The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

  • Another look at sex

    Another look at sex

    in ways that are beyond description. Sometimes words fail when I try to describe the oneness that a husband and wife feel after giving their bodies to each other in all erotic ways. Whenever I teach couples about sex in conferences or in my office, the atmosphere in the room changes because of its uniqueness. Some couples cannot wait to hear me talk openly about a topic that is often not discussed. Others are very curious while others are very skeptical; to them the topic is forbidden, unmentionable and taboo, something not to be discussed in the public.

    However, not until the married couples embrace the fact that sex is part of living, their marriage will still be gravely affected in a negative way. A medical study has discovered that married couples who embrace sex with a positive attitude have the best most satisfying sex. They enjoy sex more often and have the highest levels of physical and emotional fulfilment. 88% of such couples receive great physical wellness. I am sure you want to know why because -;

    Having sex and orgasm increases levels of the hormones oxytocin in the body, the love hormones, and this helps couples bond and build trust. Researchers from University of Pittsburgh and the University of North Carolina evaluated 59 pre-menopausal women before and after passionate sex with their husbands and ending with hugs. They found that the more sexual intercourse, the higher the oxytocin levels. “Oxytocin allows us to feel the urge to nurture and to bond,” it further says. Higher oxytocin has also been linked with a feeling of generosity. That explain why husband can release any amount of cash to their wives whenever they are sexually fulfilled. Therefore, if you are feeling suddenly more generous toward your spouse than usual, oxytocin is in the air.

    Boosting self-esteem and immunity was one of 237 reasons people have sex, as observed by University of Texas researchers and published in the Archives of Sexual Behaviour by a sex therapist, marriage and family therapist. Good sexual health may mean better physical health. Having sex once or twice a week had been linked with higher levels of an antibody called immunoglobulin A or IgA, which can protect you from getting colds and other infections. And helps you sleep better, the oxytocin released during orgasm promotes sleep, according to research. In addition, getting enough sleep has been linked with a good sex. On average, the human heart beats 70 times per minute but during orgasm the heart races at 115 beats per minute, which puts the heart in a better healthier position. During sex, the body make use of 100 muscles to produce orgasm while it takes 17 muscles to smile. This indicates that those muscles are not only active but do not depreciate.  Brilliant sex produce satisfying orgasm, this orgasm releases chemicals that curb appetite so high-quality sex helps spouse to lose weight.

    Any time any day tantalizing sex relieves stress, a big health benefit of sex is lower blood pressure and overall stress reduction, according to researchers from Scotland who reported their findings in the journal of Biological Psychology. They studied 24 married women and 22 married men who kept records of their sexual activity and escapades. Then researchers subjected them to stressful situations-such as speaking in public and doing verbal arithmetic – and noted their blood pressure response to stress. Those who had intercourse had better responses to stress than those who engaged in other activities or abstinence. Another study published in the same journal found that frequent sexual intercourse was associated with lower diastolic blood pressure in participants. Yet other researchers found a link between couples’ hugs and lowered blood pressure in wives. One way to make your wife look healthy and less stressful is to give her a hug per day, this drastically removes constant nagging headaches, increases radiant skin glow, makes her cope with life issues better, makes her more accommodating, willing to help, warm, tender, affectionate and caring. It helps her to be a better cook.

    Do you know that just thirty minutes of sex between couple’s burns 85 calories or more? “Sex is a great mode of exercise,” Sex improves cardiovascular health when some  older couples worry about the effect of the energy expended during sex could cause stroke, I tell them ‘that is not so’, because according to researchers from England. In a study published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, scientists found frequency of sex was not associated with stroke in the 914 married men they followed for 20 years. In addition, the cardiovascular health benefits of sex do not end there. The researchers also found that having sex twice or more a week reduced the risk of fatal heart attack by half for the men, compared with those who had sex less than once a month. Cold shower can increase the production of sex hormone in men and women. Having sex under a cold shower is not only romantic and but also medicinal.

