TURA YAR’ADUA RETURNS TO WORK

Turai, widow of the late former President, Umaru Musa
Yar’adua, seems to be sitting up in spite of the challenges surrounding her. In
2009, set about establising an International Cancer Centre in Abuja(ICCA). The
project, believed to have come about as a result of a visit she made to the MD
Anderson Cancer Centre in Texas
in 2008, was regarded by many Nigerians as a good development for citizens
living with cancer.
The N10 billion project was an initiative of Turai, and the funds were to be
raised through a public/private partnership(PPP). The cancer centre,
supposedly, the first of its kind in West Africa, was
allocated a large plot of land along the Airport Road,
Abuja. The foundation-laying ceremony and
fund-raiser took place in June 2009, with a 10-month completion period set for
the project.
Since then, nothing has been heard of the project, leaving many to wonder what
had happened to the N10 billion raised for it. It was later gathered that less
than one-third of the sums pledges at the fund-raiser was redeemed and that had
hampered the take-off of the project.
Now, Turai seems set to go back to work. We gathered that while the project did
not fully take off at the time, it was not totally a standstill. The centre was
said to have donated drugs worth about N46 million to major hospitals across
the country, with an agreement that the drugs would be dispensed to patients
free. The centre was said to have carried out free chemotherapy for more than
100 women at MedicAid and Garki hospitals. Already, four construction companies
have been selected for the construction of the centre.