Ojudu empowers Ekiti women

The result of a study conducted by Dr. Akerele and S.A Adewuyi of the Department of Agricultural Economics and Farm Management, University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Ogun State on the assessment of household poverty and welfare among Ekiti households is quite revealing.

   It states that 38.30 per cent of the households covered by the study are poor and would have to mobilise financial resources up to 41.80 per cent of $1 (N130) per day (for each household member) to be able to escape poverty. 

   Female-headed households in the study area appear to be more vulnerable to income poverty, with poverty  incidence, depth and severity of values 0.221 and 0.239, 0.402 and 0.191. Highest levels of poverty were found among households with 7-9 dependants, with values 1.00, 0.715 and 0.511 for the incidence, depth and severity of poverty. 

To some, these may sound like meaningless academic figures, but an assessment of the realities on ground would shed light on the figures. That is why government performance, to many Ekiti people, means food on the table. The Ekiti State Government is doing its best, with its anti-poverty programmes, such as the Social Security Scheme for the elderly, but it needs  support  to ensure that there is an improvement in the lives of members of affected families. 

This is the essence of the Raliat Ojudu Women Development Centre (ROWDEC) initiated by Senator Babafemi Ojudu, the lawmaker representing Ekiti Central in the Red Chamber. For Ojudu, it is a reconnection with his beginning. Having had a mother who  shouldered a lot of her kids’ needs via her sales of garri, Ojudu knows that  what most families need most times is just a helping hand and a little push and they would henceforth survive on their own. This is why he will be giving out empowerment funds to 570 women, (10 in each ward) of his senatorial district, at the commissioning of the Raliat Ojudu Women Development Centre. It nis named after his mother, Mama Raliat Boluwaji Ojudu who, in the face of all odds, made sure that her kids were groomed into successful adults.

An average Ekiti woman is industrious and has to keep up with so many responsibilities. In female-headed households or in households where the husband is more or less a figurehead, her responsibilities triple. In cases like this, if the financial wherewithal to shoulder these responsibilities is not available then it becomes a serious burden that could weigh her down. Some of these women have had to join contributory schemes to raise micro-credit loans to start small businesses to be able to give their kids a decent life. 

Their stories are not different from that of 35-year-old Latifat Agboola of Makoko community in Lagos. The woman, as reported by Inter Press Service, took a N20, 000 loan to start a charcoal business and today she makes enough to take care of herself and her family. To people who are not conversant with the grim realities of life in Nigeria, N20, 000 may be a little amount. The truth, however, is that there are several small businesses that could be started with it. Most times, the women even take loans as little as 10, 000 to start their business. All it requires to make it work is discipline and determination.

In the case of  Ojudu, he is not giving out a loan; he is giving out empowerment funds that would not be repaid. But he has urged the women to organise themselves into groups of 10 to start a revolving loan scheme among themselves with the money, just like in co-operative societies, but unlike co-operatives, there would be no interest. They would simply have to be the managers of the funds, loaning it out and revolving it among themselves to ensure that it goes round.

Besides the empowerment funds, which the Raliat Ojudu Women Development Centre (ROWDEC) will henceforth be giving to women (even when Ojudu is no longer a Senator), the centre will also be offering free medicare and consultation to women, pregnant women and children under five years. It hopes to achieve this with its mobile clinic that will be on periodic visits to communities in Ekiti Central to offer free medical consultation and medicare to women. 

According to Ojudu, women, by virtue of their emotional, marital, and sometimes economic responsibilities go through a lot of stress and most times, they have no time for medical check-up. The mobile clinic of Raliat Ojudu Women Development Centre will offer this to them  in their homes at no cost.

With all these, it appears that better days are here for Ekiti women, and not just the women, but also their children whom these women struggle, at all times, to groom into responsible and successful adults. 

The women however, should emulate Latifat Agboola of Makoko in Lagos, who through discipline and self-determination built a thriving business with N20, 000. They should not see the empowerment funds as “politics money” to be squandered while they wait for another, rather they should think of what they could do with the money to ensure better life for themselves and their children.