Wednesday, 22 July 2015

Coker's introspection on community empowerment initiative by Olusegun Ariyo

                                                                  

           

The importance of developing mankind essential needs and wants is anchored on bringing self sufficiency to those who are willing to conform to a desirable change, bring the society  to a functional  and epoch making event, and also helping them self to be sustainable in terms of developing life's sustaining abilities through those initiative that truly gives birth to reality of transforming human lives into opportunities instead of allowing it wallow away, killing productive generation from one decade to the order.




 Last week , Barr Coker, a lawyer brought an idea turns reality in form of community empowerment programme to the people of Ojo community to share her own way of empowering the needy especially those vulnerable who are in need of what ever form of upliftment within their community.



A comatose that one can describe as ‘’political economy unwarranted situation and the challenge of leadership’’ top our failings as a government as well as to the promise tomorrow holds if we begin to do the right things. But in a rare public and self introspection, Barr Coker proved to many in Ojo community that self help remain on thing we must truly give to our selfs having quality leaders to drive such seat through excellent coordination’s that can yield fruits for larger proportions of crowed to have access to it and be sufficient. An event which took place precisely in okokomaiko in time of training and graduation was overwhelming in terms of accolades and positive comments.




On a personal not, I also had an encounter with Barr Coker over what she considers as self help that gave birth to the initiative that turned out to be a success story today that ushered in about three hundred Artisans graduates in Auto cad, desk top publishing and computer engineering. Even though the  chairman of the occasion, Engr peter kolawole played the role of given accolades, the overwhelming spirits of dexterity displayed by the initiator though put the chairman’s  thoughts away from his real function of that event.




 In the widest dream of that gentle man, it has never come to his consciousness that we still have people who are greatly touched with the challenges of our political economy that is ravaging and escalating the levels of unemployment facing our society today. Back to the event. Shortly before Dr Adavtse took to the stage as the  master of ceremony, the comedian ‘’melody for comedy’’ gave a  commanding performance in which he weaved  the compelling  history of the community through laughter and jokes into a tapestry of the African heritage ending it with lyrics that there are categories of people, Places and cultures. In people, we have different type in terms of status and values, in places he said we have various locations that can be best describe where we belong in life of whether poor or rich whilst our culture has remain never in-doubt of what ever we do as equality remains the in thing. That perhaps set the note for the event in which the master of ceremony Dr Adavtse was also at his best. He even poked fun at the expense of one of the representatives of the Arewa community in Alaba whom he described as commander of the Arewa in Lagos.



 Then come the big moment when the grandaunts are ushered in to take their seats following the introduction by master of the ceremony. Laying a foundation for her intervention, Barr Coker described herself as an incurable optimist who always viewed any half-filled glass as half full rather than empty. And because of that disposition to life, despite the current gloom and doom that pervade the poverty index of the country with trickle down effects on her community and environment, she remains upbeat that the whole Ojo community would  be sustainable with these initiative that is bill to empower the youth especially where the youth would come out bigger, stronger as was the case in the past.



 This optimism, Coker argued, was founded on the familiar sequence of doing it your self with her Bace-p initiatives that has in the past four years remain one unique concept of sustaining the poor and the needy that are willing to be productive and the boom and bust they have always engendered. She sees a consistent pattern in the whole idea where it would be followed with a period of prosperity. Hon oluyomi Coker traced how many of the youths visits her office on several occasions asking for various kind of assistance which push out the idea that has tuned success into realization of self independent of the youth in Ojo local government. Using the advancement of technology to illustrate how the world has changed so dramatically in the last two decades- to the extent that  it has broken the monopoly of information by every means possible where through his empowerment initiatives, they were able to actualize basic understanding of empowering the youths with Auto cad design, desk top publishing and computer engineering.


 According to Coker, building enduring political institution is critical to challenge she said the idea of relying on ‘’good people’’ in what is usually referred to as benevolent dictatorship could be perilous. Coker said she one argues with some people about it and her summation was what ever is worth doing at all is worth doing well indeed. Given the unpredictability of our leaders, she would rather recommend strong institutions that guarantees rule of law. In advancing argument for representative government run on dividend of democracy Coker contended that government and the leaders must always see their selfs as selfless, and be ready to be accountable to the people always. Coker can see the rise of human talents across the local government but she admonished; we must first begin to invest in our people that are by investing in empowerment such as this. Don’t invest in consumption today at the expense of the youth of tomorrow, don’t subsidies the present to compromise the future’’. With the presentation done, the master of ceremony, Dr Adavtse invited to the podium Hon olu olaleye and Hon oluyomi Coker the peoples Democratic Party’s candidate for house of representative, state house of Assembly in ojo local government respectively.



Their task was simply to present a plaque to those who merited its award to be given, Engr peter kolawole the chairman of the event was given an award on excellence with support on development, thanked that the initiator  of the bace-p empowerment programme  in person of hon. Coker when he  said’’ I want to thank you  for making us to know what we should have known  in this local government we have all we need to make the progress  that we should nail but when we have people like you to ginger us, it helps so that where we are dormant, we will wake up. That for me was some remarkable event of reality but  as I reflected on Barr Coker’s empowerment initiative, I cannot but wonder if some of our political leaders would stop doing stupid things’’ it is instructive  that  at about the same time the event was going on in ojo , some  people are going all out to give a dog a bad name for it to be hanged. Is it that some people don’t just like good initiative of this kind?





 Well from my reflections, I do understand that those one cup of rice some people usually get as incentive and basis for casting their vote for that particular individual had beclouded their right thinking senses, and subsequently, they will never want anything of good that will jeopardize their own gain as against  the larger proportion of the populace. I also wonder whether we have stopped doing’’ stupid things ‘’ when our grass root administrators in that region are now  busy not developing  the human potentials in their  jurisdiction but rather searching for some imaginary thing that give personal interest? Well, to borrow a colloquial expression, hon. oluyomi Coker has done its own but we must commend her and the management of Barr Coker’s empowerment programme  [bace-p] for what was a most eventful initiative and a most enjoyable moment.

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