By Peter Okutu

ABAKALIKI—The wife of Ebonyi State governor, Chief Rachael Umahi, yesterday, revealed the preparedness of the state government to grant automatic employment to 260 indigent widows from across the 13 local government areas.

Rachael-Umahi

Umahi’s wife made this known while addressing the women of the state during a one day workshop held at the Women Development Centre, Abakaliki, WDC, where she distributed over 400 wheelchairs to disabled persons through her pet project, ‘Family Succour and Upliftment Foundation Programme’.

She assured the commitment of her foundation to build 171 houses for widows, one in each of the 171 wards in the 13 local government areas of the state.

“I told my husband that you can’t say there is economic challenges. I assured him that Ebonyi women must benefit from the government. And as a listening governor, he graciously approved that 260 widows from the 13 LGA’s be placed on salary.

The wife of the governor further noted that her foundation has started to build 171 houses for widows across the 13 local government areas so as to alleviate poverty and suffering of widows and indigent children in the state.

She urged the people of the state, especially women to be patient with the government and stop being too critical of it, noting that there are great opportunities and benefit to get from the present administration.

The wife of the governor noted that God who called them into power would bring changes but warned them to stop gossiping around the state and should be ambassador of goodness to the poor and the widows.

Earlier, Dr Ntem Mbam who was a guest lecturer at the occasion said over 1.3billions of people in Africa are suffering from acute poverty just as he noted that Ebonyi has the highest poverty rate in south-east.

He said that poverty is caused by incessant war and communal crisis, especially in south-east where people prefer crisis instead of using dialogue to settle land dispute.

Ntem called on widows who are still young to re-marry instead of staying in their husband houses to engage in prostitution which according to him will increase their poverty rate.