(NAN)
Widows under the auspices of “Nigeria Widows Pray Movement”, on Saturday in Lagos, prayed for peace and progress ahead of the 2023 General Election in Nigeria.
The women who held a walk from the Calabar Hall to the National Stadium, Surulere, prayed for divine intervention on the nation’s challenges, as part of activities to commemorate the 2022 International Day for the Widows.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the United Nations (UN) set aside International Widows Day on June 23 to arouse public consciousness on the plight of widows.
The theme for 2022 International Widows Day was “Sustainable Solutions for Widows Financial Independence” and that of 2021 as “Invisible women, invisible problem”.
NAN reports that the walk, amidst intermittent prayers and songs, rendered supplications to God for His intervention in the nation’s leadership and for peace and progress to reign.
In her address, the Coordinator of Nigeria Widows Pray Movement, Dr Blessing Onwuachi, said that the overwhelming challenges of the nation superseded the person plights of widows.
Onwuachi, who is also an Apostle and the President and Founder of Blessing O Foundation (BOF), said: “God is seeking partnerships with the widows to halt the troubles of Nigeria.”
Blessing O Foundation (BOF) is known for championing the course of widows in the country,
She said that the prayer was a movement that would be carried out in all the six geo-political zones of the Federation to elicit the involvement of more widows.
“It is a divine calling for the widows on behalf of Nigeria to cry out to God to save the country from lurking dangers capable of collapsing it, from occurring.
“God answers the request of widows quickly than any other person, for Him alone is the husband of the widows and He can swiftly move to do a thing out of the ordinary to console widows,” she said.
Onwuachi, also a widows rights crusader, described vote buying by politicians during elections as a social infraction, and advised women not to sell their votes.
She regretted that election irregularities that had engulfed the country’s electioneering had led to the re-cycling of unproductive persons as leaders who had run the country aground with its attendant poverty and despair on the people.
Onwuachi charged the women to pray for the country to secure the future of the children, youths and unborn generations.
In her remark, the Director of the programme, Mrs Nonye Ogboko, said that women were the worst hit in any crisis.
Ogboko urged the over 300 participants at the event to be agents of social change that would bring succour to the nation.
The director urged the women to ensure that the right presidential candidate was voted into office at the polls, to lessen the strife in the land.
Mrs Nyene Modupe, who lots her husband four years ago, said that the women stood as a point of contact for God’s divine change of leadership in the country.
She said that the programme had erected an invisible national lantern that would act as buffer to lighten peoples’ challenges.
NAN reports that the session was also used to counsel widows on widows rights and ways to seek redress in the case of oppression.
It reports that the widows also offered fervent prayers for youths involvement in politics.