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There was excitement on Monday at the Ezechima Grammar School Obior in Aniocha North Local Government Area of Delta State when a police officer, DSP Faith Okwuego, paid students fees and provided stationery to the school.
The joy of the principal, teachers and students of the school was so high for a police officer to have come to their aid in time of need again.
The principal of the school, Mrs Joy Kawedo, expressed joy over the gesture of the officer and called on other individuals to assist the school.
She said, “By God’s grace, I am new here in the school, but from the records I saw when I resumed, I discovered that DSP Faith Okwuego is a friend of the school and had visited the school a few years ago where she displayed her charity by paying for indigent students and assisted the school in many ways.
“When she came to school here on Friday last week, she introduced herself as a friend of the school, and staff who were there at that time confirmed it. When I saw her, her benevolence support, her hospitality to us showed her readiness to assist. She asked me about our challenges which I enumerated, including stationary.
“She came to our aid and provided stationery and helped us upset bills for these indigent students and even watered the staff. I took her around to see our dilapidated structure and, the many facilities we lack. She felt we were suffering and promised to do the needful and help us to contact as many as possible who could come to our aid.
“She is not from this place, but she is assisting the school. You can see, I, my entire staff and the students are short of words to express our profound gratitude. It will be well with her; from generation to generation people will come to her aid.”
When South-South PUNCH sought the police officer’s audience to know what informed her to help the school, she said these children deserved basic education.
She said, “When I was serving in Delta State command, as at that time I was serving in Obior community, Galilee, to be precise, I was the DCO then, on my way to work one morning, I saw a young girl that was crying.
“Our work duty as an officer is not just about the investigation or crime issue and all of that, even crime prevention is part of our duty.
“So, I asked the girl why she was crying, I thought it was a rape matter, but she told me that they send her home because of school fees, and WAEC was around the corner.
“I asked her how much, she told me and I wanted to give her the money, but she said should take her back and give the money to school and pay for her. At that time, I just realized, this was real, I left what I was doing and went back to the school and paid for her.
“On my way out, I saw some other students at the school gate it was around 9 am, and I asked why students were at the gate, and they said these too were owing fees, I said how many were they, and I counted, there were 19 in number including the girl, that was how I ended up paying for 19 students.
“The excitement and jubilation was so much, it wasn’t something I prepared for and that excitement alone went around the community.
“But then, I need to do it because if those children were left without enrolling them, they go back to society, most of these children roaming on the streets today, before you could know it, these deadly criminals using them to perpetrate evil acts. We don’t want that.
“I just feel crime prevention starts with all of these. That was the essence of the payment, As of 2024, these students have finished school and are in various universities. I cannot reach out to all of them, but the ones I reach out to, I still send something to them.
“I have been posted to the IGP task force against anti-vandalism. When I visited the community recently, I had reason to go to the school to know how they were doing. When I got there the new principal was very excited to see the person they were talking about. And I asked if the children were doing fine, they said yes, but some people still owed, and that they didn’t have stationery.
“I said to myself, this work has to be done, we know that the government cannot get to all at the same time, so the little we can, we will do, I picked it up again, provided stationery for them and pay some fees, I’m not doing it for the teachers, I’m doing it for this children, the ones we said they are the leaders of tomorrow.”
Okwuego lamented that there are a lot of damaged adults in society today, saying that if children miss it at this prime, even when they become adults, that vacuum will be obvious.
She said, “I don’t want these children to miss it. If it is possible for me as an individual to send every out-of-school children back to school I would have done it, but it’s not possible.”
She however noted that there was a reason why secondary school is called basic, “it is a basic and every child needs it. This is why I’m doing what I have to do, to put my quota to the society. I’m a product of free education,” she emphasized.
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