Sir Emeka Offor Foundation:Redefining Philanthropy

According to the Lebanese-American philosopher Kahlil Gibran, “You give but a little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.” Gibran’s keen insight succinctly captures the essence of both the message and messenger behind the Sir Emeka Offor Foundation (SEOF), one of Africa’s biggest.


Humanitarian foundations named after many national and international personalities exist to address critical developmental deficits that imperil humanity. Be it the Carter Foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Bill Clinton Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Sir Emeka Offor Foundation and thousands of others. They exist to improve the human condition and provide hope where there is hopelessness. Often they complement and interface governmental efforts to address significant gaps that could endanger the progression and stability of society.

As it were, caught in the web of the crisis of human development that has enveloped his milieu, influential, Anambra billionaire business mogul has clearly chosen that the best way to live is from the front and by not postponing the hard choices. By this philosophy he has lived and touched many lives. His life-changing exploits continue. Who is the messenger? He is the unassuming Sir Emeka, Orakwue, Chuka Offor, from Umuneke Kingdom in Oraifite, Ekwusigo Local Government Area of Anambra State. He is the founding chairman of the giant conglomerate, the Chrome Group. After three and half decades of bold, energetic business voyage, his entrepreneurial empire which traverses oil and gas, engineering, finance, insurance, hospitality, real estates flourished. With consistent humility, he is always quick to give God the full credit for his breakthroughs.

Hear him: “I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth. So I knew what life meant reaching out to people. I thank my God where I am today. This is a promise I made to my God - that I will continue to give back to the society and I am happy when people are around me and happy too. This I do in appreciation of God’s infinite mercy, by taking care of the indigents and the needy and encouraging them too.”

Sir Emeka Offor’s Foundation (SEOF) which actually started in 1993 was formally incorporated with the Corporate Affairs Commission in 2006. The foundation stands on a humanitarian tripod: education and educational development; second is health and humanitarian interventions and empowerment. The Foundation embodies the humanitarian spirit of its founder by seeking to reduce poverty and create life-improving economic opportunities for those residing in Nigeria’s most marginalized communities. Offor believes, “People are not poor because they choose to be. There are many able and creative people who could be making important contributions to society if they were not mired in poverty. In other words, God plants precious seedlings in the most unlikely places. He asks that we water these seedlings so that they can grow into the fruit-bearing trees he intended. Those of us who have received fortune’s blessings have a moral duty and civic responsibility to help the poor and vulnerable. For this reason, I established the Foundation.”

Sir Emeka Offor’s foray into the arena of charity and philanthropy has made people look at the outspoken business mogul from totally a new angle. Keying into the old wisdom that charity begins at home, SEOF commenced its interventions schemes in his home community, Oraifite, in Ekwusigo Local Government Council of Anambra State, assisting in the areas of educational infrastructural development and some little assistance and interventions within the widowhood sphere.

Today, Offor’s hugely impactful philanthropic tentacles has spread across Nigeria and abroad. He contributed over 50% to the building of Oraifite Civic Centre which stands as one of the best civic centres in the South-East of Nigeria. The Foundation has run a remarkable university scholarship scheme for over twenty years with the provision of a car and automatic employment for beneficiaries graduating with first-class degrees.

SEOF runs a widows’ cooperative society with over 3,000 members as of today. Under the auspices of this cooperative society, he sent a significant number of the widows to India for training on managing a cooperative society. They have subsequently been able to establish a microfinance bank and other thriving microenterprises. SEOF built and fully equipped one of the best Anglican churches in the South East of Nigeria, located in Oraifite, constructed a major community road (off Onitsha/Owerri road to Oraifite /Nnewi border), built Ekwusigo LGA Central Police Station. SEOF provided a free water scheme for the four quarters of Oraifite (Unodu, Ezumeri, Irefi and Ifite). In 2015, SEOF trained and empowered over one hundred youths in various skill acquisition programs financially to start their own businesses on completion of their training and has been a job creator with over 3,000 Nigerians under his payroll, indirectly creating over 10,000 jobs in addition.

