Ododo Pledges Partnership as Knights of St Mulumba Unveil Endowment Fund

By The Insight

The Governor of Kogi State, Alhaji Ahmed Usman Ododo, has commended the Order of the Knights of St Mulumba, Nigeria, for placing victims of violence at the heart of its new charitable endowment, unveiled in Abuja on Thursday.

The Governor was represented by the Secretary to the State Government, Dr Folashade Arike Ayoade, at the ceremony at the Catholic Secretariat, Durumi, Abuja.

He described the KSM Endowment Fund and Integrated Charity Initiative as a prophetic act of charity that gives the wounded priority of place. “Government carries the sword; faith carries the balm,” he said. “Where the state pursues the perpetrator, faith must reach the survivor.”

The care of the widow, the orphan, and the displaced family, he said, was a moral duty shared by Islam, Christianity, and the traditional faiths, describing them as one moral inheritance held in different tongues.

Dr Folashade Arike Ayoade

Recounting his administration’s security record since January 2024, the Governor said Kogi State was no longer a safe haven for kidnappers and bandits. His government had absorbed 2,752 vigilantes into a structured framework, equipped more than 1,050 hunters across the 21 local government areas, established a Quick Response Unit, procured 50 armoured patrol vans, and deployed combat drones. A new Army barracks was established at Anyigba.

Twenty-three kidnap victims were rescued along the Ayegunle-Bunu Road earlier this year, he said. Two notorious kingpins, Kachalla Kabiru and Kachalla Ibrahim Battijo, were neutralised in February and June in operations with federal agencies, and a planned mass abduction of pupils sitting their examinations at Iluke was foiled. “These men were national nightmares,” he said. “In our state, they finally met the justice they had for so long evaded.”

He thanked President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for federal support, including access to air power, and cited the President’s National Counter-Terrorism Doctrine and the 5.41 trillion naira allocated to defence and security in the 2026 budget.

Beyond security, he said his government had committed 7 billion naira to rehabilitate 88 primary health care centres, upgraded more than 300 others, launched a state health insurance scheme in October 2025, and preserved free education, backed by a 30 per cent budgetary commitment. Widows, orphans, and displaced persons benefit from empowerment schemes under the state’s Community and Social Development Agency.

Where the state pursues the perpetrator, faith must reach the survivor.

The Governor praised the Order’s reach of more than 330 councils and 23,000 members, and noted with pride the Kogi indigenes in its leadership: the Supreme Knight, Sir Steve Zakari Adehi, SAN; Sir Johnson Jimoh; Lady Agnes Eneji; and Sir Dan Okolo.

He urged faith organisations of every tradition to build similar programmes for the wounded and the forgotten. “Government cannot do this alone,” he said. “Nor should it.”