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•With N130m, Umahi empowers 520 youths to quit Lagos streets
By Chukwudi Nweje
Right now, hundreds of streets hawkers from Ebonyi State plying their trade in Lagos are enjoying some relief. In the days ahead, most of them often seen weaving in and out of traffic, selling one article or the other, might not be there anymore. They now have a lifeline to start new businesses that would see them off Lagos streets, courtesy of Ebonyi State governor, Mr. Dave Umahi.
A total of 520 of such street traders of Ebonyi State origin were given N250,000 each. The beneficiaries were selected from the three senatorial zones in the state, 40 each from the 13 local government areas.
At the recent Fifth Ebonyi Cultural Day celebration, which held at the National Stadium, Surulere, Lagos, the gesture was announced to a jubilant crowd. It was an event that had Umahi in attendance. Also present at the event were the Speaker, Ebonyi State House of Assembly, Mr. Francis Nwifuru, and the coordinating chairman of the celebration, Prof. Williams Olughu, among other personalities.
Speaking on the occasion, Umahi assured the audience that: “The state government will institute a millionaire’s club next year. This will involve young graduates who will write business proposals on the kind of business they wish to set up. The proposal will be studied by consultants and the best five selected and empowered with start-up cash.”
He informed the gathering that his administration had empowered 4,000 widows with the sum of N100,000 each and 3,000 youths in the state with N200,000 each to set up their own businesses.
Speech time over, Umahi presented the dummy of the cheques to the beneficiaries, promising that they would pick up the real cheques later in the day.
He enjoined the recipients to invest the money they had received wisely, hoping that the initiative would empower them to be self-reliant in the days ahead.
In his comments, Olughu said: “I must say clearly that we are not ashamed of those people trading in the streets; we are proud of them because they are entrepreneurs.
“That is not to say that they do not constitute a nuisance. But you will agree with me that these people, instead of being 419ers, decided to be entrepreneurs by trading; that is a great achievement. What we want to do is to redirect and pull them out of the streets.”
He added that, since the election of Governor Umahi, many landmark revolutions have taken place in Ebonyi State.
“Revolution cannot just be in terms of infrastructure, it has to affect the human capital, by touching the lives of the people. The governor has been touching the lives of the people. We are geared to rehabilitate our people and make them feel proud. If you don’t know where you are coming from, you cannot know where you are going,” he said.
One of the recipients, who expressed appreciation to the governor, promised to invest the money well, saying he would work hard to empower others in the future.
Daily Sun learnt that the Ebonyi State Cultural Day celebration was an annual event put together by the Ebonyi State Development Association (ESDA), aimed at showcasing the different ways of life of Ebonyi people – their masquerades and dances, their cuisine and their passion, among others. It was equally aimed at rejuvenating the rich cultural heritage of Ebonyi and correcting some wrong stereotypes of the people as backward and unskilled.
According to ESDA president, Mr. Paul Ikele, the cultural day was significant because it was a platform to showcase the heritage of Ebonyi people.
“It is a period to mark our culture. Culture is the way of life that people in the society are blessed with. Culture is the uniqueness of a particular group of people, defined by everything, from language, religion, cuisine, social habits, music and arts. Through culture we are governed by norms and customs that are the pillars of society. If these pillars are not properly followed in our society, our culture would be meaningless,” he said.
Nwifuru could not agree less. He said that the cultural heritage of Ebonyi must be protected because it was the most important thing the older generation would hand over to successors. According to him, “culture is an inheritance that must be celebrated. We maintain this cultural day celebration so that the future generation will have something to inherit.”
In his remarks, Olughu noted that the celebration was also intended to correct some wrong impressions about Ebonyi.
“Anybody who knows south-eastern Nigeria well enough also knows about the stereotype often associated with Ebonyi people as unskilled and backward,” he said.
According to him, the celebration was aimed at not just celebrating and rejuvenating the ways of life of the people but also correcting wrong stereotypes.
“The Ebonyi Cultural Day celebration is a child of circumstance because Ebonyi people have been bastardised and labelled wrongly and I think it is time that the world knows exactly who we are; people cannot know who you are if they do not know your culture. Any system that does not have a culture is a dead system.
“Every year, through the cultural day, we try to let our people know that we are a great people.
“It will interest everyone to recall that late Dr. Francis Akanu Ibiam, an Ebonyi man, was the first governor of the Eastern Region; Aja Nwachukwu was the first Minister of Education in Nigeria; he was also an Ebonyi man.
“These are landmark achievements of a state labelled as traders and backward. We want our young people to know that they have a great heritage and that they are a great people.”
Chairman of the cultural day, Mr. Ifeanyi Chukwuma Odii, described Umahi, the third democratically-elected governor of Ebonyi State since 1999, as “the best performing governor in the country,” and the “Moses of our time.”
He observed that that was the reason he attracted the attention of President Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress, though he was in the opposition. President Buhari was in Ebonyi recently on his first visit to the South-East region, where he inaugurated some projects in the state.
Umahi, in the estimation of ESDA, had transformed Ebonyi State. However, the people agreed that the transformation narrative was not his alone.
The cultural day was also used to honour some indigenes of the state. They included former governor of the state, Senator Sam Egwu, who now represents Ebonyi North Senatorial district at the National Assembly. He is also the chairman of the Senate Committee on Industry. Egwu pioneered the Street-to-Skill project, meant to take unskilled youths off the streets and equip them with various skills. Others were Mr. Livinus Mbakwe, Mrs. Agnes Obaji and the late Dr. Anthony Nnamdi Igwe, who received a posthumous award.
