By Ishola Balogun

Stella Agbogun, District  Governor of 404B of the Lions Club, with her team, visited the Kogi flood victims and presented food items and materials worth over N3million to them.   In this encounter, she shares her team’s experience on  the visit.

What got you into Lions Club?

I have been in Lionism for the past 26 years, and, having gone through the cadre – the zone chair, the regional chair, including appointment as committee chairperson, I  decided to serve at the highest position of the District. Again, before now, the position was like a no-go-area for women, we have had only three women with about 40 men as governor of the district; but biggest spur for me was the urge to serve humanity at that capacity.

My goal is to work with children. They are not being given proper attention; in fact, they lack so many things, even parents don’t give them adequate attention  and yet we say they are our future. Because they are vulnerable, I’m passionate about the plight of children. My focus is to give hope to the Nigerian  child. All my programmes for the remaining part of this year and next year will be geared towards the Nigerian  child.

Experience with the flood victims in Kogi

The Kogi experience is something I have never seen in my life. It took us about 14 hours on the road to the state. We got there late in the night. As early as 7:30a.m., the following day we began the distribution of the food items and materials to the displaced people through a Rev. Father. We used a big truck to move the items from Lagos.

Areal view of Lokoja, Kogi State…under the siege of flood

It was worth over N3million. The local government chairmen, village heads and other prominent people in the area were there. They had about 22 camps, in each camp, they had about 950 persons and families. And the sharing was easy because they had representatives amongst them who also supervised the sharing.

So, it was not a case of the material did not get to them. They were very happy, singing and praying for Lions Club. We  took a boat ride to another village affected by the flood and it was water, front, back, left and right. We were in the boat for about two hours.

You will see roads covered by water on which you travel in a boat. All you  see are trees, and roof-top of houses. We saw a man who refused to leave his house submerged by water but he managed to build a hut on the roof of  the house where he lived. We saw him cooking and eating there.

We were so touched that we had to make available  to him a mattress. At about 7:30p.m., we had to hand over the remaining materials to the Rev Father who distributed it. The journey alone was tiring, our muscles  ached, but it was worth the pains. Imaging that you just woke up one morning and all you have was gone.

And since the incident, they were just there at the mercy of any one who cared. The children  were not going to school, they couldn’t  even sleep well. It  was pathetic. Some of the schools had been converted to refugee camps. I do not think relief materials were enough and perhaps the distribution was  faulty.

That was why we as a group decided to handle the distribution ourselves and the people were happy. There are other river-rine areas that take about four hours drive from Lokoja, I don’t think donors have visited these places. The government intention is good but I tell you there is no proper monitoring.

Let me give you an example, when we got there, somebody met us and asked that we should hand-over the materials to him for onward distribution to the victims.  We said no and he became angry saying that was the practice.  We insisted that we were not going to do that in line with a directive from our international office that  we should not hand over the items to any body. At the end of the day, we distributed the truck load of gifts and the people were very happy.

Source of funds

When a disaster of this kind happens, it is the business of members of Lions  Club anywhere in the world to assist. We have a special fund for this kind of issue. So when this happened, we wrote to the international body and they responded positively.

We  also have the Nigeria Charity Foundation, from  we draw from; and we also have individual members contribution in terms of materials, food items and others. So, these three areas made up the money and materials we donated. The international body gave us $10,000, the Nigeria Charity Foundation gave us N500,000 and we sourced over N1million from members.

Anytime I go there, I feel so sad. So, the consultant in a cancer unit in Lagos approached me and said ‘why can you build a home for these patients?’ I pondered over it and because I know it is only a District that can build such home, I took upon me as a challenge.

Incidentally, the opportunity came when I became the District Governor.   So, I wrote to the hospital to give me a piece of land and they obliged me. We have just began the building of the home in August and it will soon be completed and commissioned.

The project is huge and, according to estimates, it will cost about N120million. I know God is assisting me and we are calling on good spirited individuals to contribute to ease the condition of cancer patients. I will be happy to commission the project on my next birthday coming up in March 2013.