Our correspondent, who covered the exercise, reported that each recipient smiled home with rice, noodles, vegetable oil, tomato pest enough to last a family seven days.
Over 1000 pieces of Ankara face mask were also given out even as the residents were encouraged to embrace safety advice by government and medical experts as a measure to check the spread of COVID-19 pandemic.
The Chairman of PWAN Group, Dr. Augustine Onwumere, said that he was deeply touched seeing that the stay-at-home order, which ordinarily is a positive move by the government to arrest the spread of coronavirus in the country, had unfortunately subjected many families to hunger and serious economic challenges.
“As a responsible corporate organisation, we could not just sit back and watch residents of our host community languish in extreme hunger, without making efforts to cushion their sufferings.
“Lockdown without food is a knock down; that is why we took necessary steps to ensure that everyone benefited from our food distribution exercise,” Dr. Onwmere, further explained.
The Managing Director of PWAN Plus business concerns limited, an affiliate company with the PWAN Group, who coordinated exercise, Julius Oyedemy, added; “The essence is to support the Federal government in spreading help to the unreached. As an organisation, we are targeting to reaching out to over 1000 families and suffering masses who cannot afford food at this critical time of COVID-19 pandemic.”
Oyedemi explained that the exercised, which began on April 25 in Sangotedo, would be replicated in over 15 communities in Eti-Osa, Ibeju-Lekki, Epe local government areas where PWAN Group is located.
To achieve quality distribution as well as ensure social distancing, the Group collaborated with Eti-Osa local government officials, the police, and community heads. That conscious arrangement reduced the scramble for the food stuff to a harmless to small groups of residents eager to grab a piece of the generous package.
“What we are doing is also a kind of Corporate Social Responsibility(CSR) to the communities to touch lives at this point in time where people are hungry.
“We have rice, cartons of noodles, vegetable oil, tin tomatoes to share for people to feed during these trying times,” the Group Executive Managing Director, Afam Okonkwo, said.