₦airaland Forum

By Jonathan Nda-Isaiah

President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the appointment of Mrs. Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire as his Senior Special Assistant on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

According to a statement issued by his special adviser. Media, Femi Adesina, Mrs. Orelope-Adefulire served as Deputy-Governor of Lagos State in the last administration and is an accomplished politician with many years of experience in public service.

She has also served as Commissioner for Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation in Lagos State.

topeayan:
Am a Yoruba Man but the way Lagos is getting all the appointments is worrisome ooo. Anyway congrats Man

topeayan:
Am a Yoruba Man but the way Lagos is getting all the appointments is worrisome ooo. Anyway congrats Man

confamgist237:
Olodo woman .... This Woman dull pass anything.... To speak for public na wahala for her... I even heard say na local hairdresser she be... Her papa street for egbeda na em worst pas... Iranu abashaa....

We're hungry, some of us don't have clothes - Kids in orphanage next to Dep. Gov's house

AUGUST 17, 2013 BY BOSEDE OLUSOLA-OBASA



Many poor people wish to live beside the rich so that, once in a while, they can benefit from the largesse of their rich neighbour. But that is not the case with the children of an orphanage on Prince Abiodun Adebambo Street, off Orelope Street, in the Alimosho Local Government Area of Lagos State. The orphanage is next door to the heavily-guarded house of the Lagos State Deputy Governor, Mrs. Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire.

A portion of house No 30/32 harbours these juveniles from different parents and nativity bonded by fate. They are the children who live in St. Stephen Charity Foundation - a home for orphans, abandoned children and the less privileged.

No doubt, the children - all under age 10 - have had their fair share of life's hard fist. They are victims of abandonment, deprivation and death of parents.

It's no choice of theirs, but their future now seems to hang in the balance.

Josy is one of the earliest wards in the home. He has only seen life through the lenses of his caregivers since he was salvaged from his mother, said to be a commercial sex worker three years ago.

Now about eight years old, Josy couldn't fathom the luck in having Lagos' number two citizen as a neighbour.

For him, one need stands out, "We need help for food and clothing. I want the Deputy Governor to help me live a better life. We are suffering because our mummy cannot take care of all of us.
Gifty is grateful for what the proprietor of the home has been able to do for her, but says food is usually a problem.

"We take Eba most times because they want us to be filled, but because we are many, we never get enough. We rarely eat rice. I get clothes from an aunty in school but some other children here don't have clothes to put on, no slippers," she said.

An unscheduled visit to St. Stephen Home, especially at the weekends, will evoke the emotion of a first-time visitor.

While posing to be a guest, our correspondent made some findings on the operations in the home. Saturday PUNCH found some of the children running around without pants to cover their genitals; some went about without footwears in the dusty compound, while others had no dresses to cover their frail bodies in the cold weather.

The youngest child there is a five-month old baby clutched by the tiny hands of some other under-aged girls.

The yet-to-be-christened baby cried helplessly and tears that ran down her tender cheeks mixed with mucus running down her nostrils because of the cold weather.

Our correspondent's unguided tour of the L-shaped facility showed two small rooms linked by a door. The door had a rag-like curtain demarcating the rooms. It was later learnt that one of the rooms serves as the kitchen and the other is the common room for reading and dinning.

Three other rooms are bedrooms for the over twenty children -one room for the boys, one for the girls and the third for the tots.

Buckets litter the floor, laundry spread indiscriminately, while some little children are made to wash the dirty dishes on a table beside the kitchen.

Nothing outside the gate suggests an anomaly; the signboard paints a different picture from the realities on ground when you enter through the gate.

Also situated within the premises of the home is a six block of flats occupied by tenants of Mrs. Roseann Nwachukwu, who is also the coordinator of the home.

The scenery in the premises provokes questions on government approval and monitoring of such facilities, especially as it is happening right beside Mrs. Orelope-Adefulire's house.

During another visit to the home, Nwachukwu, who was confronted with findings by Saturday PUNCH admitted that she got certain aspects of her social service wrong, she insisted that she went into social work 23 years ago under her church with a genuine passion to help the suffering.

She said the home was registered by the Corporate Affairs Commission and the Ministry of Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Lagos State as a non-profit organisation to care for the less privileged and abandoned children in the society.

She said the home had been running since 2008, but got its registrations done in 2011 and 2012 respectively, after meeting the requirements.

She said many of the children were practically picked from the streets, while some were abandoned at the gate of the home or brought in by indigent parents, who couldn't take care of them.