Partnering with a U.S. based NGO, SEOF has donated books, reading materials and computers worth over $22 million to schools and communities in more than 18 countries in Africa including Nigeria. The Foundation has established a glaucoma research centre at the Department of Ophthalmology, University of Mainz, Germany and in conjunction, established a Nigerian fellowship for cataract surgery and glaucoma management at the university.

SEOF donated $2 million, which was matched with a grant of an additional $4 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to support the Global Polio Eradication Initiative launched by the Rotary International, the World Health Organization, UNICEF and the U.S. Center for Disease Control. Through SEOF, he entered into a long-term agreement with The Carter Centre to eliminate river blindness (‘onchocerciasis’) in Nigeria. Pursuant thereto, Sir Emeka Offor provided a $10 million grant to the Carter Center, the largest grant ever received by the Center, to facilitate the Center’s efforts in eliminating river blindness in Nigeria. Certainly, besides the religious arena, there hardly can be a better way to reinvent hope for teeming humanity!

Contributions/Impacts To Society
Health
On health, the Foundation has been very visible in the fight for polio eradication. In partnership with Rotary International, it has committed close to $10million. It has been foremost in partnership with Rotary International in the fight against polio in Nigeria. The Foundation has committed resources as well as been part of advocacy. It has also been part of national immunization campaigns. With the help of the Foundation, Nigeria has celebrated 3 years of non-wide polio. The Chief of Staff to the Foundation, Chris Okey Ezike, a retired Assistant Inspector General of Police, told Supremacy that “the African Committee of the World Health Organization has also accepted our document to certify us, if not for the Covid-19 pandemic, that would have happened. So this Foundation is glad to be part of these milestones by Nigeria and indeed Africa. Sir Emeka Offor is the polio international Ambassador of Nigeria, so his interventions are monumental. He has made a lot of interventions in Rotary”.

The Foundation runs a cottage hospital in Oraifite, where widows attend clinics free of charge. “We have four medical doctors in that clinic. We have been involved with maternal and child care with Rotary and has made significant contributions of about five hundred thousand dollars ($500,000)”. “Recently we are distributing medical equipment to tertiary medical institutions in Nigeria. It is an-ongoing process, we are in the first phase and quite a lot of hospitals have benefitted. So in health, we have been very significant.’’

Covid-19 Palliatives
Health is part of the Foundation’s cardinal mandate. We reasoned that government cannot do it alone as it is novel. “You need to situate where you think you have not only the intelligentsia but the expertise and the equipment to be able to dispense health, that’s why we have taken tertiary Medical Institutions’’, says Ezike. The Foundation donated 40 footer containers to various institutions. According to Ezike, “If you go to the South East for example, National Orthopedic Hospital Enugu was among the beneficiaries. Anambra State Teaching Hospital otherwise known as Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University Teaching Hospital received 40 footer container of medical equipment worth 380,000 dollars, Federal Medical Centre, Yenegoa, Federal Medical Centre, Katsina and State hospital located in Daura, all benefitted. Some weeks ago, we were in Ilorin and Jalingo. Jalingo benefitted one 40 footer container of Medical equipment and University Teaching hospital Ilorin also benefitted.’’

“In Kebbi, one of our partners Kardimiyya for Justice and development Initiative recommended the state hospital in Kalgo and they also benefitted one container, University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital also benefitted. Then you come to special interest; medical officers, nurses, and so on are front line people within the covid-19 space but we seem to forget security as well, the police, the military are all front liners. So the Nigerian police force benefitted one container.

“We also went to Ahmadu Bello Teaching Hospital where we donated 100 beds, a complete sets because it had the cupboards, mattresses, etc. They used those donations to equip their isolation centre. We are also going to deliver 100 beds from the same company to University Teaching Hospital Ilorin and about 50 to Nigeria Police Force to equip the Muhammadu Buhari hospital which the police are fixing within the cantonment.

