Charity, they say, begins at home and that’s why Dr Uju Magnus Amajirionwu has chosen to start his innovative community programme from his native Ngor Okpala.

Although he lives overseas, Dr Amajirionwu has not turned his back on his people.  Instead, he has devised a meaningful way of helping to bring about a much-needed change to his community by investing in education and small business development.

The Uvuruntu-born, Polytechnic Nekede and FUTO – trained engineer has donated a mobile library to the Archdiocese of Owerri.

Amajirionwu took the bold and benevolent decision to come home and make the donation, despite losing his wife and partner recently. But the library is in memory of his late dad, Dr Sylvester Amajirionwu, a former chairman of the Imo-State library Board.

“We had the project before my wife died.  We thought my father would be happy wherever he is to know that we still remember his time on earth. We had worked to donate to the archdiocese here a mobile library.  Our appreciation goes to the Irish Environmental Protection Agency for donating the Mercedes Sprinter Van, Knights of St. Columbanus for coordinating the collection of books, Irish Aid for  generously providing the fund for shipping the truck and its contents. It will go from school to school and children can borrow books, read and return to the library at the archdiocese. The books and encyclopedia are meant for secondary schools students and cover many subject areas, including Science, Geography, Maths, English, Literature and French.

“I am trying to show our people here that Cambridge is still alive – and there are children who are still doing this and they are not better than our own children. These are books that are used in the secondary schools in Ireland. If Nigeria is trying to develop to world standard, then they should look at what other countries are doing,” he added.

It is not only the falling standard of education that worries Dr Amajirionwu,  a home grown engineer.  Also disturbing him is the growing poverty fuelled by massive unemployment.  Knowing his people are naturally enterprising, Amajirionwu has set up a small development fund, which individuals can draw from to start a small business.

He wants to help combat poverty, starting from Ngor Okpala LGA, where he was born. It’s a mission close to his heart.

“That’s another thing that interested me and my wife before she died- combating poverty. We started a charity and funded it ourselves. What we want to do is put our voice into policy education in respect of poverty alleviation. What we have in this country is absolute poverty and it is so unreal that in 2011 when the last statistics was published, 72% of Nigerians were absolutely poor, and that translates to 110m million people living below the poverty line. That’s a recipe for social disharmony,” he noted.

“What happens is that when people are poor? They resort to self help and there is negative and positive self help. The positive one is where people come together in cooperatives and try to better their wellbeing and the negative one is where people go out and become miscreants.”

He paused and continued: “If 110 m are poor that will include policeman, teachers and soldiers.  When you talk about security break down who is actually going to keep the security when the security man is poor and the populace is poor?  Sometimes, when we hear about kidnapping, armed robbery and all other violent crime, it is not that people just wake up to go and commit crime, sometimes it’s the circumstances and  I am not making excuses for anybody who is a criminal.  But we must know we have enough to do to prevent crime instead of fighting it.”

He explained how his Combat Poverty Mission worked and expressed hope that it would grow and spread to neighbouring communities

“Part of the CPM is also micro enterprising. Myself and my late wife have created a fund which we put in money every year for individuals to go to, those who are members of the organization, to take a little fund to support their businesses. There are about 20 members in Ngor Okpala,” he said of the two year old CPM registered in both Nigeria and Ireland.

“I don’t know the members personally. I asked people to come together and elect their representatives. We make sure they have a structure and, as am speaking to you, I have met only one person who is their leader, Hon David Eke. What we want to see is their statement of accounts every year because we don’t want it to seem as if we are doing it for our families or relatives, so we are keeping away.”

Most members of CPM are petty traders, artisans, market women and small business owners.

According to the founder, one fundamental aspect of CPM is that members receive training on running a small business.

“We emphasize that you must do some training. We teach them book keeping, record keeping, how to balance their accounts etc. You don’t have to be necessarily illiterate to benefit from the funds. A woman, am told, brings her daughter to classes so she can teach her at home,” he said, adding that resource persons come from the polytechnic to give classes.

“We make sure that before the money is given, the participant must have attended 12 lessons. For now, you can borrow a maximum of N20,000 and a minimum of N5000.”

Dr Amajirionwu said the funds were self generated and that the driving force was his passion for his people and country.

“I will like to let you know that some of us who are outside this country are not happy, simply because no place is better than home. So to identify with our home land, whatever little savings we can get we put it into some of this. Some people give it to church as their tithes and others to motherless babies’ homes. This is the way we have chosen to spend ours and that doesn’t mean we don’t go to church,” said the committed Catholic.

“Every year, we give them US$1000 . CPM is based here but it’s also registered in Ireland. They have an executive of five who have access to this fund but must give account.”

The former teacher explained that his passion for the poor was due to his own personal experiences while at home.

“I worked as a civil servant. I started working as a teacher in Technical Government College Owerri. My salary at the time was N480 in 1985 that could buy me almost $120 at the time because it was about N4 to the dollar.

“When I left in 1998, I was a level 16 officer in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, my salary was N13, 000 and it was  N75 to the dollar. You see, there was no improvement in my well being.  When I graduated, the cost of a saloon car was N8000 . By the time I left in 1998, it was almost 200,000. I couldn’t afford to buy a car then, so I was impoverished working for Government.”

The environmentalist who is interested in sustainable development also shared an encounter with poverty during the Nigerian Civil War

“There is a picture of the war that has never left me and it gives me nightmare. It was the picture of a malnourished child with a protruding stomach and the mother and father decided to leave her behind. They left her not because they wanted her to die but because they felt that if the Red Cross picked her up she stood a better chance of survival. But that child did not know that and was crying and saying, ‘mum and dad are you leaving me behind?’”

Those painful words keep ringing in his ears.

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