By Dennis Agbo

ENUGU- Wife of the Deputy President of Senate, Dr Nnwaneka Ekweremadu on December 23, celebrated Christmas with widows from Enugu West Senatorial zone.

The celebration was marked with donations of gift items to widows in what has become an annual tradition for the Ekweremadu family since 1997.

At this year’s occasion, 250 widows drawn from the five local government areas in the senatorial district, smiled home with N10.000, a bag of rice and wrappers each.

Speaking on the occasion, Mrs Ekweremadu said reaching out to widows and the less privileged in the society during the festive periods was the tradition of the family. She enjoined all people of means to cultivate happiness in others by freely giving to those who are not so privileged.

Dr. Nwnneka Ekweremadu giving Christmas gift items to a widow in Enugu

Also speaking, her husband,   Senator Ekweremadu said the spirit of sharing was an African tradition that generates happiness and ensures social stability in the absence of a formal social security mechanism that caters for the less privileged in our society.

“I grew up in a system with an inbuilt social security policy. You know in the advanced world, there is a social security network that takes care of the old and vulnerable, the unemployed, and the poor and so on but here, our system does not make allowance for that.

“I grew up in a system that has an inbuilt social security mechanism where we are our brother’s keepers; where we cater for each other. If you don’t have yam, you share from the one of your neighbour and you can go to your neighbour’s house to get light and lit your house and when somebody gets admission to university, people contribute money to ensure the person gets education.

“Everybody’s problem in those days was each other’s problem but as the society progressed, some of those attributes of our community began to dwindle but some of us who believe that we have to keep it especially when government has not come up with a defined social security programme.

It is important that we ensure that everybody counts, that everybody enjoys the good things of life, that whatever God has given you, you need to find a way of sharing it with the rest of the community. This way, we can generate happiness and help secure our system,” he said.