SCMC Fails First Acid Test As Mass Wedding Without Genotype Certification Rocks Anambra
Anambra State Map
The secrecy that shrouded the appointment and inauguration of members of the sickle cell monitoring committee on November 4th is now on the fore, as incompetence now precedes their reputation when about 200 couples were married in a mass wedding at Ihiala, sponsored by an NGO called WAFAI, without any evidence of genotype certification.
This is a very dangerous angle in the fight against sickle cell disease, and a proof that the sickle cell monitoring committee inaugurated by the commissioner for health is inept, lacking normally expected degree of ability, and unable to make rational decisions in the prevention of sickle cell disease.
Like we earlier stated in our press release dated 21th November 2020, that the committee only exists to serve some individual interests and neither serious about the eradication of sickle cell disease nor the economic improvement of SCD patients. The “intelligentsia,” as the commissioner called the committee, maybe are still carried away by the lofty appellation, and don’t clearly know their job descriptions.
Despite Prof. Stella Okunna being the only high profile media personality that was present at the public hearing to enact the sickle cell law, the media was still carefully omitted and excluded from any representation in the committee because some political jobbers in the ministry of health don’t want anyone peeping into their closet filled with rottenness. It is now left for conscious Anambra State journalists to carry out discreet investigations into this mass wedding and ascertain if these newly married couples were tested for genotype compatibility? Who issued them genotype certificates? And the health centers where the tests was conducted?
When the commissioner for health chose docility over capability, smearing his reputation on the alter of ego, no doubt that he would go down history as the worst health commissioner in Anambra State.
The Association of People Living with Sickle Cell Disorder would never bulge in the fight against sickle cell disease, and is making spirited efforts to reach the authorities of Ihiala Local Government Area and the town union for their own side of the story over the mass wedding. The National Coordinator of APLSCD, Mrs Aisha Edward Maduagwu, also contacted ASATU president on phone but he was unavailable even untill filling this report.
The implication of the mass wedding without any form of genotype certification is that Anambra State should expect an upward curve in the births of SCD children.
Over to the Ministry of Health to either refute or affirm our position.
Aisha Edward Maduagwu
National Coordinator
APLSCD
07014152622.
