- Health ministry endorses programme
From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
The organisers of a cancer awareness charity match have hinted that world football stars and legends like Cristiano Ronaldo, Didier Drogba, Mark Fish, Samuel Eto’o, and Abedi Pele, among several others, will trade tackles with Nigerian stars like Austin Okocha, Kanu Nwankwo, and Mikel Obi, among others, to raise awareness about the dreaded disease.
Interestingly, Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare, Iziaq Adekunle Salako, has equally endorsed the international charity match to create awareness about cancer in the country.
Receiving the Main Organising Committee (MOC) in his office, Salako described it as a big honour to him, adding, “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 meaning Nigerians. Nigerians are crazy about football, and the project will capture millions of our youth to drive home the message,” he said.
Speaking earlier, the coordinator of the event, Jacob Onu, said, “Our job is to see how to use football to create awareness about cancer. We have reached out to several football legends across the globe who have keyed into 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 calibre of footballers that are coming into the country,” he said.
There are strong indications that the organisers of the charity match have pencilled down the likes of Cristiano 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 Okocha, Kanu Nwankwo, and Mikel Obi to raise awareness about the dreaded disease.