By Andrew Abah, Abuja
Abuja city is agog as both current and former football internationals are putting finishing touches for the highly anticipated Charity Champions Cup competition put together by the Attom Foundation.
The football event holding at the Moshood Abiola National Stadium, Abuja.
Already in the city of Abuja include the legendary Austin Jay Jay Okocha, Kanu Nwankwo, former England international, Sol Campbell, former French international, Robert Pires, former South African legend, Mark Fish, Victor Osimhen, Wilfred Ndidi, Didier Drogba, Emmanuel Ebuoe——and an endless list of other global football stars.
In a media parley held at the Transcorp Hilton, Abuja, which serves as a harbinger to the start of the campaign, organizers says beyond gathering people to have fun, the event is designed to create awareness that the foundation needs the support of well meaning Nigerian’s that will help to ameliorate the needs of special people in the society.
“The event is not just to bring people to have fun, the event is to create awareness that we need support to be able to get across to people with special needs. Our aim at the beginning for this project is to take care of 10,000 people and with the responses we are getting, it seems our number is going to go up”
It was also stated that the rationale behind this initiative is to provide medical health support and to touch lives within the immediate Nigerian community, with this year’s outreach focusing on “Eye Care.”
Speaking at the press conference, Dr Ozi of Habib Medical Clinic says the North-Eastern part of Nigeria is believed to be the region with the highest cases of blindness, with women and the uneducated topping the list of the most affected—-stressing that 84% of blindness are avoidable and preventable.
“As at 2007, about 1.1million people were blind in Nigeria, the North-East is found to be the region with the highest number of blindness, with females and the uneducated topping the number, meanwhile 84% of blindness in Nigeria is preventable and avoidable”
“we need to reduce the negative statistics of people with different visual impairment so they can be treated or corrected as early as possible.”
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“I am glad that Attom foundation has come to intervene which gives a sense of relief since the government cannot do it alone”
The Attom Foundation Champions Cup Competition will be an annual event, with next year’s edition scheduled to take place in Lagos, says the organizers.
“This is what we planned to do every year, this year is Abuja, next year is going to be in Lagos, this year is billed for Eye Care, it’s a long term project that intends to touch as many lives as possible and to improve the lives of the local community”
