As the August 12 date of its centenary anniversary draws near, the Association of General and Private Medical Practitioners of Nigeria (AGPMPN) has released more names of those to be honoured for their outstanding contributions to the development and service to humanity in Nigeria’s health sector.
Prominent in the latest released list are Godwin Maduka, Anambra-born-United States of America-based medical practitioners and founder of the Las Vegas Pain Institute and Medical Center, United States of America; Tolu Odebiyi, who represents Ogun West senatorial district of Ogun State in the Senate and Maurice Iwu, former chairmen of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), who is also a renowned Professor of Pharmacognosy, for their special impacts in the health sector.
The letter conveying Maduka’s nomination read: “It is doubtlessly, a well deserved honour coming to you for very many reasons, including your very inspirational success story of coming from a humble background and rising to the pinnacle of medical practise; holding multiple degrees in the medical field; your outstanding inputs, contributions and outlandish investments in the medical sphere, including of course, constructing a 17-storey facility in your native town which you designated as a Medical Research Centre;
“The Trinitas International Hospital, Umuchukwu; a world class centre that you also built and donated to the Catholic church and employment of over 500 medical and allied workers in your practise spread across countries.”
Maduka is a clinical faculty supervisor and adjunct professor of pain management and anaesthesiology at Touro University, Nevada. He is also a clinical assistant professor of surgery.
Odebiyi is being recognised, according to AGPMPN, because of his live-saving health interventions in his senatorial district, especially to the elderly and the indigent, through the Tolu Odebiyi Foundation.
Iwu was president, International Society of ethnobiology (1996–2002), member and former president of Nigerian Society of Pharmacognosy, member of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene and member of International Society for Medicinal Plant Research. He was the executive director, Bioresources Development and Conservation Programme and a senior research associate at the Division of Experimental Therapeutics of Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Washington D.C.
The event billed for the Africa Hall of the International Conference Centre (ICC) Abuja will be preceded by a national dialogue on healthcare delivery in Nigeria to be chaired by a former Senate president, Ken Nnamani, same day, where the Ekiti State Governor, Kayode Fayemi, will deliver the keynote speech.