Sadiq Abubakar
Police Officers Wives Association (POWA), as part of Nigeria Police Force’s 50th anniversary celebration, has distributed relief materials to widows and orphans of slain police officers and other vulnerable women and children at the VVF ward of the state Specialists Hospital and the Fatima Ali Sheriff Motherless Babies Home in Maiduguri.
Speaking during the occasion yesterday, the state Commissioner of Police, CP Lawal Tanko, assured the widows and orphans of the command’s continued support and encouragement.
He said POWA, a non-profit-making organisation, would always get the support of the command.
In her remarks, the wife of the Police Commissioner and Chairperson of POWA, Hajiya Rahinatu Tanko, said in order to commemorate the golden jubilee, the association had lined up a week-long activities designed to reach out to the society to complement “our husbands’ efforts in boosting security consciousness.”
She said: “this programme, today, is to enhance the production and as we’ll pave ways to boost the respect for the rights of widows and orphans of policemen and others who are experiencing stigmatisation and neglects.
“In the North-east states, especially Borno, Adamawa and Yobe, security challenges are seriously affecting our husbands in the discharge of their constitutionally assigned roles. Those who lost their lives left behind women and children with little or no means to keep life going. Today, such women are ejected from their official accommodations, children sent out of schools due to inability to pay school fees and sometimes rejected by the families of the deceased.”
She added that she was not happy when stories on the suffering of the families of slain police officers were being told.
“I always think how they are getting on with life in the midst of current hardship. I believe it is in line with this that the National Chairperson of POWA has rolled out a lot of programmes aimed at alleviating the suffering of our widows and orphans. Part of this programme is what we are witnessing here today.”
While distributing 30 grinding machines and 40 sewing machines with assorted bags of rice and other materials to about 264 beneficiaries, she said as the incumbent chairperson of POWA, she would do everything within her limited resources to continue to assist widows and orphans of slain police officers in the state.
The POWA chairperson also thanked the wife of the Borno state governor, Hajiya Nana Kashim Shettima, for assisting the association with N1 million as a token to empower 100 widows for self-sustenance.