ABEOKUTA – The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has lent a supportive hand to a not-for-profit organisation – Oko Opo Foundation, in furtherance of the foundation’s commitment to lifting the widows, children and downtrodden members of society.
The support came by way of a donation of 30 bags of 50 kg rice to the charity organisation at its corporate office, Laderin, Abeokuta, Ogun State capital, as it again planned to lift widows and less privileged, especially during this Holy month of Ramadan, a season characterized by fasting and prayers by Muslim faithful.
The foundation had, in a similar situation on December 26, 2024, lifted over 150 widows from a dozen Ogun communities with cash, food items and medications for those having ailments to make the last yuletide a memorable one for them.
The rice donation by the Nigeria Customs was a fulfilment of the pledge by the agency last month during a peace parley between the promoter of Okó Opó Foundation, Ambassador (Dr) Babatunde Adeyemo, to support the foundation’s agenda for the widows in recognition of his magnanimity towards a trigger-happy NCS operative, who recently shot at his vehicle.
Adeyemo, a real estate entrepreneur and Chief Executive Officer of Pelican Valley Nigeria Limited had, during the peace engagement meeting with the senior Customs officials, wholeheartedly forgiven the erring officer and declined compensation as earlier filled by his legal counsel.
He asked the erring operative “to go and sin no more,” even as he also pleaded with the NCS and its leadership to give the officer a “second chance” and “not relieve him of his job” over the alleged professional misconduct.
Delivering the bags of rice on Wednesday, the NCS represented by Mr. Olabode Akinola (Assistant Customs Comptroller), Mr. Ismaheel Alarape (NCS Superintendent Officer) and Mr Kaffu Samuel (Deputy Superintendent Customs, Lagos said the donation was in furtherance of the Nigerian Customs Service mantra of supporting notable, not for profit organization, in a bid to alleviate the suffering of the have not in the society, in line with the renewed hope agenda of the present administration.
The Customs leadership, however, reaffirmed its unflinching support to the Oko Opo Widows Foundation and also to all well-meaning, not-for-profit and Humanitarian organisations with a clear vision and purpose.
Responding, the Chief Promoter of Oko Opo Widows Foundation, Dr Babatunde Adeyemo said, the donation from the Nigerian Customs Service to the Foundation is another victory for the widows in Nigeria, the Anti Corruption Ambassador said, that the donated commodity will be shared with the last grains with an additional token for the widows, to celebrate the exit of the holly month of Ramadan.
