This is an outrage! Over 40 policemen and officials from the Waste Water
Management and Sewage Board, an arm of the Ministry of Environment,
this morning stormed the mechanic workshop of Nigeria's first woman auto
mechanic, Sandra
Aguebor-Ekperuoh, and sealed the place. Her auto workshop, where she
employs only female mechanics, is situated by 1004 in Victoria Island.
Sandra, who has been an auto mechanic for the past 27 years, runs an NGO that empowers women called the Lady Mechanic Initiative
where she has empowered and graduated over 150 women in Lagos State
alone. Sandra has over 150 women mechanics in Abuja and 100 women
mechanics in Benin where 50 of the girls are graduating in three weeks
time. 40 of them will be employed by Sandra immediately after graduation
in her Lagos, Benin, Kaduna and Abuja workshops. Some of the girls who
have passed through her are now self employed with their own mechanic
workshops and even training other female mechanics. This woman has done
so much to empower women in this country and helped to reduce
prostitution in her home state Edo, so it's so sad to see this happen to
her. We should be celebrating this woman, not taking land from her.
She trains these girls f
or
free, still gives them a salary and accommodates them. The land that
was sealed today houses the Lady Mechanic Workshop and a hostel for her
girls where the girls, some of them orphans, stay rent free.
Their reason for sealing the place? They are sa
ying the land belongs to the Lagos State government. Thing is, Sandra
has been on that land for the past 10 years. I've spoken with Sandra
myself and she's devastated but staying strong for her girls. See photos
of the sealed workshop after the cut...
The young man being manhandled by the police is Lady Mechanic Office Manager, Barr. Adeshina Adedapo Ajagunna.