Abdul-Hameed Oladipupo Alli, popularly known as Mr. Nigeria, is currently the Ambassador of Life Empowered Anchor (LEAH), the pet project of the First Lady of Kwara State, Mrs Omolewa Ahmed. He is a youth leader, a journalist and a publisher too. In this interview with Jonathan Eze, he lauded the LEAH project and explained his responsibilities as an ambassador among other sundry matters.

How did you meet the wife of the Kwara State governor, Mrs Ahmed?
Mrs. Omolewa Ahmed has been touching lives with the pet project, (LEAH) and all along, she was noticing how I have been contributing to the development of the youth especially in the area. She has taken a giant step towards making  meaningful changes in our society and in the history of Nigeria, she may be the first First Lady that will ever appoint an ambassador to her pet project. 

I was appointed by her because she saw me using my money to complement the effort of the government and even as an ambassador now I am not still getting paid. I don't know if I would be paid tomorrow. 

How I came in was when I created the Omolewa Ahmed Youth Concerned Forum. We do help the less privileged in the society and when we meet with individuals with ill health or nutritious problem among others, we recommend them to the office of the First Lady. She found it interesting and appointed me as an ambassador.

What do you think the governor has achieved since his assumption of office?
The Governor of  Kwara State, AbdulFatai Ahmed has completed the first phase of the creation of job by creating over two thousand jobs to the youth and we also want to complement his efforts by also creating more in every Local Government in the state. Our scope is not only for the females or educated ones alone but also people that are not privileged to go to school. So what we are doing  is that those that did not learn any trade will still have benefit in the empowerment program and we thank God the office of the governor has supported the programme. We have submitted how we want to go about it  and I know they are doing something about it. And I thought the project should not just be limited to Kwara alone, so we are extending similar gesture to other states of the federation which is being done through the Youth For Change and Development Initiative in Africa.

We have sent a letter to the First Lady of the Federation, and to all the First Ladies in all thirty six states in the country. So this project is not for only women, children as it use to be but for everyone most especially creation of job opportunity. 

For instance there are fifty six local government in Lagos State and if one hundred jobs is created in each local government that is five thousand six hundred in the State. And these will be managed by us without the government interference because people may think otherwise and we will appoint all the First Ladies in all the States as our patrons.

What are your roles as an Ambassador to LEAH?
The role of an ambassador is self explanatory but my roles as an ambassador to LEAH are to complement the effort of the project. Whatever the government is saying I should propagate it and go out and explain what the government has in mind to the people. I am also the intermediary between the project and the people and that is the reason why I have been engaged to the media to introduce the project to the nation. 
I have similar experience in ambassadorial.

What else have you done in the past to encourage the youths?
I  am the President General, International Morals Organisation (I.M.O). I have been privileged to organise some events and  the likes of the former First Lady of the federation, Hajia Turai Yar'adua received my award while Mrs. Moji Makanjuola was the guest speaker in an event held in Ilorin by the Change For Good Organisation in December.  I v been in African countries like Mozambique, South Africa among others.

The fuel subsidy generated a lot of controversies and the youths were very active during the protest. What is your take on this?
The issue about fuel subsidy removal would not have been  tremendous but due to the time it was announced. Nigerians were angry. The first day of a new year which should be a day of celebration  was chosen as the date for such policy. However, today we are criticising the President but later we will all hail him. He has good intention for Nigerians. Nigeria has a problem and we are all reacting to it in a bad manner. When one has a problem he should not start lamenting but should think of how he can make the best out of the worse situation. We Nigerians are the architects of our problems.We are saying government but this people were not there ten years ago and when they got there, they do the same thing and if our orientation is not changed now if we also get there will do the same thing.

Also, remember that filling stations immediately stopped selling petrol when they heard the announcement and the following morning they started selling the fuel they had in stock before at the new rate and when it got reduced they stop selling saying they still have the stock they bought expensively and hence cannot sell at a lower rate. We should learn to be understanding and be supportive of government so that they can serve us well.