Why We Should Have a Government Ministry For Widows’ Affairs – Amb Ifenyinwa Egbosiuba

•Image: Amb Ifenyinwa Benice Egbosiuba / FILE PHOTO

In this interview, Amb Ifenyinwa Benice Egbosiuba tells the inspiring story behind the formation of VIRTUOUS WIDOWS INTERNATIONAL FOUNDATION,  a non-governmental organisation headquartered in Lagos.

She spoke about how they are impacting lives in Nigeria and the neighbouring countries, the challenges, among other issues,  and how the governments and well-meaning Nigerians can support widows. Excerpt:

The journey of my life?

You’re welcome, sir. My name is Ambassador Chief ( Mrs) Ifenyinwa Benice EGBOSIUBA, a native of Orba town, Udenu Local Government Area of Enugu State.

I’m a widow, and a mother of seven children.

I lost my husband (Silvanus Chukwujekwu Egbosiuba)19 years ago in Maiduguri during the first reported Boko Haram attack in Nigeria.

Although they didn’t kill him, part of the problems led to his early grave.Before then, I was an orphan.I’m the eldest of 12 children of my parent.

We were twelve in number. One among us died. My mother was the only child of my grandma, and when I grew up and I met her in my father’s house, she showered me with love as her first grandchild. From there, and from the look of things, I married early, having lost my mother in death.It was the month I was to sit for my West African Examinations Council, WAEC.

My father told me to stop schooling so I could join him to train my siblings. That’s what led to my early marriage. I married at the age of 19, and started helping the family by going to markets to sell commodities just for us to sustain life.

About eight years into my marriage, I lost my father, too. My husband helped to train my siblings; he trained all the girls to university levels and the boys he sponsored abroad.

My husband really helped in my life’s journey. When I married him, he was wealthy and healthy, but when he died, nobody came to help me. I trained the children single-handedly. And where they are today, if their father were alive, he would be proud of me.

The children really makes me proud, though we suffered a lot after the death of their father.

What led me to form Virtuous Widows International Foundation?

Growing up, I had a passion for humanity. I love people. I love giving.

I love staying with people and helping them by sharing what I have.

I didn’t know that it would lead me to where I am today.  For sharing food and clothing, people had told me ” You have a calling,” but I dismissed them.

I thought that the calling had to do with carrying the Bible and preaching to people. I didn’t know that  ” You have a calling”, has different categories.

Given my background as a Catholic, every Saturday, I would take my children with me to clean the church, a Catholic church located in Badore, Ajah, Lagos State.

So, on one fateful day, no sooner had I finished cleaning than I carried my Bible to read.I heard a voice whisper to me from behind: ” Go and look for your sisters .”

Although, I didn’t look back to see the voice or the person that spoke to me, whether a human or a spirit, it kept coming back, “Go and look for your sisters.

I soliloquised: “My sisters?” Who is my sister? My sisters abandoned me when I lost my husband.Eventually, I looked back, but I didn’t see anyone.

So, on getting out of the church, I saw a woman.  I called her. She replied: ”  Rich widow, this one you’re calling me…” Before, they used to call me “Rich widow.”I retorted, ” Why do you call me a Rich widow?”But that’s what they called you here,” she replied.

So, I asked her, please, where can I find widows?”I’m a widow;  anyway, what do you want to do for them,” she replied.

Today, if widows in Nigeria are seven million, for example, I have five million under our umbrella as members. Anywhere I go, they come in masses, unless I don’t call them. I have members across the country, including outside Nigeria.

“Let us start something like a meeting, a forum for us to know ourselves,”l said.Do you have something to give to them? she asked. Let’s start it first, I replied.

The following day, being on Sunday, she came to my house and said, “I have found nine widows.”  She and I are making 11.

On the day of the meeting, 21 widows came. At our third meeting, 200 attended. That’s how we started from 9-11-21- 200.So, that’s how I started the journey. As a woman, I know what we love most – clothes; so I suggested to them that we have a uniform.They agreed.  So I bought wrappas for the 200 widow. More widows joined.

How many widows are currently under my umbrella?

Today, if widows in Nigeria are seven million, for example, I have five million under our umbrella as members. Anywhere I go, they come in masses, unless I don’t call them. I have members across the country, including outside Nigeria – Ghana, Burkina Faso, Côte Côted’ivoire, Senegal, Tanzania, etc.

