Resolved to rewrite history across the length and breadth of Orile-Agege Local Council Development Area, Mr Johnson Babatunde the Executive Chairman has breathed hope into hitherto ailing business with N100,000 as support facility to 50 business owners to bolster their ventures and consciously reducing poverty amongst residents.
The Council chief, who narrated how many have-nots are now gradually being turned to employers of labour in the locality, counseled that any venture that is accorded required focus will strive and expand coast.
Babatunde who noted that the gesture will go a long way to tackle poverty in the land, added that whoever amongst the beneficiaries who profited more in his or her venture will receive further financial boost as monitoring will be done to evaluate the impact soon.
He said that his administration was poised about touching every nooks and crannies of the community, adding every critical group in the council were factored in the selection of beneficiaries.
The chairman, who noted that the selection process was not about politics, added that gifts came to some beneficiaries as a surprise.
Babatunde said: “It is not about election. I am not running for any election now but just having feeling for the people.
“We just doled out N5 million to our people to start a business to fend for themselves. We want to better the lot of the people.
“We have given 50 residents, especially the youth N100,000 each to start businesses. In the next two or three week, we are going to do another one.”
Babatunde said that such gesture, which though not new, would be done monthly.
” It is a covenant between me and God that I want to be doing this. By the end of the year, let me have about 600 people that I have empower,” he added.
He said that the step was one of the Sustainable Development Goals of lifting people out of poverty.
Babatunde said that some of the beneficiaries could engage in selling fruits, bean cake, food, roast plantain and other things to create wealth for themselves and their family.
On monitoring of businesses of beneficiaries, Babatunde said that the council had mechanisms to check the businesses across the six wards in the local government.
He said that from time to time he would check what the beneficiaries had been able to do with the money.
“You will all make me proud if you are able to do something with this empowerment fund. You will make me proud if at the end of the day, I am able to see what you have used the money for.
“If you use this fund judicious, there is room for us to empower you the more,” the chairman said.
He said that LCDA was also poised about training people in different trades through the council’s vocational center that would soon take off.
According to him, the serious ones among the trainees will be empowered all in efforts to reduce poverty.
Speaking, Mr Chukwuemeka Linus, one of the beneficiaries, said that the gesture by the chairman would help him and the family to start a business to feed themselves.
Linus, the Coordinator of Ndigbo in the LCDA, said: “This will change my life, and not only mine but my family and those close to me. We love business, I will use this money to start a business.”
Another beneficiary, Alhaji Ololade Onitoolo, who deals in small scale block moulding, said that the council boss was always seeking progress of the residents of the LCDA.
Mr Abubaka Mustapha, a resident from Northern extraction, expressed appreciation to Babatunde, saying “The chairman carries all ethnic nationalities resident in Orile-Agege along in everything he does”.
Miss Funmilayo Arogunyo, a graduate, who is living with disability, could not hide her excitement, saying only business empowerment could bring prosperity rather than white collar jobs.
“I will not disappoint the chairman on this gesture. I will invest in ventures that will increase the money,” she said.
In her words, Mrs Olufunmilayo Osisanya Head of Department, Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, in the LCDA said that the gesture had been a continuous exercise by the chairman, who she said, was was poised about welfare and livelihood of the people.
She said that the chairman had uncommon empathy for the poor such that whoever comes to the council crying would go back home rejoicing.
She urged that beneficiaries to take advantage of the fund to create wealth and prosperity for themselves.
The beneficiaries were presented with a cheque of N100,000 each to rejig their business and increase profitability.
