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| A cross section of the crowd | credits: Eniola Akinkuotu |
This is just poverty and ignorance at work on the path of those who praise these kind of events.
Thousands of Lagos residents converged on the Idowu Taylor Street, Victoria Island, on Saturday to receive Christmas gifts from the Bola Tinubu Foundation, a non-profit
organisation owned by a former Governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu. The gifts comprised bags of rice, salt, vegetable oil, T-shirts and cash.
According to PUNCH Metro, the event was not without hitches as policemen and other security agents tried to push back the large crowd that turned up from every local government area in the state. Barricades were broken as beneficiaries caused a stampede.
As the crowd became uncontrollable, policemen fired teargas into the crowd but the crowd remained
adamant and stood their ground.
A Special Adviser to the former Governor, Mr. Femi Oyatolu, said over 2,000 bags of rice had been distributed as of 12pm on Saturday. Oyatolu, however, argued that the exercise was not politically-motivated as no one was made to show evidence of membership of any political party.
He said:
“We have distributed over 2,000 bags of rice of 12.5kg. We have also distributed vegetable oil, T-shirts, salts and cash for the needy. It is not politically-motivated because we have been doing this for the past five years. It is a Christmas outreach but we also do it during Salah as well. It is just a way of giving back to society and putting smiles on people’s faces. It is not stomach infrastructure because it cuts across all political divides. It is not restricted to any group.
Apart from giving out gift items, we also do free medicals for people and also pay school fees of indigent students.”