A medical outreach programme organized by the Sola Saraki Educational Foundation (SSEF), has made over 2,000 residents of Ilorin, the Kwara state capital , have their lives impacted with regard to health conditions.
The medical outreach team on Saturday , 12 November and Sunday, 13 November 2022 gave people free health treatment at the frontage of the Emir of Ilorin’s palace, Sango-Kulende , Agbaji Quarters and Eiyenkorin .
It was organized to mark the tenth death anniversary of Dr Abubakar Olusola Saraki. The late Dr Olusola Saraki , who was born on May 17, 1933 , died in Lagos on November 14 2012.
A popular and prominent politician in the country, the late Dr Olusola Saraki served as Senate Leader between 1979 and1983.
Secretary of the Board of Sola Saraki Educational Foundation (SSEF), Alhaji Oladimeji Hassan told Team@orientactualmags.com that the programme was designed to promote a healthy society and show that the health needs of the general public are prioritized like the late Dr Olusola Saraki did, it was also considered important that the general public should receive medical care to enable them live healthy lifestyles.
It will also provide a platform to know ‘our health status’ in order to be in a better position to deal with conditions that may prove fatal if unattended to.
Highlights of the two-day medical outreach programme include the presence of Dr Abubakar Bukola Saraki at the Sango/Kulende center on Sunday where he interacted with the beneficiaries.
Bukola , who is the eldest son of the late Olusola Saraki, had at different times served as governor of Kwara state and president of the 8th Senate.
The former senate president , while giving his speech, commended the Foundation for helping to keep his father’s memory alive noting that the late Sola Saraki had many children apart from his biological children. He said this had been shown through what the foundation had done by having its members sacrificing time, energy and resources to organize such a programme.
While thanking the foundation for the honour done to his late father on behalf of the family, Dr Abubakar Bukola Saraki also made money available to the beneficiaries as transport fare.
‘ The Foundation came up with the idea of a medical outreach programme as a way of remembering Dr Olusola Saraki , we all know that he lived for the people, he was there for the people he can give his last food to others to eat , he was a man of the people and the foundation felt how do we honour such a person? How do you keep his memory alive? And we felt we should give back to the society and we came up with a medical outreach programme that would have the needy , less-privileged and others as beneficiaries.
Some may not be able to afford as little as five hundred naira and we thought it wise to attend to these basic needs, free eye glasses, drugs, and free health treatment.
We had four centres; emir’s palace, Agbaji quarters, Zango and Kulende and Eiyenkorin and over two thousand people have benefited from it’ Oladimeji Hassan added.
‘The foundation’s programmes are an ongoing , previously we had given scholarship to medical students and we intend to continue this , we also intend to continue the medical outreach programme in some rural communities, it won’t be a one-off thing.
We are also planning to sponsor medical research and endowment of medical chairs at universities, we also hope to establish a world-class standard cardio vascular hospital to be named after Dr Olusola Saraki. Hopefully , we will start this next year’ Hassan, a one-time Commissioner for Health and Chief of Staff , Government House, added.
‘Most of us are followers and disciples of Saraki, we do raise funds and also seek support from donors national and internationally several of us had benefited from the late Oloye Saraki , some were also inspired by his philanthropic activities.
For example, the chairman of our board , Dr Musa Audu of the World Health Organization did not benefit directly from baba, but he said years ago , there was a time there was water scarcity and Dr Sola Saraki made a water tanker available to provide water for the community and he had since then been looking for ways to show appreciation on behalf of the community.
Some would also say they were getting Saraki bread almost free of charge when he had a bakery.
When I was at GSS Omu-Aran in 1974, he gave us 2,000 pounds to build our mosque, it is about philanthropy, welfarism and solving other people’s problems , you don’t just forget such a man , you have to continue to remember him and keep his memory alive so that it can inspire others to appreciate the need to be altruistic’ Oladimeji Hassan, submitted while responding to a reporter’s question in respect of funding sources for their programmes-Team@orientactualmags.com
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