Teach your wards honesty, hard work, Ambode tells women

Wife of Lagos State Governor, Mrs. Bolanle Ambode, has identified the teaching of right virtues from the home front as a major foundation of setting the country on a sound footing.

The governor’s wife, who spoke on Saturday at the 2015 Arise Women Conference, which held at the City of David Parish of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Victoria Island in Lagos, said it was important for women to teach their children virtues of honesty, morality, hard work and good character.

Women, according to Ambode, occupy a sensitive and strategic place in the life of any nation, making it important for them to inculcate right virtues in their children beginning from the home front.

She said the family mirrored the society, which explained why nations all over the world largely reflected the quality of respective families that made up the country.

“As women and managers of the home front, all eyes are on us, to take good care of our husbands; and bring up our children in the fear of God. We must teach them the virtues of honesty, morality, hard work and good character.

“This is for them to grow up to become productive and God-fearing citizens, for the good of our society,” she said.

The governor’s wife, who was honoured at the conference as Ambassador alongside the wife of the Vice President, Mrs. Dolapo Osinbajo, said though poverty remained a challenge arising from unemployment and under-employment, women must open their eyes and grab emerging opportunities for more prosperous and meaningful living.

She said, “Though the economic situation in the country remains challenging, the task of running our homes effectively in most cases is even more daunting. As women and home keepers, we must learn to be strong and resilient in the midst of all this. This, we can achieve by maximising all commercial and economic opportunities and other forms of empowerment that come our way.”

The vice president’s wife, who said the vision of her present status came 10 years ago, advocated the need for women and indeed everyone to be serious and committed to the things of God.

She also used the occasion to remember those in the Internally Displaced Persons camps across the country, and women selling their children because of poverty, and prayed for God’s intervention.

On her part, Convener of the Arise Women Conference, Pastor Siju Iluyomade, said it was a thing of joy for her that many women of great influence were now emerging from the church, and that they were equally not ashamed to publicly identify with God.

Also, the keynote speaker at the conference, Rev. Catherine Onwioduokit, from Ghana, in her presentation, urged women to submit to their husbands always and be the true pillar of their homes.

(Punch)