Ibadan- The wife of the governor of Oyo State, Mrs Florence Ajimobi, on Wednesday said that women empowerment was a catalyst for social and economic development.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Mrs Ajimobi made this known in Oyo town at the continuation exercise of the third phase of the Ajumose Food Bank initiative.
The Ajumose Food Bank Initiative, a project of the Oyo state first lady, distributes food items to poor women for free.
NAN reports that the initiative is a part of her pet projects to drive away hunger and cater for widows, women and children.
She said that women’s empowerment would strengthen their ability to access and control resources and their contribution to lift their respective communities out of poverty.
The wife of the governor made a call to the Ajimobi-led administration to harness the role of women in rural communities as a force to drive out poverty in the state.
Over 6000 women from 11 local government areas have drawn from the food bank since the kick-off exercise in July.
Ajimobi said that food items would be distributed across the 33 local government areas of the state by September.
She reassured the people that the present administration was concerned with the effect of the current economic situation on them.
“It is our hope that this token that we are giving here today will contribute significantly in mitigating the harshness of the current economic situation we find ourselves,” she said.
While responding, the wives of the caretaker chairmen in the respective local government areas in Oyo and Jobele townships commended the efforts of the governor’s wife in empowering women in the state.
The wife of the Oyo East Local Government Caretaker Chairman, Mrs Anifa Azeez, said that the level of poverty among women has reduced drastically with the increase in girl-child education through the various initiatives of the governor’s wife.
Her counterpart in Afijio Local Government, Mrs Taiwo Anwo said that Mrs Ajimobi had ensured that there were functional clinics for widows and aged people across the state.
“I would like to use this platform to appeal to the residents, especially the women folks, to embrace the” Agric Oyo Initiative” of the state governor.
“In the light of the present economic situation we must all be readyto go back to farming which used to be our predominant occupation in the western region,” she said.
Some of the women that benefited from the project commended the wife of the governor for her generousity and kindness, especially in alleviating the plights of the people of the state.