Women-Affairs

The promotion of maximum happiness for the greatest number of people is the chief responsibility of every responsible government and leaders; and which protection of lives and property; as well as the promotion of people’s welfare are cornerstones. There are so many things that can make people te unhappy – penury, hunger, sicknesses, diseases, unemployment, injustice, disappointment, failures, among others, but you will agree with me that the worst among them is poverty. A poor person is prone to starvation, diseases, sicknesses, and almost all social vices you can think of.   

At present and according to the World Bank report of the year 2020, the Nigerian state is categorized eight on world poverty indicator directly behind Mexico and ahead of Rwanda, with over a hundred million Nigerians below the poverty lines. What this means is that about 50% of Nigerians cannot afford a dollar per day (that is, #500 per day) which is the largest number of poor people in Sub-Saharan Africa. While most of these people are predominantly concentrated in the North, the truth is that the southern part of the country is not shielded from it. Unambiguously, Lagos is said to have about 4.5 per cent of its populace below poverty indicator lines. Arithmetically, that is about forty-five people out of every one thousand Lagosians are poor, which is the best in the whole federation.

What this connotes is that the Lagos State Government under the leadership of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu and preceding leaders have done tremendously well to flatten the curve of poverty in the State. This has been made possible through a lot of people-oriented policies and programmes like we are witnessing today. 

Since its inception, this Mega Empowerment Programme of this administration has helped to put smiles on the faces of many Lagosians by providing jobs for a lot of jobless women and other vulnerable in the society. As it is often said, the best way to empower a person is not to give him fish but to teach him how to catch fish in the river so that he can catch enough to feed herself and give to others too. This is what this Mega Empower programme is designed and aimed to accomplish and I will like to commend the governor through the Honourable commissioner for seeing poverty as great diseases that must be eliminated among Lagosians and especially women. Women by virtue of our natural configuration think less of ourselves; but more of our family, thus, any empowerment channelled to a woman is not only for herself but also for other members of her family – children, relatives and even husband. 

Honourable Commissioner, you are doing well, and I must applaud you for this well-thought-out programme that is helping to shape the negative narratives of many families from beggars to helpers, mal-nourished families to healthy families, and poor persons to self-sustaining persons. We may not be able to change the poverty story of every poor person in Lagos at once, but with continuous and steady programmes like this, we are certainly moving in the right direction. 

To the beneficiaries of today, you are one of the luckiest people in the world today and Lagos in particular, and I hereby enjoin you to make judicious use of whatever you get today for the benefit of yourself and your family as a whole. You must know there are thousands of people who want these good gestures but whose times have not come. It is therefore necessary you see your enlistment among the beneficiaries as a privilege that must be optimally utilized for your progress and Lagos progress and development. 

Thank you all for your time.