As if that was not enough, another friend of mine whose husband was a lecturer was also shot dead around Agidingbi, Lagos. I also had to go and commiserate with her. Not long after this, it happened to another friend when armed robbers went to their house and her husband was shot dead right in her presence! I was really scared and I started praying.

I told God that 'if I don’t want to do any thing but just because of this friend of mine you really want me to do something, give me ideas.' The last straw was a man whose wife was my junior and a very close friend of mine too. That was when I said I must do something.


One day, while sharing the vision, somebody asked, 'has it ever occurred to me that I couldn’t treat this issue properly in magazines the way I could on TV?' As soon as he said it, I just had a flash of that TV screen and goose pimples took over me. Soon we started talking about a television programme. Suddenly, I got the money to pay for the first two quarters and I paid even up front and that gave me the confidence that that was what God wanted.

The church and the widows
When you ask me about the church, you are really touching a sore point in me. You see when I minister in cChurches, I challenge the congregants on some things that are done in some other religion for widows and the needy. We Christians quote James: 1:27 most of the time on the care of the widows and the fatherless but I want to tell you that the church has not lived up to expectation.

In the days of the apostolic times, as recorded in Acts 2 the bible tells us that all the faithful gathered all their property and deposit them at the apostles feet and the apostles now share them out to every body so that nobody lacks anything.

But these days there are many people suffering in the church. Nobody bothers about them, and if at all they bother, may be once a year. This is common, not only among some cChurches but among many Christian groups who organise parties for them at Christmas.

At these parties, they share out two tins of rice, one litter of groundnut oil and may be two tins of tomato puree, salt, sugar. Some may go a little further by giving them four to six yards of fabric.

Many cChurches organise programmes like Children's week, Youth week and Elders week. The men and women have theirs. How many cChurches organise Widows' week?Even if there is one widow in the church, what stops them from giving that widow allowance every month?

How many times have they gone to visit her? There are so many people suffering in the church. It is good to go after new converts but charity must begin from home. The church hasn’t done much.

In the days of the apostle as recorded in Act 6, the apostles appointed people like Steven to attend to people regularly. That means they were giving out something to widows.

But Having said this, there is this advocacy coming out from groups like us and I see that some CChurches have started doing something. Some cChurches now meet with their widows may be once a month, at least I know of some parishes of The Redeemed Christian Church of God. I know that in some of the parishes, they have vigils for widows once a month.

So we thank God that with this type of advocacy and enlightenment, some things are being done. CChurches that have not been adequate in areas like this should repent. It is never too late to start.

Idle women suffer when husbands die
That is in two parts. First of all, don’t assume that these women do not work. In most cases they may be working but when the in-laws come, they don’t want to know whether they jointly own some of the property or not.

Some in-laws pack some of the widow’s properties including her clothes claiming the man bought them for her! It doesn’t matter if she has a good job. She starts all over again, so that is why the diet and other things change. If they throw her out of the house she has to spend good money to rent a good accommodation.

Some wives can't even collect the gratuity of their husbands. Some families go with the wives and share the money, only if they are generous. Some families collect it behind the wives because when some men would begin the job as bachelors, they put their mothers, fathers or brothers as next of kin and forget to change those names when they get married.

However, let's thank God that for the various advocacies and enlightenment that is coming out a lot of companies now insist on seeing the wife before they hand over the gratuity. Other share it into two, one half for the family and the other half for the wife.

Secondly, I found out that some of the women don’t work. This compounds the problem a lot. When they got here, we gave out what we call skill acquisition form so that many of them who are not working could quickly learn one or two trades like hat making, bead making, soap making and pomade making. Some put in for computer secretarial studies, running day care, snail farming, etc.

 We have about twenty different skill jobs. We are now arranging for these women to be placed somewhere. We have started going round to some people with shop or cottage industries to take one or two or four widows and train them free. Some of them have been kind enough to do that. We have some now training in a Sewing Institute while a man called us to train anyone who cares for horology (study of watches) we have over
40 women on our list who want to study hat making. We are so handicapped by money or else we would have arranged three-week course and get experts in hat making to train them.

