By Christy Anyanwu

Senior pastor of Kingsway International Christian Centre (KICC), Matthew Ashimolowo, recently feted widows in his hometown, Ode Omu in Osun State during which he presented gifts to them. The UK based cleric spoke about the state of the nation.

What new year message do you have for Nigeria?

Well, we celebrate the government of Muhammadu Buhari and it’s obvious that he is a man who is very forthright, a man who wants to see that good things will prevail for the people, righteousness will prevail and there is an equi-distribution of the wealth of the nation. Unfortunately, it does not seem so on ground but my counsel to the government will be to do all they can.  Infact where possible to declare a Marshal plan not for North East Development Commission (NEDC) and Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC). There was a man called Marshall, when Europe was destroyed because of the Second World War, America now came up with a marshal plan to rebuild a whole of Europe. America took their own money to rebuild destroyed Europe to help Europe, to bounce back.

Nigeria needs a marshal plan. E for electricity, E for Economy and E for environment which includes Agriculture and there’s E for re-Engineering which includes IT, Telecommunications, etc. So we need to declare a marshal plan to rebuild the nation. When I say marshall plan it s not like they are quenching one fire in the north east, they are quenching one fire in delta when the Yoruba’s start their own what will we do. We need a marshal plan. That will make everybody sit down. This marshal plan has roads inside it, it has infrascture inside it, we need marshal plans not just for one area.

In the president mandate, he spoke about fighting corruption, insecurity, improving the standard of the economy when he gets to office as president. Has he in  anyway fulfilled these mandates?

I think in the light of the possibilities available to the president, he has done the best he can do. When you come to a broken system, you need to first have a prognosis before a prescription. Nigerians are always impatient. We don’t want prognosis, how will you fix a car that has one thousand and one things bad. It will first of all isolate those things one by one. Know what they are before you can fix it.

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Some people are calling for restructuring, what’s your take on that?

Maybe that is better than breaking the nation into nations. Nigeria cannot survive if it breaks into multiple nations. As a 65 years old now going to 66. I’m more worried now than I have ever been. I see a disenfranchised younger generation, I see a broken system, I see a system that cannot be sustained for long, and I don’t want a revolution.

You recently hosted 17,000 widows in your home town, Odeomu in Osun State. How have you been able to sustain this epoch event for the past 12 years?

 This is our own way of touching lives and impacting the women. We wish we could do more. We wish we could start institutions for training them, this is just the little one can do. The reasons we do something for the widows is that it’s a biblical injunction. True religion is to visit the fatherless and take care of the widow. If you go by biblical injunction we should not accommodate widows who are not 60 that is the only thing in the New Testament that puts an age. That a widow indeed shall be 60 years. Others, tell them to go and remarry. But if we want to wait that it’s only those who are 60, then out of these 17,000 will probably not be here.

You also need to realize that the need in the nation is so huge. We are not here to question statistics. We are helping the youths because we give scholarship at Kings University. As a matter of fact, KICC had to shut down a few pioneer churches we would have opened in order to be able to have funds to help the youths. This year’s widows event will settle back around 57, millions naira. The cash is from myself and my wife. It is not KICC’s.  

Having lived in Europe for 34 years there’s nothing like the widows event because the system cares for them. It’s very difficult for you to drop through the net if you live in the western hemisphere. You have contributed to the NHS, you have contributed to the Pension and if you are old in the Western hemisphere, you have certain benefits. Our system does not have such. Again, the statistics we did statistics before we started the university. Our original vision was to start School of Nursing and they refused us, that if we don’t have a university we can’t have a School of Nursing. It’s an amazing nation that anytime you want to help in Nigeria they frustrate someone. The frustrations were like ‘somebody wakes me up and tells me I’m not crazy’.