    Sex reduces pain as the hormone oxytocin surges, endorphins increases; arthritis pain, or PMS symptoms seem to improve after sex, due to higher oxytocin levels they gain after sex exercise. In a study published in the Bulletin of Experimental Biology and Medicine, 48 volunteers couples who inhaled oxytocin vapour and had their fingers pricked just after sex, lowered their pain threshold by more than half.

    Sex reduces prostate cancer risk, frequent ejaculations and not masturbation induced one, especially in 20 year-old and above men, may reduce the risk of prostate cancer later in life, Australian researchers reported in the British Journal of Urology International. When they followed men diagnosed with prostate cancer and those without, they found no association of prostate cancer with them as the men reached their 30s, 40s and 50s. However, they found men who had five or more ejaculations weekly while in their 20s reduced their risk of getting prostate cancer later by a third.

    Sex strengthens pelvic floor muscles for wives, doing a few pelvic floor muscle exercise known as Kegel during sex offers a couple many benefits. Your husband will enjoy more satisfaction, you will enjoy more pleasure, and you will strengthen the area and help to minimize the risk of incontinence, backaches, fatty big tummy and hysterectomy later in life. To do a basic Kegel exercise, tighten the muscles of your pelvic floor, as if you are trying to stop urine flow. Count to three, then release.

    The largest human penis ever recorded is 11 inches and the longest 15 inches, the head of the penis has a higher concentration of nerves endings than the shaft so caressing the tip of the penis with the tongue of the wife re energises the nerves endings. A bigger testicle produces more sperm but not necessarily better quality; the average speed of an ejaculation is 20 mph. men produce 300 million sperm every day. To keep these records husbands should eat more of a plant protein diet. Most men can maintain an erection for 40 minutes, the average erection is 5.5 to 6 inches long, 30 % of men say they orgasm too soon. However, with 36-hours-of-freedom this can be rectified. Married couples have sex 52 times a year, which is once a week, if this is applicable to you, think of increasing it for health reasons. In a one- minute kiss you actually burn 26 calories on average couples spend two weeks of their lives kissing, the record for the longest kiss is 29 hours.

     

    QUESTION ONE

    My wife does not want sex, she says the smell of my sperm irritate her.

    She doesn‘t want sex as often as I do, and I understand that this is typical of some women. But if my need seems great and she‘s not in the mood, is it okay for me to try to warm things up? I‘m wondering if there‘s any way I can be considerate and self-sacrificing, and still get enough sex. What herbs can I take to produce a sperm that does not smell?

     

    ANSWER

    The avenue to sexual satisfaction for women is definitely relational. ‘If you do the things that your wife needs, you are much more likely to succeed. Those things include listening to her (sometimes to what seems to you very irrelevant things), sharing your own feelings (even when they seem trivial to you), giving her lots of attention (eye contact) and not pressuring her for sex (give her plenty of nonsexual touching and attention).

    When you‘re sharing your feelings, you can make it clear to your wife what you have in mind. However, make sure you stress that you want the time together to be pleasurable for her. It might be a good idea to try this approach when you are not feeling desperate for sex.

    I find there are times when I‘m not really in the mood for sex, but I‘m still willing to be available to my spouse. It‘s helpful if he understands this and is able to lower his expectations for how much time I can offer. Discuss that possibility with your wife, and strive for openness and honesty with each other. Talking is a wonderful way to connect emotionally before you try to connect sexually.

    Understanding female sexuality can be a real challenge, but it‘s essential if you want to connect with your wife. This could help you understand your wife, and it could be a springboard for talking with her about your differences. She needs to understand the intensity of your feelings and drive just as much as you must discover what increases her responsively. The sperm has a characteristic odour except you have been infected with some types of STI [sexually transmitted infections] before that need you to visit the doctor you do not need to take any herbs your wife will get use to the odour as time goes by.

     

    QUESTION TWO

    A stick of banana is stronger than my husband’s sexual organ. When we newly got married, all went well sexually, the penis was hard strong and active, but lately what I noticed is that, my husband’s organ shrinks inside him by the day. As if that is not enough it takes him ages to get aroused, and sometimes he may never ‘get up’. Then as soon as we are celebrating his arousal, he goes softer like an over-ripe banana stick. I am fed up. I need you to get me a vibrator. I am not sure things can ever get better because it has been like this for years. I have lost hope in him and his organ. For me his organ is just a decoration and nothing more. Please do not preach to me just get me a good vibrator.

