WHY I ORGANISED A PRAYER SESSION FOR ABDUCTED GIRLS…KWARA FIRST LADY

By Seun Oloketuyi
Worried by the abduction of over 200 girls from their school in Chibok, Borno State since April among other incidences of insecurity rocking Nigeria, the First Lady of Kwara State, Omolewa Abdulfattah Ahmed organised a Special Day of Fasting and Prayer for the nation last Saturday, May 17th, inside the Kwara State Government House.
Adhering strictly to the schedule of the prayer, women, of varying hue and halo, started congregating on the specially arranged prayer ground. Muslim mothers and different Islamic organisations were the first to gather around 10am and their prayer session, interspersed with sermons, lasted till about 2pm. By 4pm, it was the turn of the Christians and they prayed till well after dusk. So involved in the two prayer sessions was the First Lady, alongside a host of top female government functionaries in and around the state, that it would be hard for anyone to decipher which religion she actually adheres to.
Speaking exclusively with Naijahottestgist later in the evening, the shockingly down-to-earth First Lady said, “What we are doing today in Kwara is our way of showing our concern about what is going on because it could have been anybody’s daughter and we are really touched. We believe so much in prayers in Kwara State and we know that we need God’s intervention. We need God to touch the heart of the abductors so that our children would be set free. The idea of this special prayer session came to me like a vision that I should lead the women of the State just to call on God. And because in Kwara, the people are predominantly Muslims but the Christians are also in large numbers, we decided to have two prayer sessions so that nobody will feel left out. With that, everybody was able to express their feelings, there was not restriction at all.” Describing the special prayer sessions as a resounding success, Mrs. Ahmed said she is confident that God would hearken to the prayers of Kwara women and the generality of Nigerians who are praying for the release of the abducted girls and also help restore peace in Nigeria.
The First Lady, who possesses a Higher National Diploma (HND) in Banking and Finance from the Kano State Polytechnic and a Post Graduate Diploma also in Banking and Finance from the Bayero University, Kano, is the founder of The Leah Charity Foundation, a Non-Governmental, Non-Religious and Not for Profit Organisation, established to sincerely and strategically address the development challenges synonymous with the developing societies of the world. Over the past three years, the LEAH Foundation has initiated a lot of empowerment programmes to complement what the Governor, Abdulfattah Ahmed, is doing in that area.