Date: 2019-01-06

The Ilorin Emirate Youth Development Association (IEYDA) on Sunday distributed free school uniforms to over 500 students selected from the five Local Government Areas of the Emirate Council.

News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the association also empowered people with brick-making, shoe-making and grinding machines as well as cash, among others.

The items were distributed in Ilorin during the Annual Empowerment Programme and Secretariat Fund Raising of the IEYDA.

In his remarks, the acting Director, Centre for Community Development, Kwara State University, Mr Lawal Olhungbebe charged community associations to always partner government in ensuring progress and development at the grassroots.

According to him, there cannot be any meaningful development without a synergy between community development associations and government.

Olohungbebe commended the Ilorin Emirate Youth for the initiative and implored others to emulate them to address the rate of poverty in the society.

Earlier in his remark, the National President of the association, Alhaji Babatunde Salaudeen, said that the empowerment programme was targeted toward uplifting and empowering the people of Ilorin Emirate to reduce poverty level in the society.

On the forthcoming general elections, the IEYDA president urged candidates and their supporters to conduct themselves peacefully and decently.

He also urged youth to be law abiding at all times and not to be used as agents of destruction by unscrupulous politicians.

The National Publicity Officer of the association, Alhaji Uthman Jagunma, noted that the IEYDA had impacted positively in the lives of thousands of people within and outside the Ilorin Emirate, through community development service, result-oriented and humanitarian services.

Jagunma, therefore, applauded those who contributed positively to the growth of the association, charging them to sustain the tempo for the development of the state. (NAN)