By DAUD OLATUNJI

ABEOKUTA—The Ogun State Government, yesterday, painted a gloomy picture of the procreative abilities of its citizens, saying no fewer than  800 couples  have  applied for  adoption of  motherless babies in the state.

In another breath, the government admitted that 124,000 of the 4.3 million residents of the state are living with HIV/AIDS, even as the government said it  ‘rescued ‘no fewer than 72 lunatics and  destitute from the streets  of Abeokuta, the state capital, within a year.

Commissioner for Health, Dr. Olaokun Soyinka and his Women Affairs and Social Development counterpart, Elizabeth Sonubi, reeled out the figures while giving their report cards in the past year.

According to the Health Commissioner: “The prevalence rate of the deadly virus in the state is 3.1 per cent year,” which he said had made his ministry to embark on a number of HIV/AIDS control programmes.

The commissioner said the government had trained 186 international conductors to help in the area of prevention of HIV/AIDS and that 35 HIV/AIDS counselling centres and 31 prevention of mother-to- child treatment sites were created in the state to prevent the spread of the disease.

According to Soyinka the ministry in collaboration with the Justice counterpart had concluded plans on a bill to effect the transformation of the State Action Committee on AIDS (SACA) from a committee to a full-fledged agency.

He said the government had also paid N50 million counterpart fund for Ogun SACA to become effective for the World Bank Credit.

Commissioner for Women Affairs and Social Development, Elizabeth Sonubi, said the state rescued ‘no fewer than 72 lunatics and destitute from the streets  of Abeokuta within a year.

According to Sonubi, a recreation centre had to be converted to a temporary  site  for the lunatics and destitute,  towards creating a conducive  environment for the  psychiatric expert to take care of them effectively.

On the adoption of babies in the state, Sonubi said the state had only 75 abandoned babies  at Stella Obasanjo Children’s Home   and that, 11 had been given out to  some couples before the 800 application came in.

State Commissioner for Women Affairs and Social Development, Elizabeth Sonubi, announced at a  in Abeokuta  in commemoration of one year in office  of governor  Ibikunle  Amosun.

According to Sonubi, 72 Lunatics and Destitute who comprise 62 males and 10 females had been rescued from the streets within Abeokuta township, saying “we went out raiding them. As we speak we have rescued 72 and 59 of them have been repatriated to their state of origin.”