Rest in Power, Mama- Khadijat Banwo-Fatai

Dear Mama,

My colleague, my sweet mother, and my phenomenal friend.

Thank you so much for teaching us how to be selfless, kind, hardworking, and logical. I met you in 2013 at Chief Moji Makanjuola’s office and I shared my vision of contributing to the change I want to see in Nigeria. As an NYSC Corps member, I was passionate about what I wanted to do, you brought the logic. You shared your personal story about breast cancer. You promised to support me and never looked back to date.

We worked together on so many projects including starting the first patient navigation project in Nigeria and the first breast cancer support group in Abuja. Even when you were in Ilorin, you kept supporting me from afar.

Mama, you brought in the patient insight and have insisted that Project PINK BLUE must be patient-focused if we want to be unique.

You led the recruitment of almost every staff at Project PINK BLUE from 2015 till date. When you moved back to Abuja, you joined Project PINK BLUE fully, taking the role of Board Supervisor and later Coordinator, Patient Navigation and Support. You would spend your personal funds to navigate and speak to cancer patients from all over the country. After every World Cancer Day, you will do everything possible to ensure that anyone who got an abnormal screening test results, got an additional diagnosis. You will speak with our diagnostic partners and when they refuse to support patients you will storm their offices to ameliorate the issues. You were a champion who stood for champions.

Mama, you prefer to be behind the camera and have others shine.

Mama, you were a kind woman—a nice soul to the core. You wanted the best for everyone. You were a hard worker—a self-taught human and self-motivated. You were 50 with the energy of a 20-year-old.

Mama, you did not fight cancer, you won cancer a long time ago. You were diagnosed in 2010 and lived cancer-free for 11 years. Painfully, it came back again in 2021. You didn’t give up. While many people may not understand, I know you already won cancer a long time ago. You were not afraid of death, you were only afraid of your children and other champions (cancer patients). What would happen to them? How would they cope? Mama, God will give us the grace to continue to support your children and family.

I want to thank our partners, friends, family, and everyone who supported Mama at some point. God bless you all.

Yes, Mama is gone, but what can we do to ensure many “mamas” survive after a cancer diagnosis? Sadly, almost every cancer diagnosis leads to death in Nigeria including the rich. The government must increase its priority to cancer control. Mama’s death could have been avoided if she had access to the targeted therapy that she needed greatly. Painfully, she had to travel to Egypt to get this. I have many friends all over the world who had metastatic breast cancer and they are still doing great and living their lives. In Nigeria, a metastatic breast cancer is similar to a death sentence. Inequities in access to care and treatment are stark in Nigeria, we cannot make any progress by only advocating for early diagnosis without early and timely treatment. Nigerian doctors are not magicians, they can only do what they can with the available medications and types of equipment.

Rest in Power, Mama. Your assignment to us at Project PINK BLUE shall never dime.

Runcie C.W. Chidebe, Executive Director, Project PINK BLUE