Frank Ilaboya, the Executive Chairman of Owan West Local Government Council of Edo State, is a proactive man. He displayed this attribute recently when from his thinking cap he came up with the Owan West Youths Foundation Project as a response to the nationwide #endsars protests marshalled by youths. Recently, he talked about the project with a select few media executives in a briefing held in Benin City.
Excerpts:
I am here to share with you the product that we have developed for Owan West youths which came as a.result of the #endsars protests. We all saw what happened in the country when the youths went haywire demanding for their rights.
For us in Owan West we feel that we have to respond positively. That is why we are coming up with this product – this Owan West Youths Foundation. Basically, this package is to raise N100 million in the next three years for the youths of Owan West – 2021, 2022 and 2023. Once this N100 million is raised we are going to use it to better the future of the youths.
How do we do it?
We would ensure that the graduates among our youths who have finished service are sent to secondary schools to go and teach. If they cannot teach they will act as admin officers or help us man our library. We are going to pay them from this fund the same amount the federal government is paying teachers that are working in the same category.
Another category that would benefit are those who have also finished school and have learnt some handwork like tailoring, barbing, welding etc. We set them up fully through this fund.
The third category are those who didn’t go to school but are ready to learn. If they have not learnt any skill we will train them and ensure that they are also beneficiary of this product.
The fourth category are those who are presently in school and having issues of paying their tuition fees. We will also assist them by way of paying small bursary to them. This package captures four categories.
The question people have been asking me is ‘how do you intend to raise this N100 million especially in a local government that is a rural area?’
What we have done now as I speak to you we have been able to identify 5,000 indigenes of Owan West that are working. They are going to give us N5,000 per annum. If you multiply N5,000 by 5,000 people that’s N25 million for the first year(2021) which is exactly our target. Our target for this first year(2021) is N25 million; 2022 is N35million and 2023 is N40million. The source of fund is just N5,000 per any working Owan West son and daughter.
At the local government level we are doing a bye-law now that will ensure that 1 percent of our monthly allocation goes straight to that fund starting from January 2021. Through that source we are also hoping that we are going to raise a minimum of about N10 million. But at the time we are packaging this and we try to push the idea to our people they said it is a very wonderful idea. Some can do more than N5,000. Again, we are able to also look at the full spectrum of our people and we have identified 500 people that can give us N20,000 minimum. If you multiply that by 500 that will also give you another N10 million. If you add all these together we will be hitting about N40 million in the first year. But we are just been very realistic and say our target for 2021 is N25millon.
How do we administer this fund?
We have also gone ahead to look at people of value and trust in Owan West to act as trustees. As I speak to you now, we are having people that want to be trustees of this fund. So far, we have Solomon Arase(former Inspector General of Police), Moses Ajayi, Professor Vincent Ahonkhai(one time MD/CEO of GSK who is now based in Houston, Texas, USA), Mrs. Victoria Ajeloku Dejumo, myself, Haile Mary Aipoh, Patrick Giwa(former clerk of the House of Representatives), Engineer Sammy Skaff, Reverend Moses Ohelebu and Uyi Malaka(ex-Programme Officer to Governor Obaseki). We are registering these trustees. As I speak to you now the registration is ongoing. They will help us to drive this process. Carefully selected they are people of value. They’re people that are well respected by the community. We are sure they’re going to add value to this package and also ensuring that those who are supposed to benefit do and at the right time. As I speak to you now we have just gotten an office. One of the trustees a computer and a printer and we are profiling the youths in Owan West in the categories that I gave to you.
Four categories – those who are graduates and have finished service we will identify them. Those that are graduates and have handwork which we call sabificate are been profiled. Those that are in school are been profiled and those that didn’t go to school but who are learning some trade we are profiling them. Registration is going on online. We are also giving out forms to the various wards. We have 11 wards in Owan West. We have given out 50 forms to each ward making it 550 forms all together to complement the online registration. We hope that by December ending we would have been able to have substantial registration of our youths. But we don’t want to wait for that before we launch this project.
We are launching on the 16th of December, 2020. We are going to launch it so that the whole world will hear about it. Once the launching is done we begin now to look at the different elements and package them. By the second week of April 2021- quarter 2 – the fund disbursement will begin. I am putting it at second week of April because when I was talking with the youths I had to put a timeline to them because this time around it is not just about talking. We want to be talking and let them put me under pressure and hold me to what I am saying. The CEO of LAPO(Lift Above Poverty Organisation), Godwin Ehigiamusoe of the launching. He is not from Owan West but he said he is very proud of what we are doing. Because of the situation in the country we don’t want many people to travel so we are going to do virtual launching.
Government has nothing to do with this project. This project is going to be private sector driven. Purely driven by the Owan West indigenes.
