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From Paul Osuyi, Asaba
Executive Chairman of Moni Pulo Limited, an upstream Nigerian oil and gas company, Seinye O. B. Lulu Briggs, has described her recent honour as the Daily Independent’s ‘Personality of the Year Award’ and the Silverbird Group’s ‘Extraordinary Achievement Award’ as a wake-up call to do more for her country.
On the importance of the Silverbird Extraordinary Achievement Award, she said it was gratifying for her to be considered worthy of recognition by the Nigerian media, which, she said, represents the voice of the people.
According to the organisers, the awards are in recognition of Lulu-Briggs’s work as a businesswoman and social investor, especially through her role as chairman of the globally respected O.B. Lulu-Briggs Foundation which annually spends millions of naira on philanthropic projects across Nigeria.
“This award, which is a recognition of my work and that of the staff of my companies and of the foundation, is a testimony to the fact that it is good to be good,” she said at the Independent Newspapers Annual Awards ceremony.
She was born on September 21, 1958 to the family of educators and community leaders, Mr. and Mrs. Ernest and Darling Briggs.
Over the last 20 years of its existence, the foundation has touched thousands of lives in line with the United Nations Social Development Goals. For example, it cares for the upkeep of 200 elders and has reached 132,491 people through 34 medical camps across Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, and Rivers states that offered a wide range of health care services, including surgeries, dental and vision care, free of charge.
Lulu-Briggs, in the last few years, has become a stronger advocate for addressing the travails of widows and their children. The abhorrent treatment she faced as a widow following the death of her husband in 2018, despite her social standing, motivated the foundation to partner the African Women Lawyers Association (AWLA) to enable it offer free legal services to embattled widows in the pursuit of their rights and the protection of their dignity as well as that of their children.
On the United Nations International Widows’ Day on June 23, 2020, AWLA launched the first ever 24/7 toll-free number- 0800 00231111- for Nigerian widows in distress under the aegis of the O. B. Lulu-Briggs Foundation Grant.
Last December, she was appointed chairman of the Fund for the Alliance of NGOs and CSOs in the Global South, an international network of 450-member NGOs and CSOs from around the world that work in collaboration with the United Nations Office for South South Cooperation (UNOSSC) to deepen the impact of civil society in the Global South.
