Nigeria's Chinese community hands out food items to the needy to mark festive period

NIGERIA'S Chinese community has donated food items to low-income earners and orphanages in Lagos as part of its contribution to the less well-off in the country during the festive period.

Eric Ni, the chairman of the Chinese Industrial and Commercial Enterprises Association and Huaxing Arts Troupe Nigeria, who led the group during the donation, said the move was in continuation of the family support programme Sharing Love Without Borders. He added that the parcels were handed out at slums in the Ajegunle and Oworosoki areas gifting people bags of rice, groundnut oil, cartons of noodles, spaghetti, facemasks and other household items.

According to Mr Ni, the Bethesda Home for the Blind in Surulere which also doubles as a school, also benefited from the kind gesture. He added that 10 bags of 50kg rice, four bags of 25kg rice, nine gallons of 25 litres of groundnut oil, packs of spaghetti, cartons of noodles, face masks and a cheque of N500,000 were donated in total.

Mr Ni said: “We live and conduct our businesses here in Nigeria, so this is our way of showing love to the communities that host us. This is not the first time we are doing this, as around 2017, the Chinese community purchased a giant Mikano generator, computers, musical equipment and lot of other things for this orphanage."

Loi Koon, another member of the Chinese community, added: “We the Chinese community in Nigeria wish to express our love to every Nigerian, whether you are black or white, whether you are a Muslim or a Christian, we wish you all a prosperous new year."

Chioma Ohakwe, the director of the orphanage and school, said: "Today we are very happy because we started 2022 with big humongous gift items, cash and equipment. If we take you around the school, you will see that almost everything we have here is bought by the Chinese community in Nigeria, thank you is not enough, we pray for you and your businesses, we are very grateful."