POLITICS TODAY

A Lagos businessman,  Dr.  Tayo Afolabi  has empowered  over 6,000 poor Northern children by sending them to school with scholarship support and the region’s women  for skill acquisition training and take-off funds for thousands of underprivileged families.

The Ajoke Ayisat  Afolabi Foundation’s Northern Coordinator, Hajiya Adama Shehu Aliyu revealed this at FABS hotel in Zaria,  during an event to mark the four years  anniversary of its charity  activities in the region. She said the founder,  who is the Group Executive Vice Chairman of Sofix Group(a Cargo and Port outfit)  has been funding the activities of the Foundation up to today without any sign of fatigue.

Hajiya Adama said the Foundation has also provided  support to poor northerners who required surgery and other forms of medical attention  but don’t have the financial wherewithal to shoulder it.

She  noted that  the most striking part of Dr.  Afolabi’s charity  efforts through the Foundation was that “it’s completely non-discriminatory because the beneficiaries cut across all religions,  though the man is a Christian”.

Hajiya Adama urged  wealthy individuals in the North  to support  charity efforts, even if for divine rewards only. She also disclosed that Dr.  Afolabi  named  the Foundation  after his late mother in order to immortalize her.

The anniversary event was attended by academicians, representative of Kaduna State Governor Nasir Ahmad Elrufai; Director of NDLEA;  Lagos Coordinator of the Foundation; Senior  officials of the Federal Road Safety Commission; private schools student beneficiaries of the Foundation’s scholarship scheme, their teachers and the monarchy. The event was also colored by academic submissions of papers on divergent issues of socio-economic importance and the presentation of awards to the Foundation’s “exceptionally-brilliant scholarship beneficiaries”.