The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), said it will engaged some unlisted company in the country at the 2016 5km Corporate Challenge in Lagos.
The third edition which is in collaboration with the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy (CECP) is tagged eRace coming up on Saturday, May 14, 2016 at the Muri Okunola Park Adeyemo Alakija Street, Victoria Island Lagos.
The NSE Corporate Challenge is an annual, highly competitive and fun-filled 5-kilometre walk, run and jog competition designed to raise awareness and funds for the purchase of 37 Mobile Cancer Centers (MCCs), each valued at $613,000 each.
According to Mr. Bola Adeeko, Head, Corporate Services Division of The Exchange, working with CECP, has been at the forefront of cancer awareness and advocacy for the provision of screening and treatment facilities. We are using the NSE Corporate Challenge platform to raise funds to win the race to erase cancer.
This deliberate intervention is imperative because of the statistics of life claimed by cancer and the fact that one third of these cancers are actually treatable. Using our access to a vast network of employees and clients of our listed companies, dealing members and other stakeholders, we believe we can work together in scaling up access to cancer screening services for early detection of cancer and provision of treatment and palliative care services to diagnosed patients.
Speaking on the imperative of quick intervention to stem the growing numbers of deaths by cancer, the National Coordinator of the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy (CECP), Dr. Abia Nzelu, noted that, over 100,000 Nigerians are diagnosed with cancer yearly, and about 80,000 die (10 deaths every hour) with a dismal survival rate of 1:5.
The situation is worse for some type of cancers. For example, the survival rate for certain blood cancers in Nigeria is 1:20 whilst at the Tata Cancer Centre in the Indian City of Mumbai, survivorship is 99:100 for the same condition. This poor survival rate in Nigeria is mainly due to inadequate infrastructure for cancer care and lack of well-organized system of prevention.
The global cancer epidemic is huge and is set to rise. Data from World Health Organisation (WHO) shows that, 8.2 million people die from cancer worldwide every year, out of which, 4 million people die prematurely (aged 30 to 69 years). Urgent action needs to be taken to raise awareness about the disease and to develop practical strategies to address the increasing cancer burden.
Also commenting, Olumide Orojimi, Head, Corporate Communications at The NSE said Through our efforts and with support from the capital market ecosystem, we have secured funds to purchase two Mobile Cancer Center Units. We are poised to do more in 2016 by reaching out to like-minded organisations and individuals in public and private sectors for support. At the 2016 race, we expect to have over 900 participants which will include several c-level and senior executives. .
As at today, We have received sponsorship commitments from StanbicIBTC Bank, Unity Bank, Diamond Bank, Lafarge Africa, Guinness, FCMB, Channels Television, AIT, Silverbird Television, Nigeria Info FM, BusinessDay; Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN) and CNBC Africa to mention a few, Orojimi stated.
