A US-based businesswoman, Mrs Doris Ogunmakin, has donated food items valued at over N3 million to her kindred in Abia to help alleviate their hardship, arising from the COVID-19 lockdown.
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The items, which included 20 bags of rice, four bags of beans, 160 tubers of yam, 16 bags of salt, 200 cartons of noodles, 36 cartons of Coco pops, were handed over to the community through Ogunmakin’s father, Chief Uche Akwukwuegbu.
Akwukwuegbu presented the items to the Traditional Ruler of Amuzukwu Autonomous Community in Umuahia North Local Government Area of the state, Eze John Ibezim, and leaderships of the four component villages of the community on Sunday.
In a brief speech, Akwukwuegbu, who is the Traditional Prime Minister of Ibeku Ancient Kingdom, said that the gesture was Ogunmakin’s modest palliatives to cushion the effect of the lockdown on her kindreds.
“The palliatives are not from me. They are from my first daughter, Chief Doris Ogunmakin, who was conferred with a chieftaincy title here in her birth place.
“She told me that she provided the palliatives because of the suffering faced by the indigent and vulnerable in the community,” he said.
Responding, Ibezim thanked the donor for her magnanimity and concern for the sufferings of her kindred caused by the lockdown.
He appealed to other well-meaning sons and daughters of the community to emulate her kind gesture.
He admonished the leaders of the four villages to ensure that the relief materials were evenly distributed family-by-family to ensure that nobody was left out or cheated.
He warned that punitive measures would be meted out to any leader found to have engaged in any sharp practice in the distribution process.
Also, Rev. Eke Mba of the All Saints Methodist Church, Amuzukwu, who witnessed the presentation, implored prominent members of the community to use the opportunity of the lockdown to extend kind gestures to the poor and needy in their neighbourhood.
“You should not wait until people come to prostrate and beg you before you can do good to them.
“We should learn to be generous to the poor and vulnerable persons among us, no matter how little.
“Whatever you can do for the poor around you, please go ahead to do it, whether the person appreciates it or not.
“Whatever help you render to the indigent and less privileged in society is done for God, who will surely reward you,” Mba said, citing Proverbs 19.
The Amuzukwu Youth Leader, Mr Waye Isaacy, and a woman leader, Mrs Beatrice Mgbarole, who received the items on behalf of their people, expressed profound thanks to the donor for remembering her kindreds at such a critical period.
Speaking in an interview with newsmen on the sideline, Akwukwuegbu expressed his support for the government’s lockdown as a potent measure to contain the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in the state.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Abia already has two confirmed cases of the COVID-19, while government said that 209 persons, who allegedly had contact with the index cases, were presently in isolation centres.
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