My Foundation Has Spent About $1m to Save over 200,000 Cancer Patients, Says Kebbi Gov’s Wife

My Foundation Has Spent About $1m to Save over 200,000 Cancer Patients, Says Kebbi Gov’s Wife

Adedayo Akinwale ín Abuja

Wife of the Kebbi state governor, Dr. Zainab Shinkafi Bagudu, has revealed that she has spent about $1 million through her foundation, Medicaid Cancer Foundation, to save over 200, 000 cancer patients across the country.

The first lady who is also the CEO of Medicaid disclosed this at a media parley on Saturday in Abuja, where she also appealed to the federal government to build Cancer centers in different locations across the country.

She said that each year in the month of October, her foundation organises a million man’s walk with the aim of creating awareness and raising funds for cancer patients.

This year’s awareness walk, with the theme, #Walkawaycancer was held on Saturday in Abuja, with Nollywood stars like IK Ogbonna, Toyin Abraham, former Super Eagles star, Peter Rufai, among others who took part in the awareness campaign.

The governor’s wife said that saving lives and helping people to access treatment to an ailment that is expensive was her motivation.

“What is my motivation? Its all about saving lives. It is something so many people have interest in. Cancer is very expensive, we are still here talking about chemiotherapy which is about N400,000. The world need to do more to eradicate the cancer,”

Asked how much she has spent and how she has been raising money to treat the cancer patients, Mrs. Bagudu said, “We raised money in different ways; through fund raising, visiting organisations that are well to do, we also approached international donors for funding. We have spent about $1 million and 227 lives have been saved. We really need to do a lot more to save more lives.”

She also said that after her husband’s tenure as governor, she would continue with the programme.

Mrs. Bangudu revealed further that she led some people to the National Hospital in Abuja on Friday to see some cancer patients where she paid for their treatments.

Some of the cancer survivals in attendance, while sharing their gory experience said that after they were diagnosed of the ailment, they never knew they would survive.

They however thanked Medicaid for giving them hope to live.

Also, rights activist, Dr. Joe Odumakin, commended the wife of the Kebbi governor for torching lives for more than eight years.

“We know that cancer is the second largest killer in the world and we know that cancer knows no colour, no race or genda. We must all come out en-mass to create awareness.
We want the government to give cancer patience free medicare because it very expensive.”

While speaking, Peter Rufai, called on organisations and individuals to join what he described as “Saving lives ministry and support the cause so that it can save more lives.”

Related Articles