Dr. Okwun Ojah: A Golden Heart on a Mission of Service

There would probably be no single piece comprehensive enough to capture the entire gamut of his humanistic deeds, except, perhaps, his memoirs in due time. He is evidently one of the few persons whose sense of fulfillment reside in the happiness of those whose lives they have positively touched. How else would one attempt to profile a regenerative dedication to selfless humanism as demonstrated through the years by Dr. Okwun Ojah?

To say that he is an accomplished man would be an understatement. Evidently one of the most educationally and socially exposed Nigerians, Dr. Okwun Ojah could have chosen to indulge himself and his family enjoying the bountiful rewards of his hard work over the years. But rather than build higher fences to restrict access to his paradise as many wealthy persons are inclined to doing, he chose to build a longer table to accommodate as many people as are lucky to be aware of his open invitation. And, remarkably, the table keeps getting longer.

Beyond his well-known philanthropic credentials which include his construction of a one-storey building housing a modern civic center and state-of the-art ICT centre for his community; reconstruction of the Amangwu-Amaekpu Ohafia road; provision of transformers for electricity power generation; and distribution of food items, hand sanitizers and face masks to many rural communities across Ohafia as part of his COVID-19 palliatives package, Dr. Okwun Ojah recently commissioned a mega project to build water boreholes across in many communities within and outside Ohafia Ancient Kingdom.

Under the Clean Water Project already in progress, water boreholes would be located in five major communities in Ohafia, specifically Amaekpu Ohafia, Akanu Ohafia, Ebem Ohafia, Elu Ohafia and Okagwe Ohafia. The boreholes would be equipped with standard multi-purpose water tanks, sumo machines, heavy duty generators and solar power installations to ensure that lack of electricity power supply would never prevent the people from accessing clean water. The project phase in Amaekpu Ohafia has been completed while those of Akanu Ohafia and Elu Ohafia are at various stages of completion.

In a chat with AFNEWS, Dr. Okwun Ojah informed that the next phase of the water project would commence in Isuikwuato as soon as work is concluded in Ohafia communities.

Responding to quality assurance concerns raised by AFNEWS regarding the proliferation water boreholes in rural and urban communities across the State, Dr. Ojah assured that the project was designed in line with the regulatory policies of the Federal and State governments on water resources. He further assured that the project meets targeted specifications of the UN water policy, goal number 6 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG6), and the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) program which is also a major focal area of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in Nigeria.

In his words, “The UN Water Policy as well as those of the Federal and Abia State governments recognize the nexus between climate change and water, and the fundamental roles of water in sanitation, hygiene, health, agriculture, energy, biodiversity, and sustaining the ecosystems. These policies have observed that climate change is making extreme weather conditions more frequent, increasing variability in the water cycle, and making it imperative to evolve targeted strategies to assist low-income populations, especially rural dwellers, to access safe drinking and domestic water in spite of weather conditions. This project is structured as part of such targeted approach, with potentials to generate direct employment for those that would be managing the installations at various levels of project implementation.”

A native of Amaekpu Ohafia, Dr. Okwun Ojah has been variously described as a man with a golden heart on a selfless mission to serve humanity. He has never attached political or other personal interests to his philanthropic programs. He is lawyer and medical doctor by training, practicing in Australia where he also resides with his family. He has been recognized as a fellow of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners; Fellow of the College of Rural and Remote Medicine, Australia; and Fellow of the Australian College of Legal Medicine. A two-time recipient of the prestigious Abia Facts Newspaper Awards for community development, he is the author of two critically acclaimed novels – ‘It Never Rained, It Poured’ and ‘The Bloodless War of the Mind’. He has been conferred with the exclusive chieftaincy title of Onwa Ohafia Ancient Kingdom by all the Royal Fathers in Ohafia Local Government Area.

SOME PICTURES FROM THE FIELD