She kick-started the celebration on Monday, May 25, with the commissioning of an equipped Home Economics and Management Workshop as well as a library in her former school, Government Girls College, Maiduguri.
The Home Economics and Management workshop was provided with 15 sewing machines, knitting machines, among others, for the students to be taught how to become self-employed, while electric and gas cookers were also made available to students to learn how to cook for domestic and professional purposes. Similarly, the library was equipped with N3 million worth of books for learning purposes.
The first lady also laid a foundation for the construction of N20 million worth of hostel which is to accommodate 192 students in a story building. Though the building is to be built by the Borno government in a record time of six months, Hajiya Fatima Ali Sheriff promised to personally drill a borehole with an overhead tank to boost water supply in the school.
The first lady, thereafter, moved to a vulnerable and orphanage home where children without parents or lacking care are being housed and catered for by government. She presented bags of grains, 48 cartons of children beverages, pampers, toiletries, 25 wrappers and other sets of dresses for females and males among others. While speaking to the children, Hajiya Fatima urged those prepared for education to take their books seriously, promising to do whatever she could to ensure they were comfortable.
Mrs Sheriff was also at the Professor Umaru Shehu Ultra-modern hospital where she visited the children’s ward, female ward and the ante natal departments. At the children ward, she presented 24 bags of food items comprising soya beans, rice, beans and sugar, along with 13 cartons of beverages to be shared to the patients.
At the ante natal unit, the first lady re-launched a campaign on the need for women to feed well while pregnant to avoid mal nourishment even as she urged them to take advantage of her free maternal health services to prevent maternal and infant mortality. She also went round the female ward as she stopped by every bed to interact with patients, listening to their plights, making promises or making outright donations and giving words of encouragements. She then presented cash gifts of N5,000 to each patient, amounting to N600,000. She equally donated 26 cartons of antiseptic, sanitary pads, multi-vitamin capsules and other common drugs required in maternal health, as well as 50 anti-mosquitoes treated nets to the women.
Hajiya Fatima Ali Sheriff was also at the Maiduguri new prisons where she interacted with prisoners and paid fines for 13 of them, including a mother of six children. The first lady paid a total of N250,000 to free the convicts after she was told that they were first offenders.
The 13 inmates had appealed to Mrs Sheriff during the visit to help them pay their fines which they couldn’t pay and had to be in prison for different offences. They promised to be of good behaviours when freed.