They are all looking for me, inviting me to come and open a chapter in their country.  But as the saying goes, “charity begins at home”; I haven’t finished the whole 36 states in Nigeria. I haven’t spread our Memberships to all the states in Nigeria because of the trouble of insecurity.

How have I been empowering fellow widows?

Okay, that’s a good question. The experiences I have had during this journey when you talked about empowerment, I have tried it  – sharing food and clothes with them, and other things that I know they need in their homes.

Along the lines, I discovered that that’s not enough, and that’s not empowerment. The real empowerment is to expose them to skills acquisition and I have taught them so many skills, but after that, some of the skills are soon outdated, like the tying of “Gele”( Yoruba word for headgear, and makeup.

Some of them were trained in fashion design. Some we gave sewing machines while they live in a one-room apartment with their children. 

We found out that they are not comfortable doing business in one room. If it were you, maybe a customer came and met her cooking and sharing food in one room and sewing your clothes, tomorrow you may not like to patronise her again. Understanding this challenge, I opened shops for them and equipped the shops with the necessary tools they needed to function well.  

That is real empowerment. If the person already had sewing skills, I stepped in, looked for a shop paid for it and equipped it for her with all the necessary tools.

I understand the problem because I have been a victim. Again another challenge is, if she owes a debt, and the creditor comes  to collect his or her money, but she’s unable to pay,  the person would carry that machine to cover the cost of what she owes.

So, that machine is gone without her achieving anything. So, the best bet is to make sure you give her all the necessary equipment so that she can equally train apprentices who want to learn from her. If a creditor comes to her shop, nobody will touch the machine because she has workers.

Other widows I have exposed them to baking snacks. There’s a problem there too. After they had baked and supplied customers, they took part of the money to eat, pay school fees, and then there was nothing left to plough back into the business, and it gradually closed down.

Because of this, I am considering putting shelters in place for them. I need land where I can build a hostel for them.

I intend to build a room and a parlour for each of the beneficiaries. This will help them to lift the burden of house rents.

Again, to lessen the load, I am also planning to offer their children scholarships.Another empowerment I am working on is buying and selling of foodstuffs, especially quick sale items like gari and Palm oil.

So, empowerment is not about giving them money , food supply and clothes, but to help them to start a viable business for self-sufficiency. Our empowerment schemes are for poor widows, not the rich widows.

We have three categories of widows- poor widows, rich widows and middle-class Widows to young widows, we give revolving loans to use and pay back so that others can access it.

Have I been buying foodstuffs for our members from government’s subsidized special markets ?

I haven’t been doing that because I had a bad experience recently at the Badore  market. I had shops there . The state government came and demolished the market and I lost everything

How is insecurity in Nigeria affecting our membership drives?

In our organisation, we have military widows. They are many because soldiers are being killed every day as a result of insecurity.

As you are probably aware, the governments are not taking care enough of military widows and their children.

Some of their children get involved in criminal activities because their mothers couldn’t provide for them.

So, I am begging the government to help these widows and their children. I think we should have a ministry for widows in Nigeria, and not the ministry of women’s Affairs.

This is because widows are, no longer women; they are playing the roles of both the father and mother.

The Ministry of Women’s Affairs doesn’t know what widows are going through.

A woman who still has husband cannot come and advise widows, because she doesn’t know what widows are passing through.

There is a time when widows wake up at night and begin to cry, from 12- midnight till 2.00am , remembering the death of her husband, the challenges she faces from the husband’s family, the public, her children and even her own family.

She carries the burdens alone, whereas , a married woman living with her husband doesn’t have to cry such.  

So, how would she be in the best position to advising widows? Rather, it is a widow who can advise a woman living with her husband to take care of him , an to do her utmost not to lose him to death, because if she enters this forum, it’s not going to be easy. Widowhood is a worst situation for women and if you talk about widowers, they die quicker than widows.

This is because, our men can’t withstand the pressures they face after they lost their wives.

They face challenges from their new wives coupled with their children  and children from the previous marriage.

So, he is in-between, and before you know it, he begins to have mental health or die and orphan the children.

So, the government should help our youths, especially the children of deceased soldiers and their mothers. They are not doing well.There is an adage, “an idle mind is  devil’s workshop.” They begin to do funny things even some women join them just for them to eat.

So, in my opinion, governments is contributing to the problems of insecurity .I said it and I can say it again anywhere . Because of insecurity a lot of our men have been killed.

