By Jonathan Ugbal
A pan-African organization, the Neo Black Movement (NBM) has donated items worth millions of Naira to boost education, the health sector and crime fighting in Cross River State.
These formed part of activities to mark its 40th anniversary and 39th annual convention and 13th annual lecture of the organization which held in Calabar, the Cross River State capital.
The organization donated books, hundreds of chairs and other educational materials worth over NGN2million to five schools; Early Child Care Education (ACCE), St. Peters Primary School in Akpabuyo, Government Technical College, Calabar Community Secondary School Bakassi and Government Secondary School, Big Qua Town where members took time to tutor the pupils on the need to shun violence and crime.
The heads of the various institutions commended the efforts of the NBM and pledged to use judiciously, the equipment and materials donated to them.
On health, the organization visited the Bakassi Internally Displaced Persons camp where a free medical outreach was carried out with drugs valued at over NGN3million distributed to the inhabitants while the sum of NGN500,000 was shared to the most vulnerable to ease their sufferings.
The National President of the NBM, Engineer Felix Kupa said that the decision of the organization to carry out the medical outreach was borne out of its desire to further the course of mankind as it stands to fight injustice by living to its founding father’s goals for a better society for all.
The organization also donated the sum of NGN500,000 to the Cross River State government to support the fight against Cerebro-Spinal Meningitis and Lassa Fever following a campaign where over 2,000 members partook in a street walk to enlighten residents on both diseases.
Kupa told journalists that the campaign is part of the NBMs contribution to mitigate the danger of the scourge and called on well meaning Nigerians as well as corporate bodies to support government efforts.
Also, as earlier reported by CrossRiverWatch, the NBM over the weekend donated an inmates cell to the Cross River State Police Command.
The Deputy Inspector General of Police coordinating Police operations in the South – South states, Emmanuel Inyang commended the organization for its good intentions to develop the society and posited that the building, “completed with surprising speed” will go a long way to help the force which he said is facing the challenges of underfunding and inadequate personnel to effectively police the country.
“The police as we know it today is underfunded and the number of policemen cannot go round everybody as required by the United Nations. so what the police needs is for the members of the public to partner with us by assisting us though the provision of working tools like vehicles, buildings, walkie talkie and also giving us information about criminals around them,” DIG Inyang said.
Represented by the Commissioner for Police in Cross River, CP Hafiz Inuwa, DIG Inyang said the public can arrest anyone who commits a crime and subsequently hand over such a person to Police authorities.
“Criminals live among us and some us of know them but sometimes people who know them keep quiet and such conspiracy of silence breeds crime which should not be the case because no one is immune to being attacked by hoodlums.”
The Deputy Speaker of the Abia State House of Assembly, Cosmas Ndukwe who was the guest lecturer said good governance and justice were the only panacea to curb youth restiveness which is mostly carried out by youths between the ages of 15 and 24 as stated by the United Nations.
“People who are youths are those between the ages of 14 and 25 and these classes of people are mostly primary and secondary school students and you see a man who is 40 or 50, engaging in restiveness instead of rightly is terming it adult restiveness we still term it but they are said to be youths restiveness,” he said.