Police Officers Wives Association (POWA) in Imo, on Saturday, empowered 40 widows of police officers through the donation of cash and various industrial equipment.
Chairperson of POWA in the state, Mrs Abimbola Akinmoyede, remarked that the donation would help to make the widows become self-reliant.
Akinmoyede, who is also the wife of the Commissioner of Police in the state, said while presenting the items to the widows, that the group conceived the idea, considering their plight after the death of their husbands.
“The motivation for this programme is the neglect often suffered by families of policemen, who lost their breadwinners in active service.
“The Police Command in Imo, lost some policemen to the #EndSARS protest while performing their duties,’’ she said.
Akinmoyede said that POWA was exploring various ways toward improving the lives of the wives and dependants of the dead police officers.
She said that with the empowerment, the widows could freely live their lives with a sense of self-worth, respect and dignity.
“This empowerment is targeted at making these women and other less privileged among them to be less dependent and contribute to their homes.’’
The POWA chairperson appealed to the Police authorities to look into the issue of delay in payment of gratuity to families of deceased policemen.
She also advised the authorities to engage wives of deceased police officers as “Supplementary Police”.
One of the beneficiaries, Mrs Florence Azuka, complained that she had suffered untold hardship since the death of her husband.
She, therefore commended POWA for the gesture, saying that with the empowerment, she would henceforth be self-reliant and contribute meaningfully to the upkeep of her home.
Another beneficiary, Mrs Ofem Ogom said could not thank POWA enough because “since my husband died, this is the only time I am feeling relief’’.
She expressed happiness being remembered, saying that “the memory of this gesture will forever be remembered.’’
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that some of the items donated included industrial sewing machines, deep freezers, pop-corn machines and cash donation among others. (NAN)
