The Association of Orphanages and Homes Operators in Nigeria, ASOHON, has revealed that unregistered, closed down and non-existent homes benefitted from Davido’s N250 million donation to orphans in Nigeria.
This was made known in a press conference by the National President of the association, Rev Dr. Gabriel Oyedeji.
While confirming that 292 supposed orphanages benefitted from Davido’s largesse, he however blamed the development on the committee that supervised the disbursement, noting that the challenges encountered in the disbursement would have been avoided if officials of the association had been involved in process.
In his statement, Oyedeji said, “We deeply appreciate Davido and hereby formally confirm that the fund was properly released. We also wish to confirm the disbursement though it was dotted with some hitches. We are not unaware of the inherent complications of identifying, verifying, and confirming credible homes and orphanages by the committee saddled with the responsibility.”
He said “We presented a total of 592 credible homes and orphanages across the country but only 292 were touched. Even so, several unregistered homes closed down homes and non-existing homes were also included in the 292 benefiting from the initiative,”
“From our calculations, we figure that the sharing modality adopted by the Committee assigned by Davido allocated the average rate of N25,000 per orphan in the beneficiary homes. We also noticed some dis-equilibrium in the rating, as some homes got fewer than the number of orphans in their homes while several others got nothing.”
“Nevertheless, we want to appreciate the committee for the stress they went through in the disbursement. We further note that the accreditation, verification, and disbursement would have been better and easier had our association officials been included in the panel chosen for the disbursement”.
The association however applauded Davido’s initiative, urging Nigerians to emulate the singer and reach out to orphans in homes across the country;
The Association therefore, called on the House of Representatives to strengthen the existing regulatory organs, rather than create another supervisory body to manage orphanages as proposed in a bill before the federal lawmakers.
