Soyinka charged the Federal Government to ensure the immediate release of N400 million belonging to the African Cancer Centre project.

  He said the fund would help to build the first cancer research centre in the country and save Nigerians who are dying of the endemic disease.

  The N400 million is a seed fund in support of the $45 billion cancer centre project and was appropriated in the 2011 budget.  But the Ministry of Health allegedly withheld it till date.

  Soyinka said in Abeokuta, Ogun State, that the quick intervention of the government was needed especially for Nigerians that could not afford care overseas.

According to him, the disease is a silent killer, and he had had a fair share of the “nuisance” lately.

   The octogenarian noted that he was diagnosed of the disease in November last year during a health check, adding that it was not a pleasant experience “having it down there.”

  With a prompt intervention that lasted a while, he was cleared of the disease last month and he is today a survivor.

  On how he felt with the disease, Soyinka said: “I just thought that it was a nuisance. I have a lot of things down there to do and this nuisance kept disrupting my normal engagement. So, I had to start readjusting; I just saw it as another challenge.

  “I just said ‘what a nuisance’ and I deal with nuisance, whatever it takes. I just looked at the best way to deal with the unwanted squatter in my body and that was it. You know you have the option of looking at it slowly growing but I don’t care, just get it out of there.”

   He added that the most difficult thing during the treatment was the prescribed diet. “I had to drink lots and lots of water, the most painful part. As many of you know, water and I are not very friendly. No!”

  It was the third time Soyinka would be speaking on cancer, though previous outings were public lectures on the disease.

  He observed that there were efforts geared at arresting the “silent killer”, one of it being the African Cancer Centre and the Ogun State Cancer Institute being planned.

   Soyinka said though the centres would be capital-intensive, “there are enough resources to actually do these across the country, including researches.”

  He said: “I happen to know that a certain amount of money has been budgeted and approved for the cancer centre under Jonathan in 2011. I want to make a personal appeal that this money should be released. 

  “Not all of us can gallivant everywhere, where we can stop over and have the necessary treatment. But we should have diagnostic centres everywhere where elementary treatment can be given to patients.

  “Fundraising is not the government’s business alone. There is something called seed money and in this case, it is a government’s seed money. For heaven’s sake, just release the money so that these people can then go to the moneyed people in our midst, many of whom have lost relations and colleagues, they know what it is. Once the seed money is there, showing that government is playing its role, it becomes easier to persuade them to part with their money,” he said.

  The lead advocate for the cancer centre, Prof. Olufemi Williams, added that the seed money was to give confidence to the outside world that the Nigerian government was serious about the people and would have made it easier to draw international attention to the project.

  He explained that the African Cancer Centre was designed to be the first of such facilities in West Africa, and “we have been at it since 2005.”

  “It took two years to design, and another two years to get the then Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, to have him sign it. I know they have tried to set up such a centre, which never worked. That is why I took the advocacy to the Senate. But at the end, Chukwu said because he was not carried along, he would not release the money under his ministry.

  “That is why I will say that our democracy has not matured. A democracy in which elected people approved a budget, following my presentation at the Senate. It has never happened before. You know what it is like to get into the Senate and present an individual budget. 

  “I did and elected people put it in the budget and the president signed it into law and yet, a minister, who was selected by the president, decided to withhold it. And I tried everything. Even went to him, and he said ‘why don’t you go and sit down and send younger people to me.’ That is the situation we have in Nigeria.”

   According to him, Nigerians, including Soyinka, are getting older which accounts for why they are getting cancer.

  Williams, however, said admirers of Soyinka should have no cause for worry because cancer would not kill the Nobel laureate, citing medical grounds.

  According to Williams, “the cancer in old age is very slow in growing and it will take 15 years to kill him if it does. Because when you are getting older, the blood vessel in your blood is very slow so the cancer is not getting enough nutrition to grow. That is why I said he is not going to die by it but will die with it.

  “It was not early detection because it was detected at 75-76 years old and it may have been there since the age of 60, then it started giving rise to symptoms at 75-76 when it became a nuisance.

  “Nigerians have a high threshold for discomfort. When Nigerians have headache, they deny it and that is why you see most of our top people slumping at the airport suddenly. Meanwhile, an average white man, at a little discomfort, he goes for treatment. So, which is why I said he must have had it for sometime.” 

[via Guardian]

[Photographs courtesy Premium Times]