The National Senior Citizens Centre said the construction of multipurpose senior citizens centres across the states was being delayed because lands were not made available for the project.
Director General of the Centre, Dr. Emem Omokaro, disclosed this to the News Agency of Nigeria on Sunday in Abuja.
She said the construction of the facilities for the elderly was under the “One Community One Senior Centre Project” of the NSCC.
According to Omokaro, for a beginning, the Office of the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Sustainable Development Goals had agreed to finance the construction of 10 centres across states within the year.
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She said: “We have a partnership with the SDGs office.
“They want to build 10 centres this year.
“But what we are looking for is land.
“So, the condition the SDG’s office gave is that we should get them land in any state, they will build and equip them for us.
“So, we are reaching out to the state governors.”
Omokaro, however, said that for any state to benefit from the SDG’s largess, the Governor must be ready to build and equip another centre in a rural area within the state
She said: “Our partnership with the SDG’s office is to build one senior citizens centre in the metropolis.
“While we are doing that, the state government will now build the one in the rural area.
“What we want is, build one and get one free.”
The DG also disclosed that she had signed a Memorandum of Understanding with some private sectors to take the construction of the centres as their public social responsibility.
Omokaro added: “One community, one senior citizen centre is a public-private sector initiative because we don’t have the money to build, but we have the strategy to do it.
“We are already partnering with the private sector who would build and donate as their corporate social responsibility.
“So, very soon Nigerians will see these centres coming up through the different strategies that we are using.”
Speaking on the importance of the centre, Omokaro said it would feel the gap in the feeling of rejection and loneliness many senior citizens were going through in the villages and cities where they reside.
She said the centre would provide functional, secured and socially active community space for physical, social, intellectual and emotional well-being of Nigeria’s senior citizens.
The DG said the centres would promote education and counselling programmes, skills acquisition, volunteering opportunities, literacy, arts and leisure.
She added that there would be health, recreational programmes and opportunities for social assistance to senior citizens in need at the centre.
The D-G said the centre would also provide a unique opportunity for both the young and older persons to exchange ideas and provide counseling services to the youths.
Omokaro said: What is good about this project is that, though it focuses on older persons, but it is truly inter-generational.
“We design the programme in such a way that our youths will have life coaches as mentors and the senior citizens are going to have tutors for ICT.
“It is an impactful initiative for the inter-generational and we are going to upscale our artisans, so that whatever our older persons want to do to promote their healthy living, it can take care of that.
“We already have the prototypes, we have already designed our policy guidelines and the standard benchmark of programmes that will be run in that centre.
“We have two type of centres.
“We have the centre for the metropolis and the one for rural community.
“For example, if you build one centre in Abuja city, it will not be the kind of centre you will take to the council areas.
“For instance, the centres in the rural areas will cater more on social assistance, recreation, sport, traditional games while those at the city centres will cater more for literary learning, games, and others base on socio-economic status.”
Omokaro also disclosed that NSCC is collaborating with the National Identity Management Commission on the issuance of multipurpose identity card for older persons.
The card, according to her, would provide age friendly services to the senior citizens in such a way that holders of the ID card could access pharmaceutical, aviation, railway discounts, as well as priority access in public places.
She said: “When you see a senior citizens with this card, you must get up from the seat you are already sitting down on, because they are the first priority
“The card is the face of our campaign that senior citizens deserve to be treated with dignity and dignified services.”
Omokaro said the card would come with a social safety net for the poor elderly in the rural areas, who cannot access banking services.