By Olasunkanmi Akoni, Chioma Obinna, Ebele Onuorah & Monsur Olowoopejo
LAGOS — THE Federal Government, yesterday, said it would construct 10 new cancer centres across the country in 2012, a measure to stem the high rate of the disease in the country.

Meanwile, Nobel laureate winner, Prof Wole Soyinka, has blamed past leaders in the country for the high rate of cancer in Nigeria.

From left: Chief Olu Akinkugbe, Gov Babatunde Fashola of Lagos and Prof. Wole Soyinka, during the Lecture on Cancerous Life-styles, Between Dogmatism and Fatalism, to commemorate cancer awareness week 2012, organise by African Cancer Center, held in Lagos. Photo: Bunmi Azeez

Minister for Health, Prof. Oyebuchi Chukwu,  who gave the hint at the first annual lecture organised by the African Cancer Centre in Lagos, said the planned centres were part of government’s effort to boost diagnosis and treatment of the disease in Nigeria.

Chukwu, who was represented by Prof. Akin Oshinbogun, said: “This is how we can deliver health services to the citizens of the country. And this is the way the Federal Government believes that cancer disease can be reduced drastically in the country.”

The minister said the Federal Government alone could not tackle cancer disease but required the involvement of stakeholders, particularly the private sector, to bring the disease under control in Nigeria.

Soyinka berates past leaders

On his part, Soyinka said: “Those who have been in the vanguard of this country’s affairs from military to civilian, especially during the past four decades that over saw the total collapse of our electricity supply system deserve to be dragged to court and charged with gross negligence resulting in probably homicide, involuntary manslaughter, conspiracy to murder and at the very least, the access rate to silence genocide.”

He added that the lapses in the power sector led to the wide use of generator, which “fumes constitute environmental cancer with large urban dwellers in the country depending solely on generating sets to survive. This is like using fire to combat fire.”

He described corruption, dictatorship and racism as another cancer affecting the African continent.

He said: “The continent is a victim of serial cancer attacks, leaping from one part of the body to the other. It is very much with us today. One feels it, reads it and almost touches it. It is especially present in governance. This has been infused into the blood stream of the country.”