Pelumi Olajengbesi, a human rights attorney based in Abuja, has called on the nation’s billionaires to support starving Nigerians by contributing in an amount equivalent to their generosity during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
In a statement released on Wednesday, Olajengbesi, the managing partner of the Abuja-based legal company Law Corridor, praised David Adeleke, better known by his stage name Davido, for his intentions to contribute N300 million to orphans throughout the nation via his David Adeleke Foundation (DAF).
“Thanks to the policies of the new government, our dear country is going through one of the toughest times in history, economically,” Olajengbesi stated. Thousands of jobs are lost as multinational corporations leave the country. There is starvation in the region. Because of the adage “an angry man is a hungry man,” protests against the hardships faced by the nation are spreading across the nation.
“Just like they kindly did during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is now time for our billionaires and esteemed business magnates in the private sector to step in and give succour for our wretched populace. On Tuesday, musician Davido made public a N300 million donation to orphans. The wealthy few should try to imitate this positive trend. The kind will not be forgotten by history. God be praised in Nigeria.
Nigerians are experiencing extreme economic hardship as a result of the elimination of fuel subsidies and rising food prices.
Protests have broken out in several American cities as a result of the sharp increase in the price of food and other necessities.
The suffering that the nation is going through right now is similar to what it went through during the coronavirus pandemic four years ago, when billionaires like Aliko Dangote showed compassion by teaming up with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to spearhead the Private Sector Coalition Against COVID-19 (CACOVID).
Later, Dangote gave N2 billion of his own money to help the initiative. Billionaires Jim Ovia, Oba Otudeko, Folorunsho Alakija, Tony Elumelu, Abdulsamad Rabiu, Femi Otedola, and Oba Otedola each contributed N1 billion.