Women who hide properties when husbands die.
When we talk from the Christian point of view, then we say that is not exactly right. We should not allow our fear of tomorrow start making us do things that will make people start doubting our stand with God. However, it’s that same bible that says you must be as wise as the children of the world.

There is an NGO in Kenya that specialises in doing this. They are a group of widows who, as soon as they hear a woman has lost her husband, they all go there and they tell her to give them
some of the things her husband left behind and each one of them take something, which they hide for her. It is that bad in Kenya!

They also stand with the widow through any widowhood rites. They stand against any rites they find dehumanising and if the in-laws want to proceed on it, all of them dress in black, turn their clothes inside out and they all march to the house of the head of the in-laws, begin to weep. That means they are carrying the dead to that man's house. Quickly, such in-laws leave that widow alone.

That as a strategy might not be godly for us as Christians but some cultures push people to extreme actions. Some in-laws are so wicked that they don’t consider the family of the deceased. The bible says money is a defence and God is the chief defence officer, chief security officer. So many children of the widows are suffering because they couldn’t raise money to go to school. So if a woman feels she can take one or two things to better her lot, I would not be able to comment on that. That is left to individual’s conscience.

But I as a Christian would not support that. I will rather advise women right now to work at her marriage. They should have a joint account with their husbands, a joint account that nobody can access without you and also, joint insurance. It makes you and your husband one indeed.

The wisdom in this is that you can present these papers in court as evidences that all these things were bought together by the two of you. Also appreciate that when you buy things, don’t let it be written as Mr and Mrs Johnson. If his name is Bayo and yours Shade, let it be written as Mr Bayo and Shade Johnson, so that Mr and Mrs cannot be interpreted as another woman somewhere.

Also, get a photocopy of the receipts and document them somewhere. We are not being pessimistic but wise. Get educational insurance policies for the children and invest.

Wives, husbands and wills.
It is not only good for them to ask their husbands they too should do it. Everybody should think of writing one. I am not against it and I don’t see what is against God in it.

In the bible, some of the old men would call their children and give them instructions of what to do after them. Abraham called his servant and made a kind of will concerning a wife for his son Isaac. Isaac also did the same for Jacob and Esau. Jacob also did the same for his twelve children. Joseph even brought his two children to Jacob for the same purpose.

Many church founders whom God called to start ministries put it in writing that when they die, so so person should take over from them. That is a will. The bible says a wise man will leave an inheritance for his children’s children and it is a wise man that will ensure peace in his household whether or not he is there. We must make peace and if a will will put peace in place then let it be so.

Remarrying
No we don’t. The bible says if you can't contain yourself it is better to remarry than to burn. If the church continues to close its eye towards that area we will have a lot of hypocrites in the Church. Many widows will come to church to say God is good, and at the end of the day go and wreck other people’s homes.

It may even be some brothers in church that will go after these young widows believing there is no attachment and before you know it a crisis has developed in the church. So the best thing for us is to address them as we address singles. Let provisions be made for them. Let them be properly counseled.

Some cChurches will tell their widows to go and mix with the singles. Young widows are not exactly singles. In my own church, we look at youths as singles but then we call some Glorious Singles because we know that some of these sisters are over 30. When you tell them to mix with singles, they don’t go and they don’t go with married women. So we try to create their own group for them the same way we have a special group for widows.

We need to minister to them on the necessary steps to take if they want to remarry. Tell them to believe that God will do and so they should keep themselves clean. Teach them how to create opportunities of being at places where they can meet people. If somebody comes to propose to you, this is how to go about it. And of course let them know that because they had married once, it can be difficult. The society has a way of looking down on single parents how much more widows.

Are you a widow?
No, but not until I feel the pain before I should know how to help others. My husband is hale and hearty. He is a civil servant so we can’t all be in the public eye.

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