The lawmaker representing Iseyin/Itesiwaju/Kajola/Iwajowa federal constituency in the Federal House of Representatives, Honourable Shina Peller, held first ever town hall/feedback meeting in the history of the constituency on Tuesday in Iseyin.
The feedback meeting witnessed the presence of traditional rulers, religious leaders, leaders from other political parties, professional associations and groups, women leaders, youth and student leaders including physically challenged persons from the four local governments within the constituency.
The meeting, which will continuously hold quarterly, also served as an avenue for Hon. Shina Peller to empower the people of Iseyin/Itesiwaju/Kajola/Iwajowa federal constituency through the Shina Ayo Empowerment Program (SAEP).
Empowerment equipments like sewing machines, grinding machines, a popcorn machine, electric sprayers for farming, deep freezers, ICT equipment and others worth over twenty million naira were given out freely to people based on their individual needs as indicated by the SAEP’s Need Assessment report.
Also, 200 people benefited from the business fund made available at the meeting by Shina Peller as startup capital for various small scale businesses. Each of the beneficiaries of the business fund received fifty thousand naira.
In his speech, Shina Peller explained the rationale behind the meeting, which was to fulfill part of his campaign promises of running an inclusive and purposeful representation that will be devoid of partisanship and selfishness.
In the same vein, Peller used the avenue to report back to his constituents about his legislative activities so far, which he said included sponsoring a bill on the need to tackle the scourge of rape and sexual offenses against children, amendment to the ecological challenge bill, pending bills on Iseyin/Oyo road and Okeho/Iganna road respectively.
In addition, Peller said he has a pending bill on the need to improve on the security apparatus in the country by introducing ward security cadets (vigilante) to work in tandem with government security apparatus.
Emphasizing on the need for all to embrace unity, Peller explained that disunity in his constituency and Oke-Ogun at large has continuously led to the underdevelopment of the region and appealed to everyone, especially traditional rulers, political and religious leaders as well as the youths, to embrace and preach unity of the region.
In his words, “There is a difference between politics and governance. The time for politicking has gone, this is the time for governance and we shouldn’t allow our political and religious differences to hinder our development as a constituency, a region and a nation at large.”