By Sunday Okobi and Ugo Aliogo
The Foursquare Gospel Church Nigeria has donated foodstuffs to the Lagos State Government to assist in providing palliatives to cushion the effect of the 14-day COVID-19 lockdown in the state.
The donation, which included 500 bags of rice divide in 5 kg bags and 200 cartons of noodles, was presented on behalf of the church by the General Overseer of the church, Rev. Sam Aboyeji, yesterday at the state collection point. Speaking during the handing over of the food items in Lagos, Aboyeji said the initiative represented the church’s efforts in promoting Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the society mostly in this trying time.
He also hinted that as a partner of the government, the church has been praying and would continue to pray for an end to the pandemic, “which has impacted Nigeria and other countries negatively.”
According to Aboyeji, “It would be recalled that President Muhammadu Buhari had on March 29 in a nationwide broadcast announced in the first instance the lockdown of Lagos and Ogun States and Federal Capital Territory (FCT) as a measure to curb the spread of COVID-19 which has seen most of the infected cases occurring in Lagos State.
“Today, we brought 500 bags of rice already divided into 5kg; 200 cartoons of Indomie noodles for the young children.
What informed our decision to embark on this is that at a time like this, we cannot leave everything to the government alone. Therefore we need to partner the government. As a church, we believe in prayer, but faith without work is dead, therefore, we decided to support the government at this critical time of the lockdown with relief materials while we continue praying.
“The effort of the federal government in tackling the COVID-19 is quite commendable compared with what is happening in other countries.”
While receiving the items on behalf of the state government, the Special Adviser to the state governor, on Agriculture, Mrs. Abisola Olusanya, applauded the church for the kind gesture and vowed that the state government would make judicious use of the items, stating that the items were coming at a critical time of the lockdown in the state.
She added that the donation was timely considering the alarming cases of coronavirus in the state, noting however that the government would distribute the foodstuffs to the poor, elderly, youths and the physically challenged in the state to support them in this critical time.
