Olanrewaju Lawal, Birnin Kebbi
A member of the National Youths Service Corps (NYSC) in Kebbi State, Miss AbdulAzeez Umahani Onoono, recently donated 12 wheelchairs to the School of Special Needs, Birnin Kebbi.
The donor is a native of Kogi State, serving with the NYSC Batch ‘B’, with code number KB/19B/0065. She was attached to the Kebbi State Government House for her primary assignment.
The youth corps member said she had followed a friend to the School of Special Needs, where she sighted some of the pupils crawling around on their knees.
Onoono told Daily Sun that, since then, she had been contemplating how to embark on the personal community development service (PCD) by donating wheelchairs to the school to alleviate the pains of the special pupils in the school.
Said she: “I always advocate equal rights. When I was posted to Kebbi State to serve my fatherland, I met a friend, who was a fellow corps member at my place of primary assignment. She was then carrying out a personal community development service.
“I was often in her company until when I had to follow her to the School for Special Needs. That was where I noticed how physically challenged students were crawling around the environment unaided.
“That was what drew my attention and sympathy, and I had to come up with a project to assist them with wheelchairs in order to help and encourage them with ease of mobility in their quest for knowledge and better future,” she said.
She stated that the project was actualised by her personal efforts and support from some of the state’s ministries, agencies and departments.
Onoono commended the donors, the state government and NYSC officials, for their untiring efforts towards ensuring the actualising of the project.
“I will also, particularly, like to commiserate with the good people of the state and Nigeria at large for the resilience they have exhibited during this trying COVID-19 pandemic,” the NYSC member said.
In his remarks, Permanent Secretary, Kebbi State Government House, Alhaji Mustapha Aliyu Gwandu, described the donation as important gifts to the underprivileged students. He noted that, the wheelchairs would enable the special students to move freely in their school and study very well, even as he stressed that other corps members and well-meaning people in Nigeria should emulate such gestures.
The sector commandant of the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), Kebbi State, Mr. Ebenezer Abayomi Asaniyan, who commended the corps member for the donation, urged the state government to give such outstanding NYSC members that serve in the state automatic employment.
“It is very hard to remember the less privileged in the society. What this corps member did today would go a long way to improve the lives of these students with special needs. I want to urge the state government to be encouraging such corps members by employing them. If they are doing something like this during their service year, they can do more if they get permanent work,” he said.
Earlier, the Kebbi State NYSC coordinator, Mr. Mutapha Muhammad, who was represented by the head of the Skill Acquisition and Entrepreneurs Development (SAED), Mr.Garba Fana, noted that what the corps member did would help in ameliorating the living conditions of the special students.
“We pray that, as she touches the lives of these special students, God will touch her life too,” he said.
Principal of the school, Hajia Umar Aliyu Jantulu, represented by the vice principal, Hajia Aishatu Jamila Ahmed,