By Olanrewaju Adesanya
The Lagos State House of Assembly member, Hon. Rasheed Makinde has commended Lagosians on the level compliance with Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu’s emergency pronouncement on social gatherings, as he empowers constituents.
Makinde who represents Ifako-Ijaiye constituency II noted that rather than majoring on the negatives of Coronavirus, his constituents should catch in on the economic opportunities available in the situation.
The lawmaker aided by the Makinde Formidable legend, empowered 20 people with required skills of producing sanitizers, one of the items needed to prevent contracting of the ravaging Coronavirus.
The lawmaker while declaring open the training programme noted that, it would have had more numbers of participants but for the restriction on social gatherings that limited the figure to maximum of 20 people .
“We are here to train our people on how to make sanitizers,initially we targeted training 200 participants but had to reduce the number from 180 to 20 because of restriction on social gatherings.
” I urge you who are the privileged few,to go back to your communities and wards to empower more people,we pray we can contain the scourge of the coronavirus,this also afford our people an added source of income when produced in commercial quantities.
“China broke the chain of poverty through Small and Medium scale Enterprises (SME) and now a world economic power base,with respect to economic acceleration,so nobody should feel to big,make good use of this training.
“The essence is to prevent the spread of Coronavirus in our constituency and thank God we have no records of the ravaging virus here and we want to sustain that.
“More so the training today is to equip our people about necessary knowledge they will be using from time to time,for themselves especially my constituents to produce the sanitizer.
“As well as to give them the opportunity to avail themselves of the economic opportunities in the situation at hand.To enable them cater for their needs and that of their loved ones.
“Aside this we are embarking on food distribution to over five hundred people in my constituency,we packaged it and sort of food items,like garri,rice,indomie,groundnut oil,maggi and other essential items will be distributed as from tomorrow to our constituentsacross our political structural frames here.
“Now this hand sanitizer,we are producing well over 2000 bottles,which will be distributed across all the public institutions we have in our constituency;the police stations,CDC halls so that those CDA’s coming there can get their hands sanitized as preventive measure.
“Same goes for the churches and mosques, the limited numbers the law allows to come there we want to get them covered.
“Palaces of our traditional rulers will also get this preventive item,our political leaders and consensus base will also get some sanitizers as well.”
Assessing Lagosians level of compliance with the social gatherings pronouncement of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu,he said,” by our own style in this clime we hardly take things serious,especially government pronouncements and caution.
“In other climes the measures are strictly adhered to by the citizenry, but in Nigeria if not that we had some nationals been affected by the virus,may be a comedian will have taken it as a tool for his jokes a lot of it would have flooded the social media.
“Lagos remain a pacesetter, a nation state,we are clearly different from other states,I make bold to say that.
“We took it so seriously and you can see our government moving out, fumigating public spaces against the spread of this pandemics.
“The Governor has come up with several measures to contain the spread of the virus,he has also instructed health officials in various local governments across state to go out and fumigate their communities.
“He is also distributing food items like we are also doing here to cushion the effect of this on our people economic wellbeing. “Owing to the restriction pronouncement by Mr Governor. Our compliance is much at 75 per cent,compared to all other states in the federation.
“I thank the Speaker Lagos State House of Assembly,Rt.Hon.Mudashiru Obasa who deemed it fit to come up with that bill,which gives the Governor necessary legal backing to contain the spread of the Coronavirus.
Wife of the lawmaker,Alhaja Oluwatoyin Makinde while addressing the participants noted that the scheme is to take people from the begging pot to the cooking pot,a point at which they will be self reliant.
“Let’s remove the fear that is prevalent now and put on the garment of faith,keep to precautionary measures as stated by the government. I also urge you all to take hot ginger or lemon water every morning,it is quite helpful.
The Grand Patron Makinde Formidable Legend,Engineer Omolade Balogun in a chat with National Daily the programme is in fulfillment of MFL’s earlier pledge to do an empowerment programme every month.
“Aside this sanitizer production skill acquisition, we have numerous empowerment scheme in the offing,in the agricultural value chain,a tuber crop like cassava has a lot in stock.
“You can get garri,cassava flour(lafun) and many more,with this we can sustain the concept regularly every month.
“By next month, when we pray this Coronavirus pandemic would have been contained,we hope to have between 150-200 participants at our empowerment programme.
“MFL empowerment programme caters not only for theoretical aspect but also the practical,people will witness the trainers do it and they will become trainers for others in their wards and communities.
“By this avenue we are sure before the end of this year a lot of people will have been empowered. Via this capacity building to the extent of being self reliant.
“We are so happy for having a visionary leader whose passion is to imbue people with capacity to flourish and not to wait on politicians for handouts at electioneering periods, which really cannot sustain them for long.
“He is already preparing for the next election now through capacity building so that nobody awaits such selfish advances like two,three dericas of rice.
” I advise our people to take their personal hygiene seriously they should not wait till they start seeing symptoms of the virus, no,they should adhere strictly to the precautionary measures of hand washing,sanitizing,social distancing and others.
“Coronavirus does not signal an end to life,it can only be contracted through contact and once we stop the contact it cannot spread,let’s cut the link by staying at home,let’s follow all instructions issued by government to the letter.
An MFL member, Mrs.Kikelomo Soremekun one of the beneficiaries commended the lawmakers selfless style.
“It is not common among house of Assembly members in Nigeria,Hon. Makinde is a selfless leader,this empowerment has a far reaching effect,it is an additional source of income for me but what is key is the love for humanity that this portrays.
“We are expected to go back to our communities and help to safe lives.”