Akeem Lasisi
With the passing of the former Ondo State Governor, Rotimi Akeredolu, the number of Nigerians whose lives cancer has terminated has increased. Akeredolu just bid the world bye at 67 as he succumbed to prostate cancer, initially earlier misreported to be leukemia, a cancer of the blood. The latter, it was that was said to have killed a former Governor of Yobe State, Senator Mamman Bello Ali, in 2009.
In 2021, the entertainment industry and beyond were plunged into mourning when JAGBAJANTIS singer, Sound Sultan, also died of the disease. Yet, earlier in 2020, the then Enugu State Football Association Chairman, Chief Chidi Ofo Okenwa, succumbed to the cold hands of a leukemia-propelled death.
This is how tough cancer can generally be – and how it has been, going by the volume of the people it has consumed in the country, with notable ones not excluded.
Among such were Nigeria’s former President and a two-term Governor of Katsina State, Umaru Yar’Adua, who died of lung cancer on May 5, 2010. It was the same type that the co-founder of Guaranty Trust Bank, Tayo Aderinokun, could not survive.
While some will also remember that Remi Olowude, the Chairman of IGI Insurance, also died from cancer, it is pertinent to recall that the former Aare Musulumi of Yorubaland, Alhaji Arisekola Alao; Maryam Babangida, wife of former Head of State Ibrahim Babangida; a former Director General of NAFDAC, Professor Dora Akunyuli; Clara, wife of a former Governor of Edo State, now Senator Adams Oshiomhole; and pan African musician, Sunny Okosun, were all stopped by the disease.
Others include human rights leader, Chief Gani Fawehinmi; and a former Deputy Governor of Ekiti State during the Fayemi-led administration, Funmilayo Olayinka.
One could thus not wait for the day the world will find a solution to the disastrous disease.
