Senior Pastor Fountain of Life Church, Pastor Taiwo Odukoya, spoke with Omolara Akintoye on the Discovery for women outreach he founded over 20 years ago, which has become a rallying point for the empowerment of women. Excerpts:
What do you have to say about politics in the nation?
Politics today is fine at least we see more people getting interested, including the youth and the women. They may not make marks now but the interest is building. I believe we are in a positive direction of course.
Then another thing is that we need to pray for our politicians and that there will be unity in Nigeria. That it does not matter who gets there but the fear of God and love of brethren should be uppermost in their minds. If we don’t see these two qualities in a man or woman, then they are not qualified to govern us.
What should be the role of women in nation building?
When your home is stable then the nation is stable. But when homes are not stable, there will be problems. There is no future because they will raise vagabonds so the women must be equipped. Yes I’m interested in my children. I stay with them and I oversee what they do.
But much more, my wife and I could remember when our children were growing up. Some were trained here and some abroad. I’ll call them once a week but my wife (of blessed memory) will call them every day. So most of the things I didn’t know about them she knew everything.
We must educate the women. Mind you a woman that is not educated can only take the child as far as she has.
What inspired the discovery for women outreach?
First, it was an inspiration. Then second, while I was growing up I saw the way my father handled my mother. They didn’t have much and they were not also highly educated but they were able to complement each other.
My mother was such a strong woman. She put her hands into everything that could sustain the home while my father went to work. Then I asked myself what if the two were better educated?
So I made up my mind to put in my very best to sustain my marriage. That is why if you could recall my late wife, not only was she empowered, she also empowered others.
Even my current wife is doing similar things and my daughter as well. So we have quite a number of women in the church who are very strong. I love to see strong women.
What is Discovery for Women all about?
It has been ongoing: It is aimed at encouraging women, reminding them of the reasons for their existence. A woman is created to be a helpmate for man. So the woman was created adequately to provide the support that the man needs and to have dominion here on earth.
Even the United Nations has realised that women are not being given the needed attention. You want to change the society, you want to stabilise the economy, then educate the woman because that will in turn educate their children as well as nurturing their children.
So that is why we give a lot of attention to the women. What we do is to help them be the best they can be, supporting humanity and making humanity to do what God has called us to do here on earth.
What will be different with this year’s edition?
This rally is tagged New Possibilities: Never believe that because your life is defined by ebbs and flows and usually when you get to the ebbs there is tendency for you to get stuck. But the good news is that you don’t have to get stuck, you can have a continuous flow in Christ.
So we want to encourage people that if you experience setbacks, disappointment or things are not measuring up as planned, this usually truncates a lot of people’s dreams and drive for the future. We don’t want that for our women, even though they suffer setbacks. Ours is to encourage and equip them adequately with all that they need to know.
At the end of the programme what kind of women do you expect to see?
We expect to see women who will rise above challenges of the moment, not just rising above the challenges but also carrying the children along and community as well. Take for instance Rwanda, in the beginning of the genocide it is amazing to discover that it was the women who decided that they with revive their country.
For the first time they have a National Assembly dominated by women and today talk of development and progress in Africa, you want to point to Rwanda. That is what women are created for: fill in where there are gaps, help the man to realise his stands again to forge ahead. So the man goes fighting, the woman stays back to stabilise things. So the woman is a true help meet.
What Nigeria has to do is go give her people proper education. In the North, especially the women otherwise the problem that is perennial in North will persist. Our women need proper education.
Take for instance where villages were attacked by terrorists in the North. The men go to fight once they are gone but the women are left behind with the children. You want to preserve posterity, want to project into the future, develop and advance, empower the woman.
Every woman should be empowered. She should be able to stand for herself and by herself before she even gets married. So when she is married, she is empowered in all areas, submitting to her husband. The two are one and they have a formidable front.
Then you can imagine the future of their products and their children. Unlike now that with the exception of very few of them, most Nigerian women are just subservient, which is very bad. They are being used as baby factories but when a woman is educated they will know that they are not baby- making machines.
She has her life and she has her future. These are the kinds of teachings that we give them in the course of the programme. Take hold of yours from a biblical point of view. Deborah, for instance, when the nation had completely lost direction, Deborah stood up and began to lead her people. So you begin to understand why God says a man needs a true helpmeet.
Yes the man needs a helper but any plan for the men as well?
Oh yes we have ‘Discovery for Men’ and our first rally for this year is being held this March. We have been running this programme for over 20 years. Yes it is important that while you are talking to the women, we also need to talk to our men as well.
As a matter of fact we have two rallies which will be organised in the church, then we are taking it to the communities to encourage men who are already trained, to rise up and nurture other men. Men needs to be encouraged because they get easily discouraged much more than women.
What is the church doing to ensure that government empowers women as well?
Well, we do our best in the sense that we advertise our programmes and also collaborate with government as much as possible. For instance, we have a foundation where we reach out to young girls that are battered and abused.
In fact, most of them were sent to us from Alausa, here in Lagos. Also we have the Fountain Initiative, where we empower women in Business. We also take off men, women and children under the bridge to empower them and reunite them with their family members.
Today we have success stories of many of them that have graduated from the universities through the church scholarship programme and some are still in school.
We also partner with UNESCO and through the Lagos State government we go to prisons, providing men and women with advocacy programme for them not to lose hope while in prison and when they come out of prison, some of them come back to us and we do all we could to re-integrate them properly into the society by empowering them all round.