Corroborating the 'hunger story' of the children in the home, she said it was true that some times, the home ran out of food items, clothing and the likes, adding that she had not received any assistance from government in any form.

"We get food stuff, among other provisions, from individual members of the public, religious and corporate organisations. We have never received any government help. But there are more people to reach out to than what comes in.

"The youngest child here is now five months old, we still call her baby. She was brought here through a Catholic Church, because I am also a Catholic.

"The parents didn't have the means to take care of the child and the child was sick when she was brought here. She is now okay and doing well," she said.

Asked if she has ever sought the assistance of her neighbor, the deputy governor, she said, "Madam knows we are here. She lived here before she became the Deputy Governor. She's always in a hurry anytime she comes around so she usually asks me to drop messages meant for her with her personal assistant who lives here too, but I notice that he often appears to avoid me.

"Madam has never had time to come in here. Even the policemen guarding her house know me."

Nwachukwu said that two private school proprietresses recently offered to educate the nursery/primary school-age children in the home at no cost, thus giving them the opportunity to be educated.

Much as Nwachukwu appears to be genuine in her pursuit, Saturday PUNCH found that she is surrounded by some questions begging for answers.

One of the school proprietresses confirmed to our correspondent that majority of the children were in her school.

An employee of the school, however, added that the home needed to be better managed to give the children a proper world view.

She commended the owner of the home for even having the initiative to help the needy, but added that whatever was worth doing at all should be done well.

Asked if she suspected that Nwachukwu was unduly taking advantage of the children to enrich herself, she said the woman did not appear like someone who is financially pressed as she has a building with tenants from where she makes money.

She said, "I don't know about selling the wares donated. We are in touch regularly, but the area that she should improve on is training of her assistant, who I heard, she just brought in from the village.

"Averagely, the children appear beggarly and lacking confidence. We are working on that in school. They bear her name but they look demoralised.

"We are also aware of complaints that food is seldom enough for the children, who are within their active growing ages. The children also need medical assistance."

But, one of Nwachukwu's neighbours told Saturday PUNCH that she usually moved bags of rice donated by well-meaning Nigerians to a shop in Pipeline, Lagos to sell them.

The man, who pleaded to remain anonymous, said the children were not being adequately taken care of.

He said, "The children are suffering. They are not well taken care of. I wonder why any parent will release their children to come to a place like this.

"There was a time a government agency brought in bags of rice in a bus and later in the day, a yellow commercial bus drove in and took them to her shop."

On one of the days of visit by Saturday PUNCH, Nwachukwu confessed to having gone to measure some quantity of Garri for the children in the home to eat.

But she denied having ever sold whatever was brought in by donors. She said she does not have any shop and has never run a food stuff shop.

She said, "I know that I am doing what I am doing with all my heart. I don't know those spreading this kind of allegations about me but God sees my heart."

But hardly does Nwachukwu realise that her good intention is not enough as she appears to have been flouting basic regulations guiding the running of a home.

When the Special Assistant to the Lagos State Deputy Governor on Media, Mr. Tunde Abatan, was contacted on this issue, he asked our correspondent to speak with a Director in WAPA, Mrs. Alaba Fadairo.

Fadairo told Saturday PUNCH that the ministry doesn't approve or register orphanages, such as the one Nwachukwu is running. Although she brandishes the WAPA registration certificate as back up for her operations, Fadairo said it is wrong to use it as a baseline for running a home.

She said, "WAPA registers NGOs working with children, not orphanages or homes. The Office of Youth and Social Development is responsible for that. If she is truly running a home with hostel where she keeps the children, it is very wrong and fraudulent.

"We need to go and investigate that. But first, I need to be sure that the WAPA registration she has is genuine because I don't know the officer purported to have signed in June 2012, on behalf of the permanent Secretary, WAPA. She must have presented the requirements for an NGO to us and now she is running a home. That is improper."

Getting back to Nwachukwu on this development, she said that her application to run a home has been with the Youth and Social Development office since 2012. She said that she was told that the head of the office travelled and had not returned.

Asked if any government monitoring team had ever visited the home, she said none had done so since its inception five years ago.

http://http://www.punchng.com/feature/were-hungry-some-of-us-dont-have-clothes-kids-in-orphanage-next-to-dep-govs-house/

confamgist237:
Olodo woman .... This Woman dull pass anything.... To speak for public na wahala for her... I even heard say na local hairdresser she be... Her papa street for egbeda na em worst pas... Iranu abashaa....

confamgist237:
Olodo woman