How is the outgoing 2025 for Nigerian widows?

Well, because of the challenges of Naira devaluation and inflation, which have led to high costs of living, a day was set aside globally by the United Nations for marking  International Widows Day, annually, on every 23rd June.

In this country, they are not celebrating us; am the only person who comes out to celebrate the widows.  

I solicit for supports to put smiles on their faces.I gathered them, we pray, play music, share snacks, etc.

There is money with the ministry of Women’s Affair, and the government ought to set aside for the celebration of widows. But that’s not happening. Although, they celebrate women’s Day, but they don’t celebrate International Widows Day.

This is why I have written a bill  I want to pass to them  so that they can help us and recognize us.

We need to be recognized because we are more. Because of insecurity a lot of our men have  died while in service to father land.However, I couldn’t do anything for the widows in the month of June  this year because nobody gives me anything. 

So, I will  do it this year on Saturday 22 November , so I can have somethings to share with them against December.

About the upcoming program in November?

The program is tagged, Virtuous Widows International Foundation Empowerment Seminar. It has the theme: ‘Come, Let’s Build Together.’

It will be held at the auditorium of Queens College, Sabo-Yaba, Lagos.On that day, our members will showcase what they have done with their hands.

We are going to do exhibitions that day and we are going to give awards to some notable personalities for their philanthropy, especially those who have passion for what we are doing; people that have been helping us ; we are going to give scholarships to some children of widows ; also there are some women we are going to empower with foodstuffs for sales.

(Voice of Mrs Toyin Badmus) : I am the Vice president. On skills empowerments, we have been to some states to train some women on trade skills .

Just as our president has said, we want to empower those women  who have passion for the skills they have learned but don’t have the required capital or the tools to start the business.We did some skills  training in Lekki, Lagos and in  the South Eastern Nigeria.

We found out that some who have learned one in two trade skills doesn’t have shops, and the equipment were not sufficient to showcase what they had learned.  

So we have gone back to identify those people to see how they can be re-empowered .

We are also looking at empowering our members in farming, especially those who have passion for it. We are looking at giving revolving loans to those who can use it well, repay it and it will be given to another person.

By doing so, we are eradicating poverty.

We are borrowing a leaf from the former First Lady, Mariam Babangida ‘s Poverty Alleviation Scheme.

That programme had positive effects on women and our goal is to do above what she did or to match what she had done.

That’s why we are appealing to well -meaning Nigerians and anyone who is interested in supporting widows ,to support us.

We are passionate of bringing relief to widows and we want to extend it to the widowers. Widowers are also suffering and smiling.

Widowers often die before their times because they can’t endure what women absorbs.

During the event, we are going to recognise men and women who have passion for helping widows.

We have identified some of them and we are going to give them awards  to appreciate them for recognizing us, for believing in what we do and for understanding our pains as Nigerian widows.

Who are the society’s big wigs we want to give awards?

One of them is Honourable Rotimi Olowo, from Somolu Local Government, Lagos State.

He has passions for helping the less privileged , and if course during his tenure as a House of Assembly member representing Somolu, he empowered lots of people and took thousands of youth out of the streets most of whom would have been vagabonds today.

He bought buses and tricycles  for them to operate, thus giving them a meaningful lives.

Talking about the physically challenged persons, he equally reached out and touched their lives- women, orphans and widows.

He has actually proven himself to be of a humanitarian service.  

And that’s why we have considered him worthy for the award.Another personality on our list is Dr. Hamza Al – Mustapha.

He has been a pillar of support for our foundation.

Our board of directors have also picked Chief Chika Okpala (ZB alias 4.30), for his roles in  the memorable defunct television  comedy series New Masquerade  on NTA. Then in the 70s and the 80s , he actually used the program to put smiles on the faces of  a lot of viewers in the country.

We also have the present principal of Queens College Yaba Lagos , Dr. Mrs. Oyindamola Obabori.

She has also done a lot in her own way. She is in charge of girls at the Queens College. And as you know, a woman who is able to the train girls has trained the whole nation because if you train women you have actually empowered the nation. A lot of good products have been produced by her leadership.

Chief (Dr.) Alexander Chika Okafor,of Chikason Group of companies, is another Nigerian worthy of our prestigious award.

He has consistently for 17 years put smiles on the faces of people through his philanthropic activities. “