No Birthday Celebrations For Governor Obiano At 66, Please

1. As Governor Willie Obiano will attain 66 years on Saturday, August 8, 2020, a lot of people and groups from across Anambra State and beyond have been preparing to celebrate the birthday. The Anambra State Government appreciates this show of love, fraternity and solidarity.

2. As has become the tradition since the Anambra State people gave him the mandate to lead them in November 2013 and generously renewed it four years later in an unprecedented manner, the governor will merely mark the event, and not celebrate it. Governor Obiano and his immediately family will mark it with prayers and a private mass to thank God for his abundant blessings to him, including his eventful life and robust health. He will use the opportunity to meditate on his relationship with his creator. Individuals, groups and organizations are enjoined to pray for him and his family.

3. With the coronavirus still ravaging the world, the governor feels that the times call for sober reflection rather than gaiety. Covid-19 has caused deaths in their hundreds of thousands across the globe, inflicted severe health challenges on many more people, caused businesses to collapse and cost millions of people their jobs and billions their most cherished relationships. Ndi Anambra are not free of this phenomenon.

4. We encourage those who want to place advertisements in the mass media to congratulate Governor Obiano on his 66th birthday to donate the monies for such paid messages to the foundation which caters for people with mental health issues at a special home for them in Nteje, Oyi Local Government Area. People with mental health challenges are the most marginalized and discriminated against in our society. They, therefore, need a lot of financial and emotional support. Those who want to donate for their upkeep are advised to send the donations to the Caring Family Enhancement Initiative (CAFI), with First Bank account number 2026510710. God, indeed, loves cheerful givers (2nd Corinthians 9: 6-7).

God bless Anambra State, the Light of the Nation.

C. Don Adinuba

Commissioner for Information & Public Enlightenment.