Women association set to empower military personnel widows

The Military Widows Association of Nigeria says it is set to empower widows of the Nigerian military personnel to make life better for their family.

In a statement issued in Abuja on Wednesday by Mrs Gift Veronica Aluko, the National President of Military Widows Association of Nigeria, the association said it would also empower orphans and ex-servicemen.

Aluko stated that the association would inaugurate sales of stickers and tickets organised by the Nigerian Legion Mass Transit Scheme Ltd. on Thursday as one of the platforms to empower the affected persons.

First Lady Aisha Buhari, who is the Grand Matron, Military Widows Association of Nigeria, is to be the special guest of honour at the event which will be held at the Army Resource Centre, Asokoro, Abuja.

The statement said that the association comprises the wives of senior officers of the military personnel with no fewer than 15,000 registered members.

“The programme is about empowerment stickers, telling Nigerians that it is for their sake our husbands paid the supreme price.

“They became enemies to those they didn’t even know, they took bullets for Nigeria, now we have a perpetual scar that can never be wiped out.

“We want to sell the stickers so Nigerians can patronise, we appeal to Nigerians from all walks of life to patronise us and buy the stickers, this is one way of paying us back, it will also put food on our table, giving us a sense of wellbeing again in life.

“Most of the members are not rich because the loss of their husbands came suddenly, some became widows in their prime, some in their 20s.

“Some of the challenges we face are healthwise, most of our members are hypertensive, and in education, though the military is giving us scholarship, starting a life outside barracks and facing the world anew is still strange to most of us,’’ the statement quoted Aluko as saying.