Former governor of Rivers State and the immediate past Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, on Thursday, donated one hundred desks and chairs to Roguwa Primary School, Uke, Nasarawa State.
Also donated to the school are exercise books, writing materials amongst others.
The former minister who was represented by his aide, Israel Ibeleme, said the gesture is to help improve the standard of learning in the rural community.
He also urged the pupils to maintain the chairs and desks donated while pledging his continuous support to the school.
According to him: “Education is the only way to reduce crime in our society,” he said. “When I came here to conduct an assessment of the needs of this community, I noticed that the children were sitting on the floor to learn. I went home feeling really sad.
“Today, we have come with this token to improve the learning condition of these children because there are great men and women among them.
“Again, I want to say that we should not leave everything to the government. As individuals, if we can help fix little things in our communities or other places around us, Nigeria would be a better place for us all,” he added.
The headmaster of the school who received the donations, Benjamin Dauda, expressed gratitude to the former minister for the items and prayed God for more blessings for Amaechi.
“I am so happy today because before now, our children used to seat on the bare floor without a place to place their hands to write. But now, we have sufficient seats,” he said.
“The PTA built this classroom, UNICEF built this other one while the former governor, Tanko Almakura, built this one. But,the problem now is that there are only five instead of nine teachers in the school. We are currently lacking teachers in this school.
“This school has been in existence since 1985 and there are 270 pupils. The school is understaffed. We’ll be grateful if the government can send us more teachers,” he pleaded.