Nigeria: Dr. Ned Nwoko, Malaria Challenge and Nigerian

TRACKING______Malaria fever is one medical challenge that confronts millions of Nigerians and when it strikes, it hangs precariously like a sword of Damocles and poses some of the most disturbing disruptions to virtually all of our economic, social, religious and cultural activities.

But due to advances in medicine and science, certain medical conditions have been eradicated.

Malaria fever as far back as a century ago constituted a global threat that has in our own time been successfully wiped out by some nations of the World in Asia, Europe, and the United Kingdom.

But it has remained very much one of the biggest and most fatal health conditions afflicting much of Africa and Nigeria despite the enormity of Nigeria’s human and natural resources.

If the Federal ministry of health, Nigeria conducts a referendum with the sole question of gauging or getting an assessment of the mind or heartbeat of millions of Nigerians regarding the need to eradicate malaria, it is almost a certainty, which is as constant as the Northern star that virtually all Nigerians will positively approve that the Nigerian state should invest substantially in the eradication of malaria.

The question to ask is how come the eradication of malaria fever has never enjoyed a place of high priority amongst the Nigerian nation and why do we keep reeling out the high toll that malaria has had and continue to unleash on the public space with millions of people already sent to their untimely demise by malaria fever which some serious-minded nations have eradicated but yet Nigeria has not evolved a vaccine nor have we eradicated the very species of mosquitoes that breed malaria fever.

The interrogatory is almost the same as trying to unravel why with enormous mineral resources that Nigeria is endowed with, poverty is still a major challenge to the most deadly dimension that in 2018, Nigeria became the poverty capital of the world.

Mind you, Nigeria churned out over 90 million poor people, meaning that the impacts of malaria fever have multiplied because malaria is a disease of poverty.

Perhaps this was what motivated the then Nigerian president Chief Olusegun Obasanjo to invest a lot of resources to host a continental forum on malaria eradication which in any event fizzled out as soon as the talk shop ended. Then, the government and the African Union worked out a master plan on the eradication of Malaria but it is yet to be actualized.

Again, there is an innovative initiative by a private Nigerian citizen and a onetime lawmaker Prince Ned Nwoko and his wife Regina Daniels Nwoko to embark on the complex challenge of finding a lasting cure to malaria and to eradicate malaria from the face of Nigeria. This is indeed a Herculean task.

This is a worthy idea but it is an idea whose time has come that also would need the support of all and sundry including President Muhammadu Buhari, the National Assembly, the Nigerian people, the African Union and all Africans.

This is precisely because if malaria is eradicated in Nigeria, it will open the flood gate of the scientific possibility of wiping off malaria fever from Africa.

The awareness of the initiative by the Delta state born philanthropist and politician Prince (Dr) Ned Nwoko is to wage a determined battle against malaria fever through Prince Ned Nwoko Foundation. The Foundation plans to collaborate with relevant stakeholders at both local and international levels to create awareness on ways of eradicating the mosquito vector that causes malaria in Africa and put a permanent end to the malaria scourge.

“After the expedition in January 2020, Prince (Dr) Ned Nwoko, through his foundation, has instituted an Endowment for research on malaria vaccine in selected universities across Africa. this is with a view of putting a permanent end to the mosquito scourge in Africa.”

“We expect that National, International and multilateral agencies that are concerned about the subject matter will collaborate with the foundation in this program.”

“This project is in fulfillment of one of the objectives of PRINCE NED NWOKO FOUNDATION and the mandate of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG goal 3 for good health).”

This groundbreaking initiative is such that it should elicit the interest of all Nigerians and Africans because of the realization that the goal is attainable because it has been done elsewhere as I stated earlier including China which is one nation that is home to the greatest number of human beings on earth. China became independent only ten years before us. But due to the dint of hard work and resilience of their successive government with necessary institutional frameworks that eradicate official corruption, China is malaria fever free today but Nigeria remains a poverty and malaria fever-stricken entity.