Aisha Buhari donates food items to orphans in FCT to mark Sallah

The Wife of the President, Mrs Aisha Muhammadu Buhari, on Thursday donated food items to orphans at the FCT Unity Children’s Home in Gwagwalada to mark Eid el-Kabir.

While presenting the food items to the home, Aisha said that she decided to celebrate Sallah with the children in order to give them the sense of belonging they deserved.

The food items donated include bags of rice, cartons of Caprisonne, cantons of Indomie noodles, cartons of biscuit, loaves of bread and cake.

She said, “I am happy to be here to celebrate Sallah with you. Every child in Nigeria has the right to live, good parental care, access to good health, and education, among others.’’

The president’s wife appealed to the workers at the orphanage to always show love to the children and give them the upbringing they require to enable them to develop their potentials.

She commended the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) for its support to the children.

“I am surprised to see this beautiful and huge building for the children. I did not expect to see something like this.

“As you are aware, we have more than one million children displaced in the North East as a result of the Boko Haram insurgency.

“They are living with their parents, but they are not living in a good and conductive environment like you,’’ she said.

She assured the children that insurgency would soon come to end as government was committed to tackling all the security challenges in the country.

According to her, all the Internally Displaced Persons including their children will soon be returned to their various homes where they will continue with their education and normal lives.

She advised the children to be law-abiding as everything was being done to ensure that were properly looked after.

The Permanent Secretary, FCTA, Mr John Chukwu, called on the government and NGOs to support in designing programmes for children homes in Abuja.

According to Chukwu, the children’s home was established in 2005 by the government to house abandoned children, a trend that is on the increase.

He said that 50 children are currently living in the home.

He commended the wife of the president for donating the food items, saying: “It takes one with a motherly heart full of compassion to celebrate Sallah in an orphanage.“

One of the children, Segun Afolabi, thanked the wife of the president for her gesture and said that her visit to them had given them a sense of belonging.

He said that her visit to the home was the first the wife of a president would embark on.

Another child in the home, Mary Orji, appealed to the government to build a hospital for the orphanage and also provide learning materials for their school to enable to obtain quality education.