March 15, 2022
The AfriWomen paid a courtesy visit to Pastor Moses AderemiOlayiwola, the Founder and General Overseer of Christ Armies Church, a religious organisation with 15 branches in Nigeria. The aim of the visit was to strengthen the relationship between the organisation and the church.
During the visit, Pastor Olayiwola stated that education is very important to him, more-so, the education of women.
Pastor Olayiwola the father of 3 girls and a boy said that while he was raising his children people including educated parents would ask why he’s spending so much money on his girls, when they’d still go to their husband’s houses, and still end up in the kitchen.
Mrs Oso affirmed that, this bias still exists in our culture- people still believe that the girl child education is unnecessary.
Pastor Olayiwola further stated that, someone who’s wise would help women. Men and women should be helped, yes. But if we all had interest in helping women, the country would have been better than it is.
Pastor Olayiwola inquired of Mrs Adebukola Oso, her reason for focusing on women. Mrs. Adebukola explained that, according to the CIA World Factbook 2020 47.3% of women in Nigeria are illiterate. This statistics places the Nigerian women at the bottom 20 countries with the most illiterate women. Furthermore, the 2020 World Population Review stated that globally there are 781 million illiterate adults in the world, two thirds are women. Majority of these illiterates are in countries in sub-Saharan Africa including Nigeria.
Citing more statistics, Adebukola stated that Nigeria’s Bureau of Statistics says firstly that approximately 200 million people live in Nigeria Secondly, that only 62.02% of the population age 15 and over can make simple arithmetic calculations, read and write short simple statements on their everyday life. The remaining 37.98% of Nigeria’s population (75,960,000- nearly half) are illiterates; 2 in 3 of these people are women and their population contributes to the overall figure of the global illiterates.
The AfriWomen is therefore after these women and girl child. Why would we focus on just one illiterate man and not the other 2 illiterate women?
‘In addition, Oso pointed out that we say women are wise and represent a large portion of the population, we need to have more representation of women in the political arena. This is so that decisions made will not be skewed towards men and the needs of men only, She added. The woman therefore need education to participate even in grassroot politics.
The pastor cuts in and adds, ‘yes, it’s because of the educational background of these women’.
Pastor Olayiwola said conclusively, ‘I’ve seen and talked to you, I will encourage all the women in our church to register for the classes. At first, when Mr Ogunleye said they want to rent our hall, I said they must pay o. Then he told me it was an adult literacy class for women, I said, let them have it for free.
Pastor Olayiwola said that he is happy to help our NGO in any area we need further and end-of-the-year