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By Sunday Ani
On Saturday, November 25, 2023, rotarians, rotaractors, friends and well-wishers of the Rotary Club of Lagos Festac Cosmopolitan turned out in their numbers at the Golden Tulip Hotel, Amuwo Odofin, Lagos, to witness the installation of Dr. Magaret Agada-Mba as the fourth president of the club. The event also witnessed the induction of the club’s board of directors for the 2023/2024 Rotary year.
Agada-Mba (2nd left) about to receive the certificate from Charter president and representative of the outgoing president, Akaneme
In her address on the occasion, Agada-Mba, who described the event as epoch-making and a celebration of the club’s collectivism, pledged to lead the affairs of the club in the 2023/2024 Rotary year to the best of her ability. She called on the board, past presidents and members of the club to support her to pilot the affairs of the club in the next one year.
She reminded members of the club that, as Rotarians, they are global citizens and central to restoring and creating hope in the world, beginning from their little corners.
She noted that, although in the ranking of Rotary clubs the Rotary Club of Lagos Festac Cosmopolitan could be considered as very small, since they are just 29 in number, but they are mighty because they have Rotarians with vast years of experience spanning decades.
On what the club plans to do in the next year, she noted that the club has earmarked N15 million to undertake projects such as Rotary diagnostics, Rotary safe birth kits, Rotary micro-lending, Rotary school library and corrective eye surgeries for cataracts and glaucoma.
“Our primary focus for this Rotary year will be on water, sanitation and hygiene, peace and conflict resolution, developing local economy, prevention of diseases, maternal and child health, among others,” she said.
She appealed to members of the club, as well as friends, well-wishers and the public to donate generously to the club to to prosecute the projects: “The goals we set for ourselves this year are challenging but achievable. They require planning and collaboration. There is a limit to the resources that Rotarians can provide from within. That is why we ask you to extend those charitable works through rotary by collaborating and supporting these projects, so that, at the end, we will all create a better world.”
In her handover note, the immediate past president, Christiana Ogedi Akaeze, represented by Mrs. Uzoamaka Akaneme, reeled out the achievements of her tenure to include the induction of four new members, and seven members as Paul Harris Fellows, contribution of $8,500 to the Rotary Foundation, replanting of trees under the club’s Adopt-a-Street project, as well as donations of delivery kits to indigent expectant mothers under the club’s safe birth kits project at the Amuwo Odofin Primary Health Centre, as well as the donation of books, chairs and other educational materials to two schools within Amuwo Odofin under the Rotary basic education project.
“Under sanitation, we also visited a school in Amuwo Odofin, where we gave out some mopping sticks, buckets, toilet brushes, liquid soaps and hand gloves. Under the Rotary Family Health Day, we conducted tests for community members in the area of malaria, hepatitis, HIV and others. We also gave out drugs. We did it twice in October 2022 and February 2023.
“I want to appreciate everyone that has helped the club to achieve all those during the last Rotary year. I am equally appealing to those of us here today to help us achieve the things we have mapped out to do this Rotary year,” she said.
The guest speaker, Dr. Jide Akeredolu, thanked the club members for their charitable deeds to humanity, saying: “The people that have the mentality of charitable giving live a more peaceful life.” He also cautioned against materialistic life and obsessive quest to make more money, saying it puts people under stress.
“They are never satisfied. What drives them is the spirit of dissatisfaction. And that brings about stress, which kills. There is a hormone called cortisol produced when under stress and it is very dangerous,” he said.
He encouraged people to to charity, outlining the eight levels of charity, starting from the least, which he said is giving grudgingly, to the second level, which is giving cheerfully but not enough, as the giver has the capacity to give more than he has given. He summed up with the highest level of charity, which, according to him, is empowerment.
“The last level is when you do something that will ensure that the receivers will never be the object of charity again, like when you give loans, scholarship, skills training and start businesses for people, so that they don’t ever become objects of charity again,” he said.
The high points of the event were the handover of the charter certificate to the new president, the induction of board members and new members of the club, as well as award of certificates to three deserving individuals.
