BY JOSEPHINE AGBONKHESE

“It is an amazing thing. I am still trying to calculate the dimension of what is going on; giving people, who are far from government, hope. It is mind-boggling. We can only eat so much, wear so much and we can only live in so much. What we do with the excess is what counts.”

These were the words of Mr. Diran Olajoyegbe, Founder, GIG Time Foundation. He was referring to the 11th edition of Pastor Matthew Ashimolowo’s widow empowerment programme in Ode-Omu, Osun State. No fewer than 10,000 widows received wrappers and cash gifts: 3,000 from Modakeke, 2,500 from the host town, Ode-Omu; 1,000, from Ikire, 1,500 from Ile-Ife, 2,000 from Oshogbo, among others. In the words of 83-year-old Salatu Ademuyiwa from Ikire, who has been a widow for 10 years, blessings naturally follow people such as Pastor Ashimolowo.

Ashimolowo

With articulate Joy Popoola, a Political Science student of Kings University, acting as interpreter, Mrs Ademuyiwa said: “God will continually lift him up. It is not easy. I have six children. Governments and anybody that is able should be doing everything to make life easy for use. But corruption has made it impossible for what is meant for the people to get to the people.”

However, Ashimolowo the Senior Pastor of Kingsway International Christian Centre, KICC, sees nothing extraordinary about his desire to help widows and orphans, because “true religion is to bless the orphan and the widow. That is why my wife and I pursue this vision. We give scholarship to 40 university students from this town. And once we got our own university, the 86 pioneer students were all on scholarship. 40 percent was paid for by my wife and I. The rest is by KICC. This time, about 60 percent are on scholarship.

“Although we have the passion to help, we can only do as much as our resources can go. This widow empowerment scheme is entirely my wife and I. So if anybody or government wants to help, they are welcome. Some friends support with some pieces of clothes and bags for rice, and we celebrate them. But what we do is that as soon as this programme ends, I begin to buy wrappers gradually for the next.”

At the event, which held at Kings University grounds, were royal fathers, politicians and other dignitaries, who assisted in distributing the gifts among the over 10,000 widows. The number was a far cry from the 308 Ode-Omu widows it began with 11 years ago. At the end, guests, security agents, married men and women all queued up to get shares from the bales of wrappers.