http://www.sunnewsonline.com/webpages/news/national/2009/feb/27/national-27-02-2009-05.htm
A heart for the needy, handicapped
By Moshood Adebayo, Abeokuta
Friday, February 27, 2009
In far away United States of America where providence had taken him since the past 10 years, a Nigerian in diaspora, Prince Adeboye Subuloye continues to do his country proud.
Adeboye who hails from Ogbomoso, Oyo State , started living in the foreign country after he won the US diversity visa lottery. He traveled to America in company of his wife, 58-year-old Riskat and three of his six children.
Subuloye, who will be 61-year old, this year, is currently a security guard at the City University of New York (CUNY), School of Law , Flushing, and uses his meager earnings for the betterment of his poor compatriots back home in Nigeria .
According to him since his arrival in US, what had been uppermost on his mind was to offer help to the physically challenged persons in Nigeria – the blind, lepers and the generally disabled persons.
“It is my desire to help the underprivileged ones back home in Nigeria , my home country where I migrated to US about 10 years ago. Three years ago, I was in Nigeria in company of my boss in the CUNY School of Law who prefers me to call him my friend; he is Fred Rooney. We donated various clothings, food items and other valuables to help the handicapped people in Ogun and Oyo States ,”.
With the support of Fred and others in this university I have been contributing my own quota to my community unlike some Nigerians who never wanted to go home not to talk of assisting their fellow nationals back home.”
He further stated that he had offered his yet-to-be-completed house in Iseyin as study centre for the handicapped children in the area.
Subuloye, who is well respected in the School of Law by fellow workers and students, was in Nigeria last year to concretize his dream of providing school for the needy.
”The School for the Handicapped that I proposed to build is not ready yet, but I have dedicated my building that is yet to be completed in Iseyin for the take off of the school.
“We now have three classes, though initially we started with 50 students at the School for the Handicapped Children which was established with my friend, Chief Mudasiru Akanmu, a retired Major in the Nigerian Army.
“Chief Akanmu is the administrator of the school and it is free for the students,” he said, How we run the school? ”What I learnt is that once you have a heavy load try to lift it yourself for people to assist you, and that’s what really happened. The community in that area volunteered to pay the teachers’ salary; but all expenses about the house belong to me.”
The Lepers’ Colony, Iberekodo in Abeokuta , the Ogun State capital also benefited from Subuloye’s kindness. “Here we bought sewing machine for a son of a leper and also to someone who learnt barbing profession.”
His words: ”By next year, I will be coming back home to Nigeria; I am retiring in the university because I have had enough of America and it is time for me to return home to live in the midst of my people, and offer them more social and community services”
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