By Funke Cole

Residents within Alausa, Surulere, Ikotun environs and others, enjoyed the kind generosity of a coalition of youths group as the latter distributed food packs to Muslim communities to mark the Eid el Fitr festivities.

Justifying the need for the donation, the hundreds of youths and supporters led by Muyiwa Adebola, said the gesture was their own modest way of ameliorating the sufferings of the needy in the society, especially the indigent Muslims.

According to him, the group embarked on the exercise few weeks ago at the beginning of the Ramadan fast, by distributing food packs across the six geopolitical zones and decided to cap it by making additional donation to coincide with the end of the holy month.

The group distributed food packs to Muslim faithfuls at Ikotun, Surulere and Alausa central mosques and its environs respectively.

He said: “We flagged off the distribution originally in Abuja, few weeks ago and went across the six geopolitical zones of the country. Today, we distributed hundreds of food packs comprising of dry food varieties like garri, sugar, pasta, salt, beans, pepper to Ikotun Central mosque, Alausa Central mosque, and also at Surulere Central mosque, all within Lagos State as part of support for the indigent Muslims to have something to celebrate with in this austere times.

“We have also supported smaller mosques during the early part of the Ramadan fasting Iftar. So, this is an additional form of support for them to celebrate the Eid el Fitr festival.”

“We also donated food packs to Muslim communities at the National Mosque, Abuja, Ansarudeen and Nur mosque respectively,” he further explained.

The coalition of youths drawn from different backgrounds including the organised private sector, political appointees and others, Adebola said have been involved in a number of interventions in the past including distributing foodstuffs to Christians during the yuletide.

“We’re a non-partisan, non-political movement who are young supporters of Mr. President working in the private sector. We have been pooling funds together to contribute our little quota to make life easy for the less privileged. As young supporters of Mr. President, anytime there is need for such interventions from non-state actors like us we will always be ready and willing to lend our support,” Adebola stressed.

Adebola who distanced himself from any political associations whatsoever, however, said the group works in closed collaboration with the Senior Adviser to the President on Community Engagement, “because we believe the office is closer to the grassroots and it is the feedback from them we aggregate and then decide on what to do. We all know the economic situation of the country and we are aware of the passion the president has for the downtrodden, so this is our own modest support to help to mitigate the sufferings of the masses out there.”

Dr. Afolabi Abiodun Tajudeen, Special Adviser to Lagos State Governor on Political and Civic Engagement and immediate Vice Chairman, Lagos State Secretariat Central Mosque, Alausa, who received the packages on behalf of the mosque, expressed his gratitude to the young supporters for coming up with such initiatives, saying it was a well thought out plan.

“It is timely and well-targeted and I think this is what everybody needs now considering the untoward hardship in the country. I thank the supporters of Mr. President for this good initiative for coming up with this noble ideal because it is not everybody that has the wherewithal to go to the market and shop because of the hardship. But with this, it will go a long way to ameliorate the sufferings, especially at this time and many people would be able to celebrate like others.”

The governor’s aide also disclosed that the Alausa central mosque was also carrying out a similar gesture under its Sadaqatul- Fitr, a programme where we share foodstuffs to the less privilege Muslims, noting that this is in line with the injunctions of the Almighty Allah to support the needy in the society.