Education In education, the Foundation has made book donations to institutions of higher learning, not only in Nigeria, but in 18 other African countries. It has distributed books to the tune of about $30 million with over 300 students enjoying its scholarship. From Universities to Polytechnics, Colleges of education, both Federal and State, it has donated. The Foundation justified the reason thus: ‘’and why do we donate books? In Partnership with BFA, Books for Africa Atlanta, we found out that books constitute the warehouse for knowledge. If students could not access books, where do they derive knowledge from, two: it improves literacy both for children and for adults and of course thirdly, we don’t pay lip service to education and educational development. We keep saying that government alone cannot do it all in the education and health sectors’’

“We have also given scholarships, over 300 hundred students have benefitted from the scholarships, tertiary, secondary scholarships within Nigeria, and some of them are being sponsored overseas. One of our products made a first class in the University, he studied Industrial Chemistry. We are glad that we are making the desired impact in education”, Ezike told Supremacy.

A breakdown of the 2020 book distribution programme of the Foundation shows that over one million, four hundred and sixty thousand (1,460,000) volumes of books were distributed to eighty (80) Universities, twenty two (22) Polytechnics, thirty seven (37) Colleges of Education, seven (7) Public Libraries (one from each of the six (6) Geo-political zones including FCT), one hundred and eighty (180) Primary and Secondary Schools each.

Empowerment
The third leg of the Foundation is empowerment. It runs an empowerment programme through a cooperative society that has metamorphosed into a micro finance for the widows numbering up to 3000. “Our widows’ cooperative society is populated with widows numbering 3000. It started with stipends but today they have constituted themselves into a Micro Finance groups and they give out loans to themselves with little interest. If you get to Oraifite, it is amazing what they do’’, says Ezike.

Partnership
The Foundation is in partnership with Bill and Melinda Gates and many other international partners. It also partners Future Assured, an outfit of the first lady, Dr. Mrs Aisha Buhari. “We are in partnership with Bill and Melinda Gates in the area of health. We are also partnering with Carter centre in the eradication of river blindness in 7 states of the federation, the 5 states of the south east, then Edo and Delta States.

Bill And Melinda Gates
In partnership with Rotary International, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation provides a 2:1 matching grant for all financial commitments to Polio.

Books For Africa (BFA)
In the last 9 years, SEOF has annually distributed Textbooks, Computers and Educational materials worth 30 Million USD, to Schools, Colleges, Universities and other educational institutions, in Nigeria and 19 other African Countries. In partnership with Books for Africa USA, over One Million, Four Hundred and Sixty Thousand (1,460,000) volumes of books covering a wide range of disciplines were distributed to Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Institutions Nationwide, FREE OF CHARGE, in the 2020 National Book Distribution Programme.

Rotary International And The Rotary Foundation
In partnership with Bill and Melinda Gates, SEOF has provided over 7 Million USD towards Polio Eradication. 500,000 USD has also been committed towards Peace Building and Conflict Prevention, with over 500,000 USD donated to fund global projects in Maternal & Child Health as well as Basic Education & Literacy.

Savannah Centre For Diplomacy, Democracy And Development (SCDDD)
SCDDD partners SEOF in areas of Peace building and conflict resolution/management. We are in discussions for the Continuous Engagement for National Unity (CENU) project.

Aisha Buhari Foundation/Future Assured Initiative
This Aisha Buhari Foundation/Futured Assured provides partnership in the areas of education/educational support, Health/humanitarian services, empowerment and Widows’ initiatives.

Khadimiyya For Social Justice And Development Initiative (KSJDI)
These are our partners for projects executed in Northern Nigeria. Recently, SEOF funded, with over 70 Million Naira, the provision of water boreholes to over fifty (50) communities in Kebbi State.