     

    ANSWER

    You said when you were newly married sex was ‘ebano’ now that things are not rosy you want to back out? No! Please before you resign to fate; try out with the herb from Vietnam with the 36-hour-of-freedom- the great cialis and the Chinese herbs. I still insist that there is a way out,  let your will be strong.

  • Direct primary and controversial Electoral Act

    Direct primary and controversial Electoral Act

    It is curious that in their squabble over direct or other types of primaries, governors and National Assembly members have bickered only from the point of view of the advantages or disadvantages the preferred mode of primary confers. President Muhammadu Buhari has till December 19 to assent the new Electoral Act passed by the legislature and forwarded to him last month. He is said to be still widely consulting in order to determine his course of action. Even the other significant aspect of the Act, to wit, electronic relay of voting results has not been as contentious. The mode of primary has been contentious since governors outwitted legislators during the last congresses, almost rendering them of no significance whatsoever. Scorned and stripped of power, they angrily produced a bill and came out with a hammer blow to the governors, knocking them off their proud perch, and reminding them that it takes two to tango. The governors were thus knocked insensate and left seeking means to regain their composure.

    The president may be consulting widely, as his aides say warily, but in reality he is only trying to see whether he can safely defy the governors and put his signature to the amendment. Indeed, he may be juggling whose fury he can safely defy in the last months of his presidency, whether the governors who would soon become lame duck like him, or lawmakers who had lent their honour and integrity to sustain him through many shortsighted and indecent bills and expenditures. He will of course prefer to keep both combatants jumping contentedly before his throne, and running after the ball at his whistle; but because the fighters have dug their heels in, he may increasingly find it difficult to have his cake and eat it. Sooner or later, indeed in the days ahead, the president will have to decide, and one side will be offended.

    There is animated talk about the legislature overriding the president’s veto and passing the amendment into law. Should the legislature opt for this peremptory action, they will not have offended the provisions of the constitution. But given their nature, and how long and steadily they had subordinated themselves to the presidency, it is unfathomable that they would feel somewhat reckless and adventurous. They are angry with what the governors did during the last congresses, and have sought for opportunity, no matter how small, to put those proud and imperious state executives in their place, but to override the president’s veto is a different ball game. It would be uncharacteristic, nay, it would be revolutionary. But this class of lawmakers hates revolutions. In fact they loathe treason. And to them revolution is indistinguishable from treason.

    But it is possible theoretically that the president might withhold assent. It will not be because he thinks clearly about the futuristic implication of the amendment, but because of whether he likes or dislikes those who stand to gain from the amendment in the short or long run. The presidency’s calculations are characteristically bizarre and inscrutable. It’s no use trying to make sense of them. Should he withhold assent, the legislators are unlikely to angrily confront him and override his veto. They do not have that precedent. Instead they will dutifully visit him in his office, explain their discomforts with his action, excoriate the governors all over again, taking care to drape them in the devil’s cape, and remind him that the beauty and demands of democracy impel everyone to side with direct primary. The lawmakers must, however, hope that the governors, who have also tried to outdo the legislature in groveling before the president, do not visit Aso Villa hard on their heels. Should that happen, and given the dilatoriness of the presidency, the final decision will be a toss-up.

    If the president feels sufficiently unnerved by the governors, and is also chary of inciting the lawmakers into unaccustomed disrespect of his office, he will try one of his trademark disingenuous compromises. The president is characteristically monarchical, but in recent months, he has ameliorated his peacock intransigence. He will, therefore, call for a truce, get the governors and the lawmakers to find common ground, find excuses to return the amendment to the legislature for some extra tweaking, and then, with a shout of eureka, get a version worthy of his assent but which neither pleases the hare nor placates the hounds. The controversy and lobbying are intense, but as far as the president is concerned, it is a storm