Since the 1990’s Nigeria has been in the news globally for very negative and appalling reasons. That period coincided with the advent of the internet and some unscrupulous Nigerians rather than use it to advance the public good choose to use it to scam unsuspecting foreigners. Some asinine minds even justified it saying that it was their own miniscule way of getting back what the Caucasians pilfered from us during the Trans-Atlantic Slave trade and colonialism.

The Future Awards which was launched in 2006 by the duo of Chude Jideonwo and Adebola Williams was basically a PR coup to showcase the positive aspects of first Nigeria and then Africa. The aim was to change the stereotype by the foreign media that the country and continent was only filled with online con men and people of shady character.

Can anything good come out of Nazareth goes the Biblical saying? To put it in contemporary times – can anything good come out of Borno State? A state known only for Boko Haram and other Insurgency Attacks.

Thankfully, Borno State has been put on the global map with the appointment of Professor Adam Abba-Aji as the new Chief Medical Director of the prestigious Alberta Hospital in Edmonton, Canada.

The hospital will be 100 years old next year and it is world famous for the training of doctors and other medical personnel. Prof Abba-Aji scored a first by being the first black man to be so appointed to this exalted position.

According to Economic Confidential He is a professor of Psychiatric who has been practicing in Canada for the past 20 years.

Professor Abba-Aji obtained his MBBS from the University of Maiduguri, Nigeria. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians & Surgeons, Canada; Fellow Royal College of Psychiatrists, U.K; Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, UK.

He has Master’s degrees in Neuroscience from the University of Maastricht, Netherlands; and also a Masters of Business Administration in Healthcare Management from the Smurfit Graduate School of Business, Dublin.

Prior to this appointment Prof. Abba-Aji was the Medical Lead for the Integrated Youth Services Initiative in Addiction & Mental Health in Edmonton, the Zone Facility Site Chief, Addiction Mental Health, at the University of Alberta Hospital; and, the Associate Chair of Psychiatry, Clinical Affairs, with the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry.

He has numerous awards, recognitions, and over 70 peer reviewed publications and book chapters.

Abba-Aji is the first African to be appointed to this role.

Alberta Hospital Edmonton is the largest Teaching Hospital for addiction and mental health in the Western Canada. The Facility is affiliated to the University of Alberta, one of the top 5 Universities in Canada and ranked #135 best Universities in the world.

This is great news for Nigeria and Africa as he is a worthy ambassador of the ‘Giant of Africa’ and the entire African Continent both at home and in the Diaspora.

It is an open secret that for a black man to rise to such heights in the west you must be twice or even thrice as good as the average Caucasian and so this is no mean feat as it is a testimony that with the right environment and tools to work, there is no limit to the heights that the black man can reach.

While we celebrate him, it is a gargantuan shame that his native Borno State has been reduced to a killing field by the trio of bandits, Boko Haram and the Islamic State West African Province (ISWAP). Under normal circumstances, Prof. Abba-Aji is supposed to be in Nigeria contributing his quota to nation building but alas our kleptocratic and visionless leaders have other ideas which have kept the bright and brilliant like him faraway from the ‘cursed’ continent.

Once again a big congratulations to Prof Adam Abba-Aji for breaking the glass ceiling and doing the black race proud.

SOURCE: https://africavoiceshq.com/2022/07/07/congratulations-prof-abba-aji-by-tony-ademiluyi/