Sen. Solomon Adeola, Chairman, Senate Committee on Finance, has urged public officials to make empowerment of those who elected them a priority.
Adeola (APC-Lagos West) said this on Sunday in Lagos during the distribution of starter packs and cash grants to more than 1000 artisans and traders in his constituency.
The distribution of the items to phone repairers, soap makers, hairdressers and make up artists was facilitated by Adeola in collaboration with the National Productivity Centre.
Adeola said that the essence of governance was to impact on the lives on the people, and urged elected officials to always live to that expectation.
He said it was wrong for public officials not to impact on the lives of people after getting their votes, calling on citizens to always insist on dividends of democracy from their leaders.
“There is need for us (elected officials) to empower our people, especially youths and women; we are supposed to bring dividends of democracy to the people.
“If anyone comes to any of you that he wants to contest and he is someone you have voted for before, you need to ask him ‘where is the dividends of democracy?’
“It is your right to ask; you have voted for us as your leaders, you have sent us on an errand. You should be empowered. We cannot have your votes and not empower you,” he said.
Adeola said he facilitated the empowerment to further impact on the lives of the people of his Lagos West constituency.
The senator said he had earlier facilitated the training of the beneficiaries, mostly women and youths, across the 10 local government areas in the constituency.
Adeola urged the beneficiaries to put the items into good use in order to better their lives and households.
He recalled that he recently gave out more than 130 laptops to outstanding secondary school students in the constituency as part of his support to the education sector.
The senator also said he had facilitated many projects including streetlights in many communities in Lagos West Senatorial District.
Earlier, Director-General, National Productivity Centre, Dr Kashim Akor, commended the senator for the intervention in his constituency.
He said NPC was concerned about impacting on the lives on Nigerians, hence the collaboration with Adeola on the initiative.
In his remarks, Mr Funsho Ologunde, Vice-Chairman, APC Lagos West, also commended Adeola for the programme.
He described the senator as a worthy representative who was passionate about the people.
Ologunde appealed to beneficiaries not to sell the items given but use them for the purpose for which they were meant.
