The Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) on Tuesday empowered about 500 widows.
The gesture was to celebrate the group’s fallen heroes and heroines in the struggle.
Speaking at the event held at the OPC’s national Secretariat,(Oodua House)in Ikeja,Lagos, on Tuesday, Aare Ona kakanfo of Yorubaland,
who is also the national coordinator of the group, Iba Gani Abiodun Ige Adams, said the greatest undoing from the living is to forget the fallen heroes and heroines.
He said OPC could not hold the event last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, adding that those that laid down their lives should be remembered for paying the supreme price.
Iba Adams said the reason for celebrating our heroes today was because of the sacrifice made by OPC’s members, beginning with the late Kola Arowosaye who took the risk and lost his life in the process.
“It was a sad experience,the late Kola Arowosaye was murdered by the then ‘Operation Sweep’ .It was such a very challenging moment for the OPC.
Arowosaye died a hero. His death remained the symbol of our struggle and it became an inspiration to all of us”.
“Between 1998 and 2005,OPC lost over 3000 members. It was a long period of real sacrifice where we lost some of our heroes”
” The greatest lessons we can infer from this is that whether now or in the future, OPC will not relent in the struggle to liberate the Yoruba race.”
The Yoruba generalissimo said the reason for the empowerment is to put smiles on the faces of the widows who had lost their bread winners to the struggle.
” I don’t like calling wives of our fallen heroes widows because the word is too uncomplimentary for them.I prefer to call them our wives because they have endured the most trying moments of their times.So,we decided to empower them,to put smile on their faces so that they could live their lives with their children”.
Many of the 500 beneficiaries were drawn from the long list of widows of fallen OPC members, including Mustapha Aremu from Apapa Iganmu,Tajudeen Adeyalu,Rukayat Oguntimeyin,Iyabo Sulaimon, Saidi
Ganiyu,Rafat Omoboriowo,Ayinde Abiodun,Jimoh Onifade,Yinusa Babalola, Sarafa Akinsanya.
Others were Adesina Olapade, Rasaq Babatunde, Kayode Babarinde, Ramota Akanbi, Micheal Aderinade, and Jumoke Adeyemo among others.
