Meja Mwangi, the Kenyan novelist, in Going Down River Road, did a good parody of the all-mighty Kenyan parliament. His fictive People’s Parliament, of the over-worked, underpaid, hungry and angry workers, during their break time, railed at the high-and-mighty.
From their break-time hell-raising came an immortal line: “Germs don’t kill Africans, only hunger does!” That, beyond the biting sarcasm, makes the pungent point: millions of Africans do need help — and maybe the government alone cannot provide all of that help.
The American playwright, Arthur Miller, was even more audacious, gifting his creative space to the common man, the “everyday people”, in his tragic play, Death of a Salesman. Classical tragedies enjoyed the artistic pleasure of cruelly cutting to size, the proverbial movers-and-shakers, who often love to play god, over fellow men. The gods, ever so malevolent, seize alleged hubris to mercilessly humble these greats.
But Willy Loman (pun it as low man, and you probably would get the full gist), the tragic hero in Death of a Salesman, is not Julius Caesar, Mark Anthony or King Oedipus. Still, by Miller’s contraption, he fell from his low and humble level to a no less profound tragedy. To make the point hubris is no exclusive preserve of the great?
Well, this is no foray into literary appreciation. It is rather a dramatic way of saying today, Ripples stays the with lowly and the humble, even if the polity booms, quakes and aches with blistering crossfire, over President Muhammadu Buhari’s latest set of appointments. Maybe next week, if the battle still rages, and the controversy still “trends” (as they say on the social media), Ripples may yet join in the fray.
But right now, it is full attention on a princess and her angels, one the benefactor, the others the putative beneficiaries, of a heroic (o, that word again!) effort to ease the mass pain and anguish in the land — if not aborted for lack of funds.
First, the “princess”. Bukola Fasuyi is chief executive of Proclips Media Communication Ltd, a Lagos PR firm, movie producer, and fashion entrepreneur with a bent for culture. She owns an Adire fashion line (wears and accessories), with a special eye for the Diaspora market. Adire is a traditional Yoruba tie-and-dye fabric, native to Osogbo and Abeokuta. She also runs a charity, Lady of Africa and Advocacy Foundation.
By virtue of this charity, Miss Fasuyi would appear, indeed, a princess of the streets, with the NGO funnelling help to the distressed and disadvantaged, basically in the field of health and education.
Indeed, it was in the cause of this charity that the “princess” met with her “angels” — poor children rendered orphans, after their parents, and former Lady Africa Foundation (afterwards cited as Lady of Africa) charity beneficiaries, had died of cancer.
One is Kayode Olabiyi, 12, whose mother, Bunmi Olabiyi died of breast cancer, in the course of raising the N7million estimated bill for her treatment in India. Kayode, with his two siblings, Balikis and Emmanuel, were taken in by Lady of Africa, with the permission of their family.
Another is Ifeoluwa Bello, 6, who also lost her single mother to breast cancer. Baby Ife was barely nine months! After the death, according to a Lady of Africa release, Ife’s aunty (her mother’s elder sister) took over her care. But she too would die when Ife was three. Afterwards, Lady of Africa took over her care, with her family’s permission of course.
Ifeoluwa, and the Olabiyi siblings, are only four of the 10 kids in the Miss Fasuyi’s charity NGO, all at different stages of formative education, courtesy of a collaborative scholarship by a Lagos private school, Tohibat Group of Schools, at Gbagada Estate, in Lagos.
The Foundation had approached the school’s founder, Alhaja Tohibat Adeniji, herself a philanthropist, for help. According to the Foundation, the school agreed to take in the children, and bear part of the cost.
Instead of N450, 000 per child for a term, the school charged each of the children, all boarders, N50, 000 a term, plus another N30, 000 monthly fee for boarding expenses. Thus, instead of N450, 000, each child pays N140, 000 a term, N310, 000 less than the normal fee.
Not only that: Tohibat School is also in the process of helping two of the Foundation pupils secure admission into the Iran University in Ghana, an Islamic faith-based university, with a N200, 000 yearly fee, and another N50, 000 a month for feeding and allied living expenses.
Still, why would Lady of Africa charity send these poor kids to expensive private schools in Lagos, where the state government runs free schools? On the surface, no reason — for the government runs free schools because it pays the bill for the majority poor, who cannot afford it.
But Lagos public schools are day-schools; and the Foundation was anxious the children, who otherwise could have become street urchins, and maybe laboratories for future criminals, needed boarding facilities for something closest to a home setting, so that it is only during the holidays that the Foundation has to worry about providing them homes.
Despite the Foundation’s efforts and Tohibat’s gamely response, it is a case of the spirit willing but the body tired. Tried as it has, Lady of Africa has been finding it difficult to raise the children’s school fees, thus subjecting these young minds to some hiccups and disruptions.
On the Tohibat front, it so happens that a new set of investors are taking over the school. Alhaja Adeniji, 92, the founder, is advanced in age. But it is not quite the coming of a Pharaoh who knew no Joseph — no. The new investors are still willing to help.
Indeed, the Foundation has got a further rebate of N40, 000 on each child: the cumulative fee is now N100, 000, instead of N140, 000, aside from an additional N10, 000 rebate for ICT training (with other pupils paying N15, 000). So, instead of N140, 000, each child now pays N110, 000.
The snag though, is that the N100, 000 would now be paid off-front, at the beginning of session, instead of the former practice of N50, 000 off-front, while the monthly N30, 000 feeding fee is paid as it falls due. That payment front-loading creates a huge challenge for a cash-strapped NGO.
That therefore is the essence of this appeal — for the Foundation needs urgent help, if it is not to abort the education of these children. If help does not come, the children would not resume with others, when Lagos schools reopen in two weeks.
‘If help does not come, the children would not resume with others, when Lagos schools reopen in two weeks’
You want to help? Thank you. Please reach Princess Fasuyi, of the Lady of Africa Empowerment and Advocacy Foundation on 08027647056 and 08093287614 or visit the Foundation’s website: www.ladyofafrica.org.
If you did, you have save the soul of a part of Nigeria’s future.
