By Basheer Luqman Olarewaju
Across the globe, millions of people are starving and forced to live a life in the absence of basic amenities.
They do not have food, clothes, and homes to live safely and healthily. Insufficiency of resources or scarcity of natural endowment knows no tribe, region, or gender; each community has its fair share of poverty levels.
Poverty and inequities hurt all of us in the long run. They erode social cohesion and create a burden on all taxpayers to pay for poverty reduction, healthcare services, unemployment, crime, and homelessness.
Our economic system and well-being are at risk of serious deterioration unless we take action now. Volunteering your time, money, or energy to help others doesn’t just make the world better—it also makes you better.
On Saturday, October 1st, 2022, the media team of Muktar Shagaya Campaign Organization brought smiles and relief to the faces of petty traders in the Ilorin metropolis by doling out cash gifts in commemoration of NIGERIA’s 62nd Independence Day. Behold, no one physically ‘catches’ happiness like you catch a virus. It doesn’t enter your body in any physical sense. But when someone is endlessly happy, you might be glad to see them because their joy rubs off on you.
From the old aged woman who sells just 20 wraps of ‘pap’ to a mother of a twin whose business is just about 6 pikes of shea butter (ori) to a widow who deals with lower-scale sugar business to a young boy who sells “kulikuli” or even an old goldsmith man whose business net worth and other beneficiaries are enterprising on less than #10,000; the relief fund donated by the Shagaya team created a ripple effect of love, happiness, and kindness to the lucky petty traders.
Even in advanced economies, not every business-minded individual has enough to start big, hence the resort to petty trading. The concept was designed not only to celebrate Independence Day but to be identified with the less privileged in society and to promote the gospel of Mallam Muktar Tolani Shagaya the All Progressives Congress Candidate for Ilorin West/Asa Federal Constituency.
The humanitarian gesture birthed the reality that the little which might mean nothing to some, counts and means a lot when given to the right people. As the team visited 3 notable markets (Mandate, Oloje, and Oja-Tuntun) in Ilorin and supported petty traders with cash. It is believed that the beneficiaries can use the benefited cash to boost their businesses and have more earnings to look after their family. Shagaya promises all comfort if reposed with the trust to represent the Ilorin West/Asa constituency at the Federal House of Representatives.
Basheer Luqman is the Director of Media and Publicity, Muktar Shagaya Campaign Organization.
October 3rd, 2022
