Afe Babalola, SAN Donates N100m, 800 Bags Of Rice While Olanipekun, SAN Donates 10m To Ekiti To Fight COVID 19

At the end of a virtual meeting of the Ekiti State Covid-19 Response Resource Mobilisation Committee on Friday, a total of N110 million was realised to combat the spread of the virus.

The founder, Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti (ABUAD) and Grand Patron of the committee, Afe Babalola, donated N100 million and 800 bags of rice in support of war.

A frontline lawyer, Wole Olanipekun, also donated a ventilator and N10 million.

The two donations were announced during the committee’s first virtual meeting on Thursday.

According to a statement on Friday by the secretary of the committee, Margaret Fagboyo, the meeting was presided over by the committee’s chairman, Julius Adelusi-Adeluyi.

She said the virtual meeting had in attendance, the Governor of Ekiti State, Kayode Fayemi, Mr Babalola, past governors of the state: Adeniyi Adebayo, Ayodele Fayose and Segun Oni, as well as 43 others.

The meeting, according to Mrs Fagboyo, was convened for members to discuss the mandate of the committee, which include mobilisation of resources, direct funding campaign for COVID-19 response, as well as identifying and soliciting effective funding channels/sources.

“The committee chairman, patrons and other members applauded Governor Fayemi for the initiative and commended him for putting politics aside and bringing Ekiti sons and daughters in diverse groups to serve the State in the war against the COVID-19 Pandemic,” the statement said.

The meeting also announced the composition of five sub-committees to work on different areas of the committee’s activities.

It was also agreed that a central working committee would receive periodic reports from the sub-committees and coordinate the overall activities of the committee.

The sub-committees, according to Mrs Fagboyo, are the central working committee with Mr Adelusi-Adeluyi as chairman; medical logistics and project nomination committee with Tunji Olowolafe as chairman and Adedamola Dada as co-chairman; fund raising committee with Gbenga Oyebode as chairman and Wole Olanipekun as co-chairman.

Other committees are federal government institutions with Femi Falana as chairman and Remi Omotosho as co-chairman and development finance committee with Folusho Olaniyan as chairperson and Bayo Awosemusi as co- chairman.

It was also agreed that the tenure of the committee would be extended beyond the COVID-19 to address other critical issues in the future.

The state government had also set up another committee which would be responsible for the coordination and distribution of relief items to the residents of the state during the lockdown in the state.

The government also flagged off the distribution of the items targeting over 20,000 households of poor and vulnerable people in the state.

The state has recorded two confirmed cases of the virus, with one of them successfully treated and discharged while the other is currently undergoing treatment.