Raheem Akingbolu pays tribute to an uncommon businessman and humanist, Dr. Elliott Scott Omose, who has, in the last few decades traversed the world with a mission to rescue the health of Africa’s poor and vulnerable population.
In the last one and half decades, Dr. Elliott Scott Omose has been able to hone his craft as a visionary entrepreneur with unrelenting focus on reaching, rescuing and fortifying millions of African vulnerable poor in the area of free, accessible pubic healthcare.
Half-orphaned at a tender age of 10, he started life with little or no education due to lack of funds. In his early years, and despite his limited education, he developed interests in leadership and business development in a manner that defied the standard of his limited education and the circumstances of his immediate environment. Passionately, he was determined to explore and follow knowledge beyond the shores of his local environment. His enterprising spirit and thirst for breakthrough led him to travel overseas as a young man in his early twenties.
Having successfully made his marks, over the previous thirty years, in the United Kingdom as a reputable entrepreneur without blemish, Dr. Omose decided to expand his business-cum-humanitarian footprints beyond Europe. Naturally, Africa, his beloved continent of birth, was his focus.
He therefore planted his first business, EC Bio Health Venture, in Nigeria slightly over a decade ago. A few years down the line, he is the chairman and CEO of the Elkris brand; a cluster of Companies, that encompasses various organizations that cut across various fields of the society. These include Elkris Bio Health Foods, Elkris Agro Development Nig. Ltd, PreDiagnosis International, Elkris Benevolent Foundation, Stop Diabetes Foundation, EC Bio Health Venture and PDI Pharmacy-Plus Ltd.
Through his Elkris Foods Company, he has remained at the forefront of presenting Africa with the opportunity of redefining the plethora of health diet uses to which our healthy flour can be put in the form of healthy Swallows, Beverages, Cereals and Confectionery. The Company, which is a frontline innovative and indigenous food manufacturing and packaging firm in Nigeria, has carved a niche with products that seek to bridge the chasm between Africa’s rich and delicious variety of soups and the poor quality of existing swallows that are often taken with them.
Relentless and constantly pushing to impact Africa’s downtrodden masses, Elliot Omose as a proven visionary dedicated to bridging the gaps created by the inadequacy of primary healthcare structure in Nigeria and by extension Sub-Saharan Africa, has also committed resources to funding research and studies aimed at developing effective cross-continental public healthcare model for the public good.
Few years ago, he stumbled on the knowledge that changed his life and passion forever. The realization that in more than 90% of rural Africa, citizens have no access to effective healthcare but are often left at the mercy of ‘chemists’ and quacks as the only alternative to a GP, thereby producing high rate of organ damages such as steep rise in
kidney failure as a direct result, disturbed his humanist mind. This anomaly put the lives of close to 70% of the population in the continent in jeopardy.
With that disturbing fact, conceiving a vehicle such as PreDiagnosis International became a natural urge for him to be able to do something about the situation.
Establishing PDI and its mantra – Reach, Rescue and Fortify – was visualized as an alternative basic healthcare model to birth a grassroots-focused basic healthcare structure that is customized to suit the peculiarities of the African terrain.
For about a decade before it actually set sail, with Dr. Omose as its sole promoter and financier, PDI worked and perfected a grassroots-focused basic healthcare delivery model that is designed to bridge the growing gap between the urban and the hard-to-reach areas, between the haves and the have-nots,
in the continent of Africa. It came up with what has become known as the “PDI 25-point Early Detection System”, a model that concentrates on possibly neutralizing the potential diabetes, hypertension, stroke, heart attack, cancer and kidney failure among vulnerable Africans in hard-to-reach places before they could become unmanageable.
The PDI Model offers consultation, prescription and personal health management services using a hybrid platform of engagement over the phone, video, chat, through walk-in clinics, medical outreaches, pharmacies collaboration outlets and other easy-to-use tools.
Since 2020, Dr. Omose has, through his innovative health-based, non-profit organisation, PreDiagnosis International, single-handedly financed several sustainable health projects targeted at vulnerable Nigerians and Africans in general, with the
objective of providing basic heath support to 2 million Nigerians annually and 50 million Africans. His PDI organisation is today firmly established in Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Gambia and a few other African countries.
In Nigeria, where more than 53 million people are currently believed to live with life-threatening high blood pressure status with majority untreated, uncontrolled and unaware, Dr. Omose’s Community Blood Pressure Advocate (COBPA) Initiative is yet another investment that offers free services through which he is able to reach, rescue and manage the BP Health of 500,000 Nigerian BP Patients yearly. COBPA maintains thousands of trained and certified Auxiliary BP reps in communities across Nigeria and has been single handedly sponsored by Dr. Omose, through his Elkris Benevolent Foundation, without external donations or funding.
COBPA is designed and positioned to help manage the health of 2 million Nigerians on a yearly basis and by extension, 50 million Africans in the long run.
In the last two years, Dr. Omose’s PreDiagnosis Sierra Leone has been a leading light in promoting private sector model of public healthcare management targeted at the vastly poor and vulnerable population of the country. Early this year, the Company unfolded a blue-print for nationwide Basic (Primary) Healthcare Initiative under its “Community Basic (Primary) Healthcare Clinic” – CBHC model.
The CBHC initiative provides Twenty-Four-Seven access to Doctors and affordable Basic (Primary) Healthcare Services, for the teaming population of vulnerable Sierra Leoneans through its array of community
basic healthcare clinics nationwide. Its major goal is to reduce preventable death nationwide, through its accessible “early detection and early intervention” healthcare practices.
The Sierra Leonean CBHC model is built on the bedrock of the PDI Alternative Basic Primary Healthcare Model that was birthed in Nigeria in 2020.
An avid reader, Dr. Elliott Omose reads between seven and ten books monthly, covering autobiography, leadership, business, finance and social investments, among other fields.
Among several recognitions, Dr. Elliott Omose was recently awarded honorary doctorate degree for his selfless efforts in the field of food, nutrition and corporate Leadership in Africa by a reputable university.
In an environment where identification of problems without doing more to assuage the effects is often enough to attract accolades, Dr. Elliott Scott Omose remains exceptional and untiring in his dedication to birthing innovative solutions to help address lingering issues in the health systems of Nigeria and Africa in general.
