From Magnus Eze, Enugu
Former leader of Enugu State House of Assembly, Ikechukwu Ezeugwu will soon unveil an empowerment package to help in mitigating the hardship across the country, especially in his local government.
Ezeugwu who represented Udenu State Constituency for three terms in the state legislature stated this when his Foundation distributed food items including bags of rice, cartons of noodles and tubers of yam to men and women of the area as part of the Easter celebrations.
The foundation had for over 10 years focused on education especially award of scholarship, but Ezeugwu said that poverty alleviation was exigent in view of the current hardship in Nigeria.
Consequently, he disclosed that arrangements had been concluded to give skills, micro-credit and start-ups to those who needed such empowerment.
He posited that it was not enough giving palliatives to people as it was not a permanent measure. Rather, he opted for teaching people how to fish as against giving them fish.
“My coming into politics exposed me to the realities of the plight of the common man. Before, I was a technocrat doing my thing out there but now you find out that a lot of people find it difficult to feed unless there’s help. And in Ikechukwu Ezeugwu Foundation, I will always say that as God keeps providing, I will keep providing for people. We empower life through education and there’s nothing bad in empowering life through empowering the people to at least have a square meal especially this festive period.
“Don’t be surprised to see us after this period, empowering people to be in business; tailoring and other skills. We’ve been into mentorship and sooner than later, we could say, can we be able to create millionaires?”
Parish priest of St. Paul’s Catholic Church, Igugu, Udenu, Rev. Father John Makata, praised the benefactor for taking care of the needy.
Likening Ezeugwu’s gesture to what Jesus Christ did, the priest said: “He fed so many people at a time when they were hungry and the Christians follow suit, each time there is a situation like this, you see philanthropists gather people, feed them like what we witnessed today.”