- What She Told City People
Ikeja Metro Lions Club is one of the very active chapters of the International Association of Lions Clubs (District 404B2 Nigeria). The big news is that Ikeja Metro Lions Club will be installing their new president on Saturday 10th November 2018. She is Lion Elizabeth Omolade Ibe. She and other club officers will be installed at a grand presentation ceremony. The Chief Host is Lion Dupe Dada, the District Governor, 404B2 Nigeria. Expectedly, Lion Elizabeth Omolade Ibe is excited about her new role, as President. She told City People Publisher, SEYE KEHINDE during her recent visit to the office at Gbagada in Lagos.
How do you feel now about your new role in Lions Club?.
“I feel good, I feel great. I feel honoured. Why? Lion is a platform where everyone is giving an opportunity to experience what I am experiencing today. It’s a yearly thing. I came in a few years back. I joined around 6 years ago, as a member. I joined when I was in Federal Polytechnic Ado Ekiti as a Leo member. Then I moved on to be a full member of the Lions Club and here I am as the Club President. It is really a wonderful platform that will make you feel honoured the recognition every one of our members and we look forward to every one of us becoming a potential leader in the nearest future.
As you are coming in now, what are your plans and programmes? What do you plan to do?
We are one big family as club members we intend to encourage other club members. There some who say No; they don’t want to get involved. They just want to be floor members I went to encourage to be involved more. I love teamwork. I love other Exco Members, and floor member coming together as one, under the same umbrella to help humanity, making them know and feel important that they can do it. There is no I can’t in our dictionary.
Once you are a member, you are part of the family. You just have to have the mind of teamwork that you two one day be a President and you should start working towards that from now.
At the time you joined what was the attraction?
I joined became I love helping others, especially helping the less privileged. We have many less privileged who are looking up to others. In the past, some people who have the means helped those who didn’t have to become somebody in life. I have a passion for helping the less privileged that why I joined the Lions Club.
What’s Lions Club all about?
The Lions in Lions Club means Liberty, Integrity, Nations Safety. We stand for an these. We stand for Integrity, Liberty and we want everybody in our community to be part of this storyline.
It is an international organization. The founder of Lions Club is Melvin Jones. It started from the USA. We have Lions Club in almost all the countries of the world. I saw the Lions Club in Uganda. When I went. I am happy to be part of the Lions Club because we have a vision for the community.
We care for our community. We want everybody to come up and be part of everything that we do monthly. We do monthly projects. We have to look for one way or the other, how we can be of benefit or advantage to your community.
What has Ikeja Metro Lions Club been able to do so far?
Each Lionistic year starts in July. 1st to June the next year. So far, we have gone to schools to train them on getting acquainted with reading books. We have found out that in this part of the world, most people run away from reading books. So we went to enlighten them that if they want to be the leader of tomorrow, they must read now. They must read their books. We told them the benefits and the bad sides.
We went to one health centre in Oregun in July to talk about the environment. How to keep our environment clean. That is on Hygiene. You need to be clean. Wash your hands. Take care of your environment. Health is Wealth. Be a clean person. We gave them tall on that. We also went to an orphanage home recently to give them talks on how to maintain their eyes. That was on Vision & Sight.
Recently, we shared fliers still on how to maintain your eyes at Ikeja under bridge our concentration before then was on the youth at the Hossana Home that we went.
This time around, we went out there to meet both the old, the young, men and women and we enlightened them on the same topic.
We recently held one of our projects called Feeding the Hunger whereby we come together in the community, bring foodstuff to the less privileged. So from time to time, we feed the hungry because a hungry man is an angry man. We give them raw food, sometimes we give them money to encourage them. We have also done Youth Empowerment on how to make soap, handcraft and for then to be able to later for themselves.
Let’s talk about Lion Elizabeth Omolade Ibe. What kind of a person is she?
At times I can be shy. It depends on my mood.
At times, I can be jovial, or funny. I am married to Engr Ibe and I have 2 lovely kids, 2 girls.
I just recently resigned from my previous job where I spent 21 years. I went on to do my own thing. I am from Ogun State.
I am from Ipara Remo, Ijebu Remo. Most people see me and think I am Igbo and some even go on to call me Ngozi. No, I am not. I am Omolade Elizabeth. I am an Ijebu woman.
What formal will the investiture take?
The investiture is a yearly thing. It comes years. As every new President emerge, there must be a Presentation ceremony of every new President and officer of the club. Last years own was November 11.
This year’s own is coming again a year later, on November 10th 2018. It’s a platform whereby we invite new to bring in new people to come and see what we do. We went to showcase ourselves to them. So that they too can see how they can be of benefit to their community. There will be so many side attractions. We come together to wine and dine.
Anybody coming should come with their dancing shoes. There will also be auctions sales. We are also going to have fundraising for Lions monthly projects (2018/2019 projects) we need funds to help the needy in our community. So this is a platform where this is being encouraged. So when people come in, if it’s N5,000 they have to donate we would accept it.
No amount is small. Just make sure you are impacting your community in a better way.
It is also for the installation of all the new club officers.   We all emerge through elections done usually around March/April every year. You will now be inaugurated from 1st July of every year. So from July 1st they automatically address you with your new title.
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