From: Segun Babatunde in Bauchi
About N300 million realised from the proceeds of the biography of the immediate past Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Yakubu Dogara, has been spent catering to the needs of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), widows, orphans and indigent students.
Hon Dogara who made this known in Abuja during the President’s Inter-Secondary Schools Debate and the Conferment of the Award of the best Educational Philanthropist in Nigeria weekend said the money was realised in December 2017 during his 50th birthday anniversary.
“At my 50th Birthday event, I promised that all funds generated from my Biography lunch will go to charity. I am happy to report that I have kept my word. About N300 million of my biography proceeds have been invested in education and to provision of palliatives to Internally displaced Persons”, he explained.
According to him, “Right now, we have students studying abroad and thousands in Nigerian Tertiary Institutions. Most of these students are from indigent families who cannot afford the cost of educating their wards at any level.”
“We have sent interventions to so many IDP camps across the North East and we are still trudging ahead with God’s help”.
“As a student of democracy let me shock us a little. Contrary to what we have heard from the debaters about failure of our democracy, I dare say that Democracies don’t die because they don’t work and they also don’t fail: it is only the citizens of democracies like you and I that make democracies work”.
“If our democracy die , it would be because something has happened to us as a people. It will be because we have failed to employ the tools of democracy to advance ourselves and the nation. I therefore call on us to be alive to our responsibilities as citizens of a democracy”.
“The political space is wide enough to accommodate us all. I agree with the debaters that our democracy is in peril on account of insecurity, corruption, poverty and myriads of developmental challenges which we are still grappling with. But I must say that as serious and the above identified challenges are; none of them or all of them is/are enough to destroy the promise of Nigeria or the destiny of our great nation”.
He said that, “As a student of democracy let me shock us a little. Contrary to what we have heard from the debaters about failure of our democracy, I dare say that Democracies don’t die because they don’t work and they also don’t fail: it is only the citizens of democracies like you and I that make democracies work”.
“If our democracy die , it would be because something has happened to us as a people. It will be because we have failed to employ the tools of democracy to advance ourselves and the nation.
