By Akinwale Kasali
Founder of Women Trafficking and Child Labour Eradication Foundation, WOTCLEF, Titi Abubakar has opened up on her challenges, most especially the neglect her Pet Project is experiencing from sponsors and prospective sponsors.
She said Nigerians who once supported her project have backed out because she is the Wife of former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar.
Titi said that people believe she is married to a politician and business tycoon, so there isn’t any need to support her.
The founder of the Abubakar Titi Schools in Yola, Adamawa State said she would never be deterred by the development, stressing that she is determined in her efforts of seeing complete eradication of the twin evils of women trafficking and child labour across the globe.
The women tracking and child labour eradication advocate revealed that she has been running the affairs of the foundation she founded some 24 years ago with the stipends provided to her for food by her husband.
Speaking in Abuja at the weekend after being conferred with the Champion 2023 Leadership (Heart of Gold) Award,by Champion Newspapers Limited, she thanked the Media Organization for recognising her relentless efforts in the fight against women trafficking and child labour and according her the award.
She said:”I have been doing this job for 24 years and nobody has ever recognised me. They have not called me for recognition and I said to myself that I’m just doing God’s work, that my reward is in heaven.
”There was a day I put an advert in the newspaper that these children I’m taking care of are not my children but Nigerian children ,that even if it is one Penny, they should all contribute, and still nobody contributed anything. They said after all,
I’m Atiku’s wife. It is one thing to be married to Atiku and it is another thing to have the passion to do what I’m doing. And because I have the passion for what I was doing, I continued to strive.
“When I was in the Villa, I was feeding these children with government ‘s food and out of government, I’m still taking care of these children.”
She, however, appreciated all those working in the Foundation, saying they have stood by her even as she doesn’t have so much money for them.
“I have been carrying this crusade for so many years. These people you see working with me, I don’t have so much money to give them but they are working.
“Our children don’t only go through primary schools but secondary and tertiary education. Two of them just returned from Nasarawa,they are graduates now and here I’m still standing strong,”she said.
Going down memory lane she said on the founding of WOTCLEF led to the establishment of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking Persons,NAPTIP.
Continuing,she said:” I thank you all for coming, especially those that donated, because I have been doing all these all these years with my food money, the stipends my husband is giving me and I’m happy to do it because I’m serving humanity.”
She hailed the organisers for not only recognising her good work but also chosen to give her the coveted award .
”It is my utmost pleasure and delight to be here today as a recipient of Champion Newspapers’ Leadership Award. I am the champion of champions today. Champion Newspaper, you are the only one that brought me out to come into a gathering like this and for people to donate to my cause and to the Nigerian cause,because these children are not my children and they are all over the country.
“It is my utmost pleasure and delight to be here today as a recipient of Champion Newspapers’ Leadership Award 2023, being conferred on me today in recognition of my relentless fight against the twin evils of human trafficking and child labour.
“Through my foundation -WOTCLEF, Women Trafficking and Child Labour Eradication,I want to commend your initiative and organisational efforts which has made it possible for this galaxy of notable men and women in our society to be under this roof today, for this epoch making event. I’m deeply touched and I cannot thank you enough.”
Mrs Abubakar said, ”The Champion 2023 Heart of Golf Award has further spurred my determination, inspiration and enthusiasm and motivated me further to pursue this cause to humanity to logical conclusion”.
