From Cyriacus Nnaji, Lagos
Sunshine Kindheart Foundation, an organization designed for the uplifting of society, has donated electronic gadgets to the newly inaugurated Ajegunle Sports Council.
Hon. Arogundade Samsondeen, the Director General of Sunshine Kindheart Foundation made the donation by himself during the inauguration of the Ajegunle Sports Council at the Ajeromi/Ifelodun Council Secretariat on Tuesday, May 11, 2021.
Samsondeen, who is also the Regional Head for Skyway String Transport Technology in Africa, said he was born and bred in Ajegunle, hence the need to always come back and give to the community.
“I was born and bred in Ajegunle, we know we have different antics and tactics of how youths can be developed in Ajegunle as a whole, but particularly sports, and you know when you talk Sports, you talk Ajegunle in the Federation, we are reckoned with. And now for the first time in history we are having sports council inaugurated in our local government, it is a good way for the development and advancement of youths, and this is one of the best way we can develop the youth taking them out of the street for them not to be involved in hooliganism and prostitution.
“The advancement of the youth is paramount to any interest in Ajegunle as a whole. I was born and bred in Ajegunle, I have travelled far and wide, I represent a multinational company in Africa, but I have to come back home and see how the youths are doing. One, we all cannot be at the corridor of power, and one partway we can develop our youths is just to collaborate and contribute to the development and advancement like this sports council we are having today,” Samsondeen averred.”
On how he sees Ajegunle compared to days of old he said “There is a lot of diversity right now, just of recent you saw the EndSAR; Ajegunle was at the peak of it, this council was brought down, you know, we needed to now see how we can correct the abnormalities of how we govern our people. There is a threshold of just one idea, the idea of governing our people through the government, but there are a lot of key interests, parastatals, institutions, this sports council we are having today is one as well that can come in-between and collaborate with the government of the day.
“And one key thing I know by the time we are able to do that, taking out all the responsibility, some not all anyway, from government, because government is doing a lot, but we need to get some responsibility out of their table and we need to fashion them and structure them, we need to assign responsibilities to our institutions within our threshold.
“By the time we are able to do that, there will be lot more advancement and opportunity that will be reckoned with in the development of our youth, particularly when you see a kind of diverse economy or society like Ajegunle, that has different tribes, Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo. It is a conglomerate of cultural background, so we needed more technocratic idea here to come on board, to come on the table and change the norm on how we govern our people, giving them opportunity one way or the other, not fine tuning governance in their own way but putting opportunity on their table, so to speak,” he said.
Speaking on what brought the inspiration of Sunshine Kindheart Foundation and his interest in aspiring for the local government chairmanship in the last dispensation, he answered, “I actually went for the primary but many will be there but one will be chosen, definitely we all cannot be at the corridor of power, but my idea to run for the position then, in fact, I am more popular now than then, my idea then was to actually contribute to the development and advancement of youths in Ajegunle. As I said earlier on, all cannot be at the corridor of power, but if it was a shot and I could not have it, I think there should be another avenue I can still contribute to society, and that was the birth of Sunshine Kindheart Foundation.
“This means that even when we are not at the corridor of power we can still contribute to the advancement of our people. Of recent we did empowerment for widows, we are doing a lot in the foundation. What we do here in particular, because Ajegunle is a combination of attitude of the Chinese nation, Chinese nation has too much population, and their population is their wealth, but we are not using our own population as wealth, so what we need to do is to look at that area, how our people can be our wealth. Ajegunle by the name is wealth, so we are looking at how we can conglomerate with seasoned professionals in tailoring, welding, mechanics, fashion design, and all these professionals they are there, you can count them.
“So what we try to do in my foundation is to take those youths that are just sitting idle at home, graduates are sitting idle at home, you don’t need to sit at home, come. We can connect you with professionals in Ajegunle, but when we connect you with professionals in Ajegunle, it means that you will be trained as a professional, but what gonna be the end point, we can’t throw you back to the unemployment market. So what we do is a chain in my foundation, we pick them, we show them to the professionals, they train them, after the training we get them a shop and equip it; the meaning of that is that don’t give us anything back, but for the fact that you are able to train free of charge, you are able to get your start up kits and a shop, you are going to train a minimum of 10 Ajegunle youths, that is the agreement we had with the youths.”
On whether he still has intention to contest for the local government chairmanship, he answer that right now the council is doing well, but agreed that anytime he is called upon for the advancement of the people he will answer such call.
