk through Abuja city center, with over 4000 participants from across the country was aimed at promoting awareness about cancer, highlight the importance of early detection, encourage support for patients, and honour those who have lost their lives to the disease.
Represented by the wife of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hajiya Fatima Abbas Tajuddeen, the First Lady Tinubu, who commended Zainab Bagudu for her relentless efforts in promoting cancer awareness across Nigeria, emphasized the need for regular check-ups, including breast cancer screenings, to improve early detection and treatment.,
“Cancer affects us all, directly or indirectly,”nshe said
Urging Nigerians to support cancer research and initiatives that provide care and assistance to those affected, Tinubu encouraged everyone to prioritize cancer prevention and build a future filled with hope and resilience.
“As we walk away from cancer, let’s walk towards hope, resilience, and a brighter future,” she stated, calling for a united effort in creating a Nigeria where cancer no longer holds anyone back, the First Lady added.
On her part, Bagudu, who was recently elected as the President of the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC), noted that the impact of awareness becomes immeasurable when considering the disease’s toll on individuals, communities, and the nation’s economy.
She explained that a well-informed public is better equipped for prevention, and government policies become more effective in prevention, detection, and care.
According to the former First Lady of Kebbi State, who emphasized the importance of sustainability, the Medicaid Cancer Foundation’s dedication to breast cancer awareness over the past decade demonstrates how critical the sustainability of policies and programmes is to the success of health interventions.
She explained that it was this commitment drives the Foundation’s ongoing efforts in public awareness, as well as its advocacy for policy change and sustainable government action.
She also highlighted the impact of the annual walk in spreading the cancer message to a wider audience, reaching beyond elites and urban centers to educate those who may not fully understand or know how to address the disease.
She said: “The key message of this Walk is that sustainability is key in all our interventions, particularly in health and more especially in an issue like cancer that is poorly understood, misunderstood and also poorly treated in our countries.
“So this year we decided to honour heroes, that is those that we have lost to cancer. We always celebrate them and we always encourage the people that are living with cancer to go through the disease knowing that there’s support for them, push for government policies, push for change in governmental policies and also to encourage well-to-do individuals and corporate bodies to donate and raise funds for cancer patients”.
Explaining the Foundation’s choice to stage a walk for the campaign rather than other options, she said, “I believe the walk has been highly effective in drawing attention to the cause in both rural and urban areas.
“I often get asked how does a walk in Abuja translate to awareness in a village in Kebi for instance but the truth is we use a lot of influencers.
“We exist in a day where media is very powerful both social and electronic and even paper media and the people in the villages get to hear those messages.
“As long as you have the influential voices present to carry that message they hear the message and what is our message? Early detection, early detection, early detection.
“We want women, men, children, doctors, physicians to be more aware of the things that cause cancer, of how to pick up the disease and to encourage people to go through screening, have their vaccinations so that we can overcome the burden of cancer”.
She explained that a key purpose of the awareness campaign is to correct misconceptions about cancers, such as the belief that breast cancer only affects women, saying, “Not at all. One out of every hundred cases of breast cancer is a man.
“Yes, women are more but men, that one in a hundred also happens.
“So it’s important that we encourage the men to also come out to tell them that they can get breast cancer as long as they have breast tissue.
“It may not be the same size as those of women but men have breasts and so they get breast cancer, so, we want them to be aware that breast cancer is a killer and it also affects men.
“So, this is what this awareness effort is all about, spread the knowledge about the disease, how to prevent it, catch it early, treat it because it’s treatable when caught early, which will eliminate a whole lot of anguish to the individual, the family and the community,” she noted.
