Not everyone could survive her experience, but seven years after, she had a sweet story to tell women that suffered similar fate because she once walked the road and she came out triumphant. Stella Awoh is a woman of many parts, a lecturer at the fashion department of Yaba College of Technology (YABATECH), an artist, vice- president of female artists, an author, a counsellor and a mother. She spoke with ANTHONIA SOYINGBE about harsh widow’s rite, forgiveness and other sundry issues.


SHE IS among the many women who suffer victimisation after losing their soul mates. But seven years after the unfortunate loss, Stella Awoh told Sunday Independent that she had put the pains and troubles of the blow behind her and has forgiven all who offended her when she was still mourning the death of her husband, the father of her three children. “It is seven years now since I lost my husband. Here I am stronger, but I must confess that it has not been easy as I count myself to be one of the lucky widows we have in Nigeria, because so many people thought I would not survive it. When my husband passed on, I thought we could lean our shoulders on some people, but they were not there. However to the glory of God, we are doing fine now because God is always providing for us. Knowing Christ and holding on to him tenaciously has made me victorious. This is the seventh year and it is a year of letting go, because so many people have hurt me. Some took me for granted while some treated me with disdain, but I have forgiven them now,” she explained.

Forgiveness undoubtedly is one of the many tedious acts to do because of the magnitude of the offence and how painful the offence was. Though it was a very good decision for Awoh, at the same time, it took the grace of God for her to forgive them all. What does forgiveness mean to her? Sunday Independent asked. Slowly she recounted that she grew up in love as the last in a family of seven: “I grew up in a family where there is love, peace and unity. We were also thought to forgive. It is not easy to forgive because sometimes devil will bring it back. I see those people that offended me indirectly providing a stepping-stone to my glory. God placed them for a purpose. Some people thought I would go into depression, but God turned their thoughts to foolishness. With this, it is wise for me to forgive them so that God will always fight my battles for me. My testimony as a child of God is that some of them came to apologise. To the glory of God, we have not gone to beg from anyone. I have forgiven everybody even those that accused me falsely. I don’t want to go into details. This calls for everyone to be careful with the way they deal with widows because God cautions people not to maltreat widows and orphans.”

Though she went through harsh widow’s rite, she concluded that the tradition is man’s inhumanity to man and the barbaric act is often carried out by women hence she called on relevant government agencies to abolish the practice. “It is all about man’s inhumanity to man. The barbaric act is on in most parts of the country. We women are our worst enemies because women make sure that they implement the harsh widow’s rite. When a man dies it is the wife that killed him and at times they wash the corpse and ask the woman to drink the water. Any woman that survives it like me is lucky. If you go through harsh widow’s rite, the tendency is for you to retaliate, but I have let go. I think government should go to the root of this barbaric act because it is wickedness. I don’t think it is too hard for the government to do because we have abolished the killing of twins and slave trade in this country and definitely we can do this. Men are usually not involved in this harsh practice, so it is left for us women to stand up and kick against it.”

Still on the death of her husband, she referred to herself as a special widow because, “looking at the circumstances that surrounded the death of my husband, I never knew I could survive it but God has always been good to me. While other widows complain about loneliness, she invests her time and her heart into other edifying ventures. “To me, being a widow is for a reason. I believe God has special plans for me so I will fall out if I compromise.”

One special attribute of Awoh is that she wants others to learn from her experience. While still in grief, she wrote a book entitled “From Grief To Grace”. Hear her story: “In my place we have our special way of mourning our husbands. During this period, I almost went mad. There was a particular period during the mourning that I looked around me and saw tiny ants. They were my guest that day. I observed the way they were going up and down, carrying objects and crumbs even with their tiny wings. Suddenly someone came into my room and was amazed that I could look happy instead of weeping and people consoling me. Immediately, I started weeping not for what she said, I wept all through that night and eventually, the Holy Spirit started ministering to me, asking me if I wanted to move from ‘grief to grace’ or from ‘grief to grave’. At that moment, I heard the voice clearly instructing me to move from ‘grief to the grace of God’. That was how I got the title of my book. I know it was the grace of God that kept me alive when I thought of so many things: the day I got the news, or when I was given injection to sleep, but I could not sleep. Some people were given the (same) injection and they ended up in psychiatric hospital and some ended up in the grave. God has moved me from grief to grace.

Awoh finished from Yaba College of Technology over 20 years ago. She was exceptionally outstanding academically that after graduating, she was retained to lecture. Currently, she is a doctoral candidate at the University of Benin.