By Oziegbe Okoeki
The Rotary Club of Omole Golden, District 9110 has called on Nigerians to embrace peace for the progressive development of the country.
The club also challenged the youths to always channel their demands through the appropriate quarters.
It tasked the government to listen to such requests with the aim of engendering peace and development.
The 17th President of the Club, Mr. Alih Hassan Ogwu, who stated this after his installation in Lagos said that demanding for change is a global phenomenon and the government must prevent conflict from happening.
Ogwu, the new President of the Club for the year 2020/2021 noted that his installation, though coming at a time when the world is battling the COVID-19 pandemic and the country recovering from the attacks it suffered after national protests, affirmed that the Club will not be deterred to do the needful in caring for humanity.
“My installation came at a time when there are lots of challenges, of course, we are all aware of COVID-19 pandemic which is ravaging the world right now. In this time as Rotarian, we didn’t allow the challenges to weigh us down, we have continued in our gestures to ameliorate lives and livelihood with our numerous programs to bridge the gap in the area of the economy.
“Rotary as an organization is non-religious and non-political and has one of its area of focus as peace and conflict prevention, in the whole center of humanity, if you have peace you have a better society but a society without peace is a society in danger.”
“At Rotary, we train leaders, and we train them to make peace with the government and their fellow human being, as well as be the agent of change to impact on the community”, he said.
He recalled the Club in the last one year has donated Laboratory to schools, billboard to hospital, water borehole, among others, adding that the Club’s major focus is to complete the Neo-natal building at Ifako Ijaye General Hospital which is already ongoing, among other projects.
Ogwu said: “There are various ways to push our demands to the government, not through violence as Rotary do not preach violence, rather preach support for government because there are ways your own actions will change the direction of government if properly channeled.”
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He promised that the club would continue in its stride to eradicating polio disease, provide sustainable water and health facilities, and intervention in the education sector as he urged the members to continue to be a global network of change to the world.
The outgoing President, Mr. Babajinmi Ajibola, said the club has been able to connect to the world as the year themes read ‘Rotary connects the world,’ calling on members to galvanize support for the new leadership.
The Executive Secretary of the Lagos State Employment Trust Fund, LSETF, Mrs. Teju Abisoye, who was the guest speaker at the occasion, presented a paper on how Medium Small Scale Enterprises can navigate the current economic challenges.
Speaking on the topic ‘Recovery and Resilience for small businesses’ in the post-COVID-19 era, Abisoye explained that most businesses have spent few months responding to the crisis and this has crippled many Small scale ventures.
She said that LSETF has designed an economic acceleration program that is tied to the Federal government’s economic recovery plans, for the people to have access to financing and activate businesses from all sectors.
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