Posted by Over the weekend, the Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim Foundation, a non-profit humanitarian organization, gave a 10-million-naira grant to several small-scale entrepreneurs in Abuja as part of her Economic Empowerment Programme for the most vulnerable members of society.
The Foundation, supported by a former Presidential Candidate Mr. Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim, awarded 50,000 naira to each of the 200 beneficiaries.
In his statement at the ceremony, Olawepo-Hashim stressed that his gesture of giving back to society has nothing to do with his political aspirations.
He says, “I’ve been doing this for decades.” I am passionate about improving society. That’s why I was interested in student unionism back then. I was also a member of the Committee for Defence of Human Rights (CDHR), and I am now a businessman. So, one approach to intervene is to promote economic empowerment.
Play Unmute Fullscreen
He continued, “What I can do at this moment when things are truly horrible is to demonstrate love to underprivileged people in particular, like we have done for decades. We’ve trained over 1000 young people in digital acquisition. So this will be a continual thing.”
In his remarks, one of the beneficiaries, Luka Dakwoyi, urged the wealthy in society to follow in the footsteps of the APC chieftain, claiming that there are many Nigeians in need of assistance as the economy continues to deteriorate.
According to Statista.com, 88.4 million people in Nigeria were expected to be living in extreme poverty by 2022. The number of men in the country living on less than $1.90 per day reached approximately 44.7 million, while the number of women was 43.7 million.
The Nigeria Bureau of Statistics (NBS) estimates its own figure at 133 million.
Many of the event’s attendees praised the Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim Foundation’s gift and urged well-meaning Nigerians to adopt Mr. Olawepo-Hashim’s nonpartisan approach to improving the plight of the least fortunate.