Medshare
Partnering with MedShare, SEOF has imported about Fourteen (14) Forty-Feet Containers of Medical Equipment/Supplies which have been distributed to designated Federal / State / Hospitals and health Institutions.

Map International
SEOF partners MAP International for the procurement and shipment of medicine and medical supplies. This year, about three (3) 40-ft containers were imported in continuation of the First Phase of Medical Supplies Distribution Programme.

Andrew Young Foundation
SEOF Partners Andrew Young Foundation in support of Global Ideals of Education and Leadership.

Carter Centre
The Carter Centre are our partners in the area of eradication of River Blindness in seven (7) states of Nigeria viz Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, Abia, Imo, Delta and Edo. SEOF pledged 10 Million USD.

Federal Ministries And Agencies
SEOF partners with the Federal Ministry of Health and Federal Ministry of Education to facilitate the delivery of healthcare and educational interventions, respectively. The Federal Ministry of Finance graciously supports the facilitation of our documentation processes in humanitarian interventions. We also partner with the NPHCDA for Polio Eradication initiatives and Primary Health.

Appreciation
In appreciation, the Foundation have received commendations and encouragement from their numerous beneficiaries for extending hands of fellowship to humanity and mankind.

In a letter of appreciation by the Nigerian Police Force personally signed by the IGP Mohammed Adamu, he wrote, “I write to acknowledge with deepest appreciation the receipt of medical and educational items that were donated by the Sir Emeka Offor Foundation to the Nigerian Police. By the donation, you have once again demonstrated your exceptional philanthropic nature as well as your commitment to the enhancement of the health and educational advancement of the country. Your kind gesture has in no small measure, aided my leadership in the equipment of the newly commissioned Muhammadu Buhari Police Hospital, Abuja as well as the advancement of my goal for the enhancement of the capacity of the Force Education Department”.

In the same vain, the Gombe State Governor, Muhammadu Inuwa Yahaya, wrote, “it is with deep sense of gratitude that I write to appreciate and acknowledge the receipt of 180 cartons of Books, Educational Materials and One Forty Feet container load of Medical Equipment and Supplies donated to the Gombe State Government by your noble Foundation. The magnanimity and timely intervention will go a long way in improving the well-being of our people, particularly at this trying moment when the entire world is bracing up to contain the spread of Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic.

The Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. T.Y. Buratai in his letter of appreciation thanked the Foundation for the donation of One Forty – Footer container load of medical equipment and supplies of volumes of books covering a wide range of discipline to the Nigerian Army for distribution to primary, secondary and tertiary institutions. The Nigerian Army is indeed very grateful for the kind gesture which will surely be of immense benefit to our hospitals and schools. From the Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital, the Chief Medical Director, Prof. A.U. Hamidu on behalf of the Management and Entire Staff of the hospital express their appreciation and gratitude for the donation of 100 units of hospital beds, being the contribution of the Foundation towards the fight against Covid-19 pandemic. “Indeed these kind gesture will go a long way in improving quality healthcare service delivery. I would like to assure you that the items donated would best be utilized”.

In their appreciation letter, the Chief Medical Director of Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University Teaching Hospital, Amaku, Awka, Dr. Basil Nwankwo, wrote, “I write to acknowledge the receipt of the donations made to our hospital by AIG Chris Ezike (Rtd.) on behalf of Sir Emeka Offor Foundation. I promise that the items will be used for the purpose in which it was brought as stipulated in your letter.

For the Leko Abdurrahman Hospital, Daura, Katsina State, the Chief Medical Director, Dr. Ibrahim Mamman Garba expressed their sincere appreciation on the donation of medical equipment and supplies to the hospital. “The donation received is going to transform the delivery of healthcare services to Daura Community and surroundings in particular, the entire Katsina State at large including Niger Republic. The lives of challenged and less privileged people of the community will definitely be affected by this consignment”.