ExxonMobil spends N15bn in 20yrs fighting malaria in Nigeria
By Doosuur Iwambe, Abuja
ExxonMobil, one of the largest publicly traded international energy companies, has said that it has committed at least 15 Billion naira in the fight against malaria in Nigeria in the last 20 years.
The Manager, Media and Communications at Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited Mr Ogechukwu Udeagha, made this disclosure during the launch of Basketball clinic mentoring sessions of Boys and girls team scrimmages in Abuja on Thursday, DailyTimes gathered.
Udeagha said, the company in collaboration with NBA Africa and PanAfricare has through cash grants to partners helped to equip and strengthen resilience within communities to fight malaria.
He said, it was unfortunate that Nigeria in 2020 alone recorded more than 2000 deaths from malaria, a development he lamented was even much more higher than Covid-19.
Speaking on the link between basketball and malaria, he noted that the company is using basketball as a convening power to reach the students who will inturn take the message to their parents at home.
“Nigeria recorded more than 2000 deaths from malaria in 2020, even COVID-19 has not killed up to that number since it inception and nobody seems to be interested in the fight against malaria.
” It is a lot of work to get people to understand that malaria is a killer disease, you hear people say, I just have malaria, you don’t just have malaria, you have a major disease and we will take all precautionary measures to stop the dreaded disease and ensure that people are aware of the dangers of malaria. This is the message we are hoping that the young ones will take home. This is a sensitisation on the need to have mosquito nets as well as maintain a clean our environments.
“The foundation has been working in the area of advocacy and research. We have about 15 local scholars who are attending several universities across the world.
“Malaria vaccine, I will not announce it here but there is a lot of input that our scholars who are on scholarship made into the research. We are not just talking advocacy, we are talking research, how do we end this, how do we get vaccination to stop malaria.
“We are also talking about treatment, we have distributed a lot of nets, diagnostic kits and a lot of treatments. It’s a whole value change for us from prevention to treatment, advocacy to research all of that is what we are focused on”, he said.
Earlier, the NBA Africa Vice President & Country Head, Gbemisola Abudu said the objective of the programme is keep young boys and girls the opportunity to learn about the foundamental of basketball while also equiping them with life skills that can transform their lives.
She said, they have reached about 150 thousand students in the last nine years in Abuja, we want to make sure that the project cut across Nigeria.
“We use this programme for talent hunts and youth empowerment”.
Similarly, PanAfricare Country Director, Dr. Patrick Adah said basketball has been identified as veritable tool for the implementation of the Sustainabile Development Goal (SDGs). We are using the game if basketball ball to attract the youths in order to inculcate and get them to support public health issues.
You find malaria champions among them, those who are very knowledgeable about malaria, HIV and public health interventions.
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Meanwhile, the Director/Secretary, FCT Secondary Education Board , Mrs Nanre Emeje said Power Forward started this project in five secondary schools and now they are in 21 schools . If there was no positive impact, we wouldn’t have given them approval for more schools.
According to her:” The students that are prefects today were part of this programme, I am glad to let you know that the boys team of basketball in one of our schools are champion. Right now, they won the league in Lagos under the Maltina championship and they will be representing FCT in Lagos at the end of the month. They are students that have been groomed through power forward project.
“We are not afraid to grant them more approval if they want to go into all our schools we are ready”, she said.
The event tagged: Power Forward 2022 Season was held at Government Secondary School, Tundun Wada, in collaboration with NBA Africa and PanAfricare.
Schools that participated in the competition include; Government Secondary School Karu, Government Secondary School Zone 3, Raberto Schools Wuse2 (Private), Community Secondary School Asokoro (private) and Government Secondary School Tudun Wada Wuse Zone 4.
