Widows, petty-traders rejoice as Uduaghan’s wife splashes empowerment

It was a pretty day for widows and petty traders across the three senatorial districts of Delta State on Wednesday as the wife of Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan, Deaconess Roli Nere, splashed gifts worth millions of naira on them.
The women, over 800, besieged the state’s Event Centre, Off Okpanam Road, Asaba, having heard that a lifeline support had been packaged for them by the First Lady.
Deaconess Roli, who is the chairman and originator of the Master-Care Foundation, aka I Care, said the gesture marks the beginning of good tidings for women in that category.
Addressing them, the governor’s wife, flanked by the state Commissioner for Poverty Alleviation, Dr. Anthonia Ashiedu; her counterpart in the Ministry of Woman Affairs and Community Development, Chief Betty Efekoda; wife of the Deputy Speaker of the state’s House of Assembly, Basil Ganagana; and seven other anointed women of God, described the support gifts as “a small token from God to put smile on their faces.”
Quoting 1 Timothy 1:10-12, she admonished the women to desist from being wayward owing to the demise of their husbands but put their trust in God, the comforter and husband of widows, who, according to her, “called them into His ministry.”
She said the over 800 women, comprising widows and petty-traders, were carefully selected from the 25 Local Government Areas of the state to partake in the first phase of the distribution of over 3,000 bags of washing soap and 3,750 bags salt.
According to her, each of the women had been penciled down for four bags of washing soap and five bags of salt.
She explained that the choice of giving the two products to them was informed by her recent discovery that most of the women go begging for credits after the death of their spouses before they get a bag to tie and sell, and in turn pay back, even as some in the processes run into shortage and are unable to pay back.
While she urged the beneficiaries to sell the product and it turn generate funds to purchase more to expand their market strength, she warned their representatives not to shortchange them in its sharing formula.
She was optimistic that in the next few months, the second phase of the lifeline, which she said “has been designed farmers”, would be rolled out.