Wigwe, Terraz, Others Collaborate to Combat HIV/AIDS in Nigeria

Mary Ekah
In response to the urgent need to have a coordinated and sustained response to combat HIV/AIDS in Nigeria, the Chief Executive Officer and Group Managing Director of Access Bank, Herbert Wigwe and Managing Director and Chief Executive of Total, Mr. Nicolas Terrraz, were yesterday inaugurated as the Co-chairs of the Nigerian Business Coalition Against AIDS (NiBUCAA) ) at a dinner held in Lagos.

With the inauguration, they would both help pave the way and also assist, as well as give grants to organisations engaged in activities connected with the furtherance of rehabilitating people with HIV/AIDS-related cases.

NiBUCAA believes that such collaboration would hasten intervention and also prevent explosion of HIV/AIDS in Nigeria.
It also believed that such intervention can only be result driven when there are early government-led efforts that seeks to help coordinate public and private sector activities as well as the arrival of significant international funding.

The inauguration ceremony, which had in attendance former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo as the guest of honuor, was a timely response to the urgency to address the devastating global impact of HIV/AIDS.

How to make high importance and relevance to businesses as well as economic growth, thus, opportunities to make major inroads against the infectious disease, were discussed at the dinner cum inauguration ceremony dedicated exclusively to HIV/AIDS.

Organised by Nibucca and sponsored by Access Bank, NiBUCCA represents the voice of the Nigerian private sector response to HIV and AIDS on the premise that businesses have collective leadership role to play in the wide multi-sectoral response to the pandemic and other related ailments.

The dinner also aimed to bring political leaders, advocates, health workers, top notch business men and woman as well as intellects from the civil society organisations to address the policy, scientific, and advocacy components of efforts to expand and speed the global AIDS response.