Early this year, specifically January the 2nd, Pharm. Abdulkareem Asuku Youth Empowerment (PAAYEF) was unveiled. I have continued to hold the belief that the exercise was more of sheer formalization than launching. And truly, it deserves to become a formal organization given the huge potentials it holds.
The guest speaker at the event, Prof Abere made astonishing remarks that placed each of us in an inescapable corner of social responsibility that I am sure did not merely make the eminent personalities present to be jealous of Pharm Jamiu but make them wake up to the enormity of the task of giving back to the society.
PAAYEF is probably the biggest event of the year as yet that focuses on unburdenining the social burdens of well coordinated empowerment (lack of it, actually) not only in Kogi Central but elsewhere across this sphere. But beyond its aim to help young people achieve their life’s goals and aspirations with ease and confidence, the foundation is a heavy burden on the consciences of our millionaires and billionaires who are still resisting the call of God upon their lives to help the needy.
To be clear, Asuku is not into philanthropy because he has achieved all there is to achieve in life. In fact, if anything, he has delayed enormous amounts of personal indulgences because he is given to philanthropic acts. This is why I admit it can be unfair to to hold our men and women of means to an Asuku standard. Nevertheless, (at all at all na winch market), we expect that a fragment of your opulences in Lagos, Abuja, PHC and other cities around the world is deployed to make a big difference down here in our communities.
The basic admission that no one really deserves anything from anybody it true – but only mechanically. Because we are not machines, we must succumb, once in a while, to the compassion that resides inside of us. We must make haste before the days of politics when our good deeds would fizzle quickly into the political abyss of ‘dem don come’.
Like the man Asuku, it is time to begin to quietly sow into the lives of others. It is time to give expression to God’s spirit that tells us to deal kindly with the poor and needy.
Please, don’t do this in Abuja or Lagos. Start from the grassroots.
– Oshaloto Joseph Tade writes from Lokoja.
