Joyce Onwuka
The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Technical, Vocational and Entrepreneurship Education (SSAP-TVEE), Madam Abiola Arogundade, has gifted an indigent mother of six, with a multi-purpose Solar Kiosk and other business start-up items to enable her earn a living as a professional seamstress.
The middle-aged woman, Mrs. Eucharia Ego Okpalannadi, from Achina in Anambra State, was taken away from her home with her three-year-old daughter by former Minister of Woman Affairs, Barr. Uju Kennedy-Ohanenye,(while in office) to Abuja when the news broke in July this year that her husband defiled the three-year-old and the woman called on relevant authorities for security alleging threat to her life by her husband.
In a brief ceremony at her Office on Friday, the SSAP-TVEE said the gift was to enable her restart her life after months of inactivity due to the trauma of her experience adding that the multi-purpose kiosk would enable her restart her profession as a seamstress and do other businesses like phone charging for her customers and others. She also promised to gift her a Point Of Sales (POS) machine and N100,000.
In her brief remarks before handing over the kiosk to her, Madam Arogundade, who said it was being presented in collaboration with the former Minister of Women Affairs, added that the gesture was part of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda to uplift the lives of indigent Nigerians.
Congratulating the beneficiary, the SSAP-TVEE told her, “You can use it for multiple functions. You can use it for POS business and there are charging points to charge phones for your customers and you can also utilize the space for other businesses”.
Also in her brief remarks, Barr, Uju Kennedy Ohanenye, who recalled the incident that brought her in contact with the woman and her daughter, told newsmen, “This is one of the women I kept when I was Minister and her 3-year-old child who was defiled. So, for security reasons, I have brought her out. Now she doesn’t have anything to do, she has been whiling away her time with nothing to feed her children.
“And fortunately, my sister, as usual, called me about three weeks ago saying she could give her this kiosk to start her life because she is a seamstress, she sews; and I have already gotten her a machine that I bought with my salary so she could start. So today her life has changed, God has done it”.
She said she had bought her a machine and would provide a space for her to put the kiosk, adding that she had also secured accommodation for her and her child. The former Minister also gifted the overjoyed woman with N100,000 cash.