Lions Club allows you touch people’s lives positively -Lynda Odu-Okpeseyi, District 404A2 Nigeria governor-elect

Lynda Odu-Okpeseyi has come a long way on the leadership trail of Lions Club. Starting in the clubs’ junior cadre of Leo, she had been an exceptional individual with a go-getter mentality― and a bouquet of achievements to show for it. From founding the Abuja Metropolitan Lions Club to becoming the first Constitutional Area Speaker for New Voices for English Speaking West Africa, her climb up the ladder was steady, and it was by a dint of hard work, visionary leadership and results. Today, it is not surprising that she is the District governor-elect, for District 404A2, Nigeria.

Lynda holds a Bachelor’s (B.Ed) degree in Business Education from the University of Calabar and an MBA and is in the final stages of an MSc Program in Human Resources Management at ESUT Business School and a PhD in Human Resources Management (In View) at the Atlantic International University, Honolulu Hawaii, USA.

She is also a recipient of the Duke of Edinburgh’s International Gold Award for young archivers.

In this exclusive interview, she gives a glimpse into her rise through the years and a hint of the work ahead ―the big project ahead of her in the Lion Year― and her resolve to continue her rich vein of performance as a leader.

When you are a district governor, it means you are the head servant of the district. You take charge of the district on whatever needs to be done, projects to be carried out, administrative and project wise, you are in charge. But you don’t do all these things alone; you have appointees, like regional chairpersons, zonal chairpersons and, of course, elected club presidFents and committee chairpersons to help you sail the ship to the end. Since you are in charge when you perform very well, all of the praises go to you first before the district; and if you perform badly, the praises also go to you first before any other person. I am the youngest female district governor in District 404A2. It feels great to be considered worthy to steer the affairs of the district. It is a huge task but I am ready to hit the ground running.

As a district governor, I am in charge of 17 states―all the states in South-South, South-East and part of the North, including Kogi, FCT, Kaduna, Taraba and Benue.

In Abuja, which is the Federal Capital Territory, our presence is strong…

Yes. Just recently a project came up, whereby a club in Abuja built a resource centre for the school of the blind. That same club also built a paediatric cancer centre. We have Lions Clubs that have renovated health centres. We have done so much in Abuja and Benue, but we are just trying to access Kaduna despite all the security challenges. Gradually, we will get there. Same for Kogi. Kogi just joined our district recently when we helped them during the flooding. Now that they are with us fully, we try to see how we can touch those clubs around the North.

I have been prepared right from the time I was elected as the first female district president for Nigeria. When we talk about Leo Club, Leo is the youth wing of the Lions Club and Leo means leadership, experience and opportunities, so I have been prepared since then, but I didn’t know it was going to come this soon. I decided to contest as second Vice Social Governor and won. I had continued preparing since then. The Lions Club has a structure: If you are going to become a district governor, you go through training, at District Governor’s School. They prefer you have six months of preparation, where they tell you what to do, how you can become a district governor. If you listen attentively and put all you have been taught into practice, you will make an excellent district governor. You can become a near-perfect one.

Lions Club has five major focus areas: diabetes, paediatric cancer, environment, relieving hunger and sight preservation. We are focused on diabetes for now. I am building a diabetes centre in Ogoja, Cross River State and it is going to be an ultra-modern diabetes centre where we can have screening, treatment and advocacy. I am happy to inform you that as we speak, the international office, Lions Club International are also giving us money to enable us to carry out this screening in all the 17 states and also build the centre.

One year. It starts July 1st and ends June 30th. All the lofty ideas you have, you must ensure that you do them within one year and give another person the opportunity to come and do something.

Once we are done with diabetes, the month of October is dedicated to sight. We intend to have free eye screening and thereafter those who have cataract surgeries will have their surgeries done. We will also give out glasses, not only to adults but also children. When children don’t perform very well sometimes, it is because they can’t even see the board. We want to focus on children because when you screen the eye at a tender age, corrective measures could be taken before the child becomes an adult. We are also thinking of doing cornea transplants. In Nigeria, we have not got used to donating our organs especially, the cornea. But we will try to get corneas from India and Kenya and see that we can make a few people who are cornea-blind see again. We have done it before and we can still do it again. That’s for sight. The month of November is for diabetes. I have told you extensively what I am going to do with diabetes. In December and January, we are going to focus on relieving hunger. We want each club in our district to, at least, feed a minimum of 500 people, touch 500 families, either by giving them cooked food or raw food. The next thing is pediatric cancer. Most people believe that their children will not have cancer, and when they see it manifesting in children, they think it is witchcraft. We are trying to create awareness so that when you see some of those signs of cancer, you just go to the hospital. And those who have been diagnosed and are undergoing treatment, we want to see how we can help them. We have a cancer centre already, a playground where the children are receiving treatment. They have TV to watch cartoons, games, and things that will make them happy while they take their treatment. For as many, as we can, we pay for their treatment, even if it is just for a month. Last but not the least, is the environment. There is so much to do with the environment. If you cut down one tree, you have to plant three more trees.

So, tree planting will be encouraged.

We are also campaigning against indiscriminate dumping of refuse. We want to ensure that we create awareness in a secondary school so that pupils know that they don’t have to drop things just anywhere. We are giving them good waste bins. We are going to get children to become ambassadors for the environment. They will talk to their fellow students about the environment, on how they can dispose of refuse. We intend to have essay competitions for all the schools in our area on a theme about the environment day and the top five students will be given scholarships, even if it is just for a session. Still, on the environment, we will focus also on parks and gardens, by providing trash cans and doing anything we can do to improve the ecosystem.

We will get funds from well-meaning Nigerians. We will talk to them to donate. From our members, we also get ourselves to contribute. Nearly every family has someone who is living with diabetes so people will be ready to contribute. I am using this opportunity to appeal to well-meaning Nigerians to please come and join the Lions Club. Let’s build this diabetes centre to help. The location is very important because it can serve Benue, Enugu and Ebonyi states, including over seven local governments areas from the central to the northern parts of Cross River State. Ogoja is strategically located to take care of people who are dealing with diabetes.

We are going to keep appealing to them. Everything now is mostly virtual, but we try to talk with them through letter writing and presentations. These companies have their corporate social responsibility, and when they believe or see a good project, they will donate. They might not donate as much as they donated 10 years back when they had so much funds; but whatever little contribution they give, if you put it all together, it will help to achieve the goal we have set.

A lot of people planted trees and there were training and lectures here and there. We had one in Calabar and one in Abuja. The clubs make up the district; so we have clubs in different locations carrying out different projects on the environment.

I have been a Lion for 22 years. I started as a Leo. I spent 10 years as a Leo and I proceeded to join the Lions Club.

With a sense of modesty, I want to say that as a Leo District President, I performed very well and I had international recognition for that. We donated 20 wheelchairs to physically challenged children. We gave scholarships for three sessions to children in Special Education, that is, those that are deaf and dumb. We also had cataract surgeries. There were so many things we did that year. After that, when I moved to become a Lion, I joined the Calabar that is sponsoring Lions Club. When I went for my national youth service in Abuja, I fellowshipped with the Wuse Abuja Lions Club and I was motivated to form my club. I was the chapter president of Abuja Metropolitan Lion’s Club, which is one of the best clubs in District 404A2 and Nigeria at large. That is the club I told you built a resource centre for the school of the blind. That is the club that has carried out three cornea transplants. That is the club that went to screen the eyes of the pupils of FCT School of the Blind and carried out 30 cataract surgeries of children whose parents thought were already blind. These children have since returned to normal school. So Abuja Metro was formed and when District 404A2 was formed (we now have 4 districts) I was a pioneer district secretary. What we have today as a district was one pillar. Some people worked on how to make the district grow. I am happy to say that I was one of them. After being a district secretary, I became a district leader for protocol, I became the district GLT coordinator which has to do with training and grooming of all the club presidents. So the training of the districts for these 17 states was in my hands and I think I did my job well. After being the GLT coordinator, I progressed to become the district GST coordinator. GST is Global Service Team, meaning that all the projects for the year were planned by me and I gave directions to the clubs. Then I became the first constitutional area speaker for new voices for English-speaking West African countries.

That position is exclusively reserved for those who are past district governors or past international directors but just as a Lion, not even a governor, I was able to take care of. I think they saw something in me and after being picked or nominated to become the new voices constitutional area speaker, I had encouragement from Lions; they encouraged me to aspire. So that dream I had that I thought I had forgotten was reawakened and I said, let me give it a try, and I did and I won and now, I am going to be district governor.

I am just a teacher, a civil servant. Now I belong to the Lions Faculty where we groom Lions; people who want to become presidents; people who are presidents who want to become teachers too to teach other people, I also groom them. Mentoring, that’s what I do. I love to teach, I enjoy teaching.

Absolutely. I need the government all the way. We can’t do it all by ourselves. We need government. We complement government’s efforts. So if you want to complement, it means there has to be a partnership. We need the government’s support to pull through because when government is in support of a particular project, it works well.

There is this innermost joy you get when you touch a life, make someone smile. You could find someone who is hungry and is likely going to die of hunger and you give food, something to sustain that person and the person looks at you. It’s like you are her last hope and the person says thank you. The thank you and God bless you, you cannot quantify.

There is this project that is very dear to my heart, the visitation to the leprosy colony. Women have a lot of clothes, bags in our rooms and then we have these neighbours there who do not have anything to wear. Let’s bring these clothes, wash them and go and give them to the needy neighbours. Lions Club allows you to show love, to affect somebody’s life positively. You don’t need any reward, the reward you will get from God, you can’t quantify.

We also have training. They are very beautiful topics starting from mentoring to the art of time-keeping, which you will find useful in planning your life. There are many pieces of training you can get from Lion’s Club, including Project Management. Every Lion who has been through training can manage even a World Bank Project. So it is good to be a Lion.

I am excited. I have this burning desire to put in my best and see that my district becomes the best in Nigeria. Nigeria will have four districts; I want my district to be the best in Nigeria and even the best in Africa. Our predecessors have worked very hard, but we need to build on the past. I intend to take it to the next level, that’s my dream for my district.

No, I am the third female of the 10 governors we have. The first two governors for 404A2 were females and we didn’t have any other females and there had been seven males before another female is emerging.

I want to work very hard and perform well. My theme is “Excellence through Service.” I want to achieve excellence in service delivery and excellence in all that I do so that men will give women the opportunity each time they decide to contest because they believe that the last female had performed well.

I am the youngest female district governor in Nigeria.

On August 28, we will have a public presentation of the district governor and it is going to take place at Rainbow Events, Abuja. It starts on Thursday, August 27 and the next day, 28, we are going to have an all-day training and a banquet for club presidents. On Saturday, August 29, we will have our first cabinet meeting and public presentation of the district governor. In November, we will be having our second cabinet meeting in Enugu where all the Lions will gather and see what we have done in the first half of the year, appraising where we have performed well and noting where we need to put in more effort. On February 9, 2022, we will have District Convention tagged ‘Canaan 2021’ in Calabar. The third cabinet meeting holds alongside the district convention. In April, we will have our fourth cabinet meeting and awards night in Port Harcourt. On that day, we will be appreciating all the Lions and club presidents, committee chairpersons, region and zone chairpersons who have performed very well in the past year, so awards and recognitions will be given to them on that day. While the convention will be taking place in Calabar, we will use that period to do the district’s part, after all the clubs have done theirs. A public presentation is very key, that is the day when the governor will be presented with all the things that we need to carry out this project.

Believe in yourself… You are enough! Prepare for the task ahead, brace up and put your best foot forward. A lot more will be expected from you. You will need to work extra hard because you are a woman. Be strong and forward-looking and be very comfortable in your skin.

I want to encourage Nigerians that though Covid-19 has devastated businesses and the economy, and a lot of people have lost their jobs, we shouldn’t lose faith, trust in God. Whatever is happening now is a phase, it will pass and things will become better.