Alhaji Fola Salu, Chairman, Ijede Development Foundation (IDF)
Alhaji Fola Salu, Chairman, Ijede Development Foundation (IDF), is the Chairman, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), of the popular Salu Sports, a company that deals in quality sporting materials and equipment. One of his shops was located at the Ladega/Alhaji Street junction, Ikorodu, in those days. He also has offices at the National Stadium, Rowe Park among other places.
The IDF Chairmthe Social Secretary of Sky Club, a club that the Ayangbure of Ikorodu, His Royal Majesty, Alaiyeluwa (Oba) Engr. Kabir Adewale Shotobi and other eminent and prominent personalities in Ikorodu Division, belong to.
He is a passionate and committed community developer that believes strongly in the development of the youths through educational advancement.
Under Alhaji Salu’s leadership, the IDF has improved, advanced and expanded its scope with achievements to show for it.
In this interview with Kunle Adelabu, Publisher/Reporter – in – Chief, THE IMPACT newspaper, the IDF Chairman bore his mind on IDF’s future plans, further support for students and one of the 2022 awardees, Alhaji Bashiru Akinwale Saminu, CAN, FCTU, among others. Excerpts.
THE IMPACT: I must commend the IDF for its impact on Ijede in the last 7 years or so, especially in the area of educational developments. Sir, how do you feel about producing these scholars and what is there in the future for them?
Alhaji Fola Salu: Thank you very much. The point is that we are thinking in terms of going beyond the award of scholarship alone. We felt and it has started and it is part of the programme held today. Because of our activities, a social club in Ijede decided to give us their building and that is the building that we want to use as the secretariat, but at one of our meetings, we decided that it is not enough to offer scholarship, we must also assist the pupils and students to be able to excel and qualify for scholarship. What do I mean, the pupils and students after the school hours do have a lot of distractions at home while doing their homework. At times, they want to be private to study, but because of the environment that they are in, they have challenges. That is why we decided that we should go for a mini – library so that students with assignments from school can come there to have their full time to study. Luckily, the serene location by the lagoon is very okay for studies and I am sure that by time it takes off, the students would appreciate what we are doing.
Aside from that, we had an information that the primary schools pupils are usually being taught computer science, unfortunately, we had that they are being taught only the theory aspect, and whenever they want to do practical, they are usually being taken to Ikorodu where they have timetable for Ijede, Imota and Igbogbo/Bayeku LCDAs which are in Ikorodu Constituency II. So, we felt that for parents that are managing, especially at this critical period, to give their wards money to eat in the school and again, provide such pupils additional money to transport themselves to Ikorodu for practical purposes, this may hinder thw pupils from partaking in that exercise. That was why we decided to organize a free ICT training project. That is one of the projects that we just launched today.
THE IMPACT: Looking at IDF Scholarship which is one of the foremost structured initiatives in Ikorodu Division that has been supporting students that maintained good grades throughout their academics, how do you ensure that scholars that IDF has been provided with scholarship, graduate from school?
Alhaji Salu: We have two categories of awards – current and the existing one. For the current award, we usually advertise for students to apply for scholarships and after receiving their applications, we will invite them for screening and also do a written test. They must meet up with our standard to qualify for the award. We also have an independent body that is responsible for the conduct of the screening and even as the chairman of the IDF, I don’t have access to the questions until after the examination. Secondly, we usually ask the existing awardees to submit their results every year for screening and assessment. Aferwards, those that qualified will enjoy the new scholarship. Through this, we are ensuring that they are serious with their studies and maintain good grades. We are also justifying the reason for giving them the award because the people sponsoring the scholarship have trust and confidence in us and we must justify that. So, any student that must qualify for the scholarship must thoroughly be screened for the award.
THE IMPACT: Sir, one of the awardees today is a man from very humble background, and someone that can be said to have risen from grass to grace, in person of Alhaji Bashiru Akinwale Aminu, who started as a labourer/cleaner with the old NEPA and rose to the position of an Assistant General Manager, Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) (Audit), how would you describe him?
Alhaji Salu: IDF decided to honour him as a role model, not only to the Ijede community but also as a shining example to the Ikorodu Division and Lagos State in general. This is somebody who started from a humble beginning as a Cleaner/Labourer at the former NEPA and due to his determination and seriousness, rose through the ranks and retired as the Assistant General Manager with the present TCN. You could see that with determination, anything is possible and that makes him a good example for all these young guys engaging in activities that are disorganizing the society, causing troubles and those having troubles with their studies like having reference or fail in an examination. Their present situation shouldn’t be the end for them. They should continue to struggle until they succeed. That was why we decided to make Alhaji Bashiru Akinwale Saminu, a shining example by presenting him the role model award today. In this regard, I think that employers of labour, especially the government, should try to assist those that are trying to uplift themselves. You can imagine a situation where a worker get a study leave and he or she eventually performed, though, you upgraded him, but I don’t think that years when such worker was granted study leave should be added to his or her years of service, rather, it should be deducted and be allowed to still serve for those years, because these are people that are retired but not tired. They are still useful to the company and the government. I think that the government should look into it as a national policy that years of study leave should not be added to the length of service of anybody that went on study leave when considering his or her retirement age.
THE IMPACT: Is there any plan for the IDF to expand its objectives to other areas: social, economic and political developments, considering the lagoon that is surrounding Ijede which still remains largely untapped and other areas too. What is the IDF’s plan in this regard?
Alhaji Salu: Thank you very much for the question. One thing about the IDF is that we are taking our time. For instance, when we started the IDF in 2014, we started with 10 scholarship awards, by the special grace of God, we have awarded more than 80 scholarship awards, despite the fact that we went on compulsory leave due to COVID. To answer your question, we are taking our time as I mentioned earlier. We want to get to a level that we will be sure that we have been able to stabilize before moving to another level. We see today that the scholarship award has come to stay. The next thing is, how do we assist the students further with ICT and good environment to study, which is why we launched the min- library and ICT centre and by so doing, we are contributing to the social and economic development of Ijede, Ikorodu Division and that of the state in general, because by so doing, we can now breed responsible people rather than allowing them to be on the street. With this free ICT training, once we train them, they can get to any level. I am talking of positive development and not the ‘yahoo’ (fraud) engagement. Once we are also able to achieve and stabilize that, we also want them to be useful to themselves, their family and the community. I encourage our young men to always have Plan B, they should not only aim at seeking and getting employment, they should also plan to be employers of labour. Our next target is to find a means of helping these graduates after their graduating from school. I can assure you that you will see our response to that, starting from our next programme.
