Philanthropist, Odii speaks on his Foundation, calls for restraint in Biafra land

Success Damian: 

A Philanthropist and Co-Founder of Ebele & Anyi Chuks Foundation, Dr Ifeanyi Chukwuma Odii (Anyi Chuks) has said that his foundation is doing a lot in the empowerment and support for the elderly and the less privileged in the society. 

Odii who is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Orient Group and President, Ultimus Holdings, also called on the youths in the eastern part of the country to sheath their swords in order not to destroy their own people and economy. 

Odii who spoke to Journalists at Lilygate Hotel in Lekki, Lagos on Wednesday, disclosed that the Ebele & Anyi Chuks Foundation was established by him and his wife to take care of the have not in the society. He said “Ebele and Anyi Chuks Foundation was founded by myself and my dear wife 16 years ago. We are humanitarians, we didn’t want to open church to begin to look for tithing; we decided to do it with what God gave to us without bothering any person or being a burden to society. And it has been growing, blossoming and God has been helping us to drive the foundation to use it to touch lives in different ways, to provide shelter to people, help to take care of the needy and the older people, to give empowerment in the areas of education, financial empowerment, and skill acquisition empowerment.”

Responding to question on how many lives the foundation has touched, the philanthropist who is known to have built over 120 houses for people free of charge said, “We have lost counting.” 

Odii also spoke on the restiveness by south eastern youths, saying “There is never any conflict that is resolved by the hand of gun, it is never done, our fathers fought Biafra War, we lost over 3 million persons, young children, young women, older women, and while we are trying to recover again, we began to drift into the same methodology we used to embark on the same war we fought before. In as much as they are agitating, it is good to agitate, but then you should know that when you agitate, you draw a strategy that will make you not to be so violent. But what we are witnessing today in the southeast is not encouraging.” 

He said it is not known that an Igbo man can take up arms against his own brother, he then called for caution “It is not known for an Igbo man to take up arms against his brother, even if we are fighting an enemy, why must we be enemy within, we shouldn’t allow it because doing that is like trying to destroy our own plan by ourselves and we will become a laughing stock to others.” 

Odii also advised the youth on the sit-at-home order by the indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) saying it is an attraction to economic war. “I think that what has happened to us is that many of us are not well informed, you should know that there are two types of war, one is the war you fight with missiles, bullets which is the conventional war, but the worst war now is the one they call the economic war. It is the same kind of war that was practised during the Biafra war, whereby kwashiorkor killed over 1.2 million children. “So if you say that you don’t want your economy to grow, that means you want to go hungry, hunger will come and attack you, that is the worst war and that is where we are going now, no one is fighting us, we are now creating hunger war against our people, which is not good for us,” Odii maintained.