merican scientists and researchers had faced an unusual medical problem in the 1980s. "Why do so many black American men suffer from a disproportionate higher rate of prostate cancer than their white male counterparts?" They were still struggling to find an answer to this unique medical quiz when another puzzle sneaked up under their stethoscopes, medical labs and research institutes across America. "Why do black American men suffer from a disproportionate higher rate of prostate cancer than first generation black men from the African continent who immigrated into the United States and other parts of the western world?"

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After tests and researches and further researches and analysis backed by available research dollars, their results came down to a disappointing naught. It led them back to where they began - the drawing board. Yes, they went back to the drawing board once more and returned this time with a verdict that most people could live with. That the answer lay in an assumption arrived at, through a deductive reasoning method. "It could be the type of food consumed by the first generation African black male who had immigrated into the United States and other parts of Western Europe that formed a natural check/immune against the rampaging impact of prostate cancer on the African black male populace."

Now that reasoning, appears almost to be becoming a living scientific lie. African males who have not traveled outside the shores of Africa nor exposed to the life styles of black American male are, daily, dying in their hundreds from the rampaging scourge of cancer, mostly of the prostate variant. What had happened? And why has this happened so fast like the spread of the disease called cancer itself?

I went to see my uncle in the hospital the other day. There, he laid prostate on the sick bed. For the first time I came to terms with what prostate cancer is all about. To say the least, I returned from the hospital more depressed than when I went to see him. The doctor had taken me into strict confidence to narrate to me, against the ethics of his job, may be, the number of deaths recorded daily in his clinic and at the Federal Medical Centre, Owerri - deaths, occasioned by the scourge of cancer of all types, but mostly with prostate cancer. As I was about leaving his consulting room, his cell phone rang. It was a call from one of his nurses to announce yet another death from prostate cancer. With a frown on his brow, the doctor stretched his right palm towards me. "Another patient has just been lost." What to do, I walked into my uncle's hospital room, sat opposite him and cried. "You must not die."

Newspapers in Nigeria this past week have been awash with stories of cancer afflicting important members of the society. Gani Fawehinmi is in a London hospital crippled by lung cancer. So sick, the ebullient Gani could not attend any of the numerous events organized by family, friends and well wishers to mark his 70th birth day. Yinka Craig, the ace commentator and broadcast journalist is on his sick bed, suffering cancer. But for their importance in the society, they might as well have quietly gone unnoticed, but surely added to the growing number of the African male population are dying from prostate cancer.

Scientists and researchers should please once more go back to the drawing board. African males on the continent a dying at a rate not fit for print from prostate cancer! At first, I had been tempted to believe in that report that seemed hasty and inclusive. Yes, the difference could have been the type of food the African male over the ages of 40 consumed. Utazi, ewedu, Ukazi, Ncha-onwu, uziza (a variety of spices) Onugbo (bitter leaf) dogonyaro, cassava leaves, roots, herbs of all types and so on and so forth.

That could be true. But that was then. Then, when living was essentially, rural and unpolluted! Now, the story is different. With the globalization of world economy which set in with the internet age, the African male has become more mobile, traversing the universe in search of better livelihood. His eating and socializing habits have unfortunately changed. He has interacted. He has now been exposed disproportionately to the consumption of a variety of food items and adopted a mobile life style that has deviated from what was usually the norm.

Back home on the continent, junk food joints, which are usually patronized by the socially upwardly mobile and the rich, have become a status symbol. They think it's cool so to do. Even housewives, who until now had patiently tended to the food needs of the typical African family, have joined the work force and the result is an alarming void in the traditional African family lifestyle - food pattern being a very essential part of it.

Social hygiene standards everywhere on the African continent are either poor, very poor or non-existent. Environmental and ecological degradation have assumed an alarming rate with pollution of all types (air, water, soil) going on neither unchecked nor regulated by the appropriate authorities. Smoking and second hand smoking which every day harm the lungs of both the elderly and young are happening as if they are of little or no consequence. Processed foods, (usually processed without adequate quality control mechanism) including alcohol and beverages have replaced the type of food which the African male was used to.

The world is changing fast and as we embark on gigantic industrialization campaigns, African governments should not lose sight of the attendant health consequences. Appropriate regulatory bodies must step up awareness campaigns on the consequences of industrialization, urbanization and westernization. Multi-nationals operating in Africa should chip in their widow's might towards the health education and awareness of the African populace.

This is where the recent efforts by the Lagos State government to set up prostate cancer screening and testing centers all over the state should be commended. The federal government of Nigeria and other governments in Africa should emulate the Lagos State's example. Fortunately, prostate cancer is curable if diagnosed early. Male children from the ages of 18 should be taught in school of the signs and signals to look out for around the area of their vital organs, in this deadly battle to fight the scourge called prostate cancer. Cancer is the costly price that comes with industrialization and modernization of all genres. The African male is paying for it disproportionately.