SPEECH DELIVERED BY NNU WOMAN LEADER PROF. JULIE N. E. UMUKORO ON BEHALF OF MEMBERS OF NNU WOMEN WING ON ‘A COURTESY VISIT’ TO HER EXCELLENCY, DAME EDITH OKOWA ON 17TH MARCH 2022

INTRODUCTION

Your Excellency, Dame Edith Okowa, wife of the Executive Governor of Delta State, Sen. Dr. Ifeanyi Arthur Okowa. Permit me to start by thanking you for granting NNU Women Wing access to your eminent presence.

We cannot but appreciate this privilege being well aware of the great efforts and sacrifices you have had to make to create room out of the very crowded schedule of your office as First Lady of the State.

We thank God Almighty for your motherly and affectionate disposition going by your pedigree of accommodating women always in your larger plan. On this note, I humbly introduce NNU Women Wing, an ancillary of Ndokwa Neku Union, the apex social-cultural group of the Ndokwa nation.

The women’s wing faction has in the last one year of her administration galvanized and brought together Ndokwa women from all walks of life to engineer peace, unity and progress in Ndokwa land and by extension, Delta State (Nigeria).

Of the twenty-five Local Government Areas of Delta State, Ndokwa land, covers three; Ndokwa East, Ndokwa West, and Ukwuani.

It may interest you to know that the Ndokwa people are highly itinerant and have through migration spread round not only the Nigerian nation but extending to other African countries and indeed the world at large.

Thus we have branches round the different states of the Nigerian nation and beyond.

We have very strong diaspora representation in the United Kingdom, United States of America as well as upcoming branches in Spain, Italy and Germany.

I am Professor Julie Umukoro, NNU Woman Leader Worldwide and I have led a delegation of my women here to accord you due recognition and appreciate your dynamism, your doggedness, your devotedness and indeed your commitment to the health and wellness of the citizenry of Delta State.

We have you to thank for the prominence His Excellency has given women under his administration for in you he sees the efficient side of women. Please convey our heartfelt felicitation and gratitude to him and his administration for being so gender friendly.

However, we shall be glad to have this gender friendly overture gain ascendancy in the Ndokwa area where, comparatively, there seem to be a yawning gap at the moment.

The hallmark of today’s courtesy call is to celebrate your great achievement under the 05 Initiative. Our visit therefore is predicated on your contributions, the effectiveness of your interventions and particularly, the giant developmental strides this has brought upon our dear Delta State.

This cannot be divorced from your philanthropic vision. You set out _ab initio_ to give voice to the voiceless: So you feed the hungry, lift up the down trodden, liven up the hopeless, help the helpless and shelter the homeless.

In all, you have lived up to your words.We have therefore come to celebrate you as an icon of hope. For this, your name, Dame Edith Okowa, shall go down the annals of history as the wise woman who builds her house (Tim. 14:1)

More significantly, your wish to establish one sickle cell clinic per Local Government Area (LGA) before the end of your tenure is nearly accomplished with approximately 19 out of a total of 25 LGA’s in Delta State!

We are glad also to put on record that two out of the three LGA’s that make up Ndokwa land are already hosts of the sickle cell clinics! This indeed is a great feat that deserves accolades from Ndokwa women
Conclusively, you have done your bit. It is now our turn.

We promise to work toward a reduction of the impact of the sickle cell disease by ensuring that the clinics in our LGAs work efficiently.

We shall work assiduously to help with drugs and blood donations from time to time. We shall also run workshops to educate youths on blood genotypes and as well as the implications of the wrong choice of a life partner.

Your Excellency ma, this, in a nutshell are the reasons you have become today our role model! Our champion!

So, on behalf of the wives of Chairmen of the three Local Government Areas of Ndokwaland, Barr. Mrs Cynthia Oputa-Governor ( Ndokwa East), Barr. Mrs. Chineye Ajede ( Ukwuani), and Mrs Esther Nzete (Ndokwa West), as well as NNU Women Wing, we, members and representatives here present, hereby doff our _igeles_ for you.

You are our ideal woman of the year. So in commemoration of the International Women’s Day this year, 2022, NNU Women Wing in one voice, unanimously declares you…”The Philanthropist of the Year” Long live Ndokwa Neku Union! Long live Delta State!! Long live Nigeria!!!

Prof. (Chf.) Julie Nwabogo. E. Umukoro
NNU Woman Leader
Kpakpando Furuni Eze of Ase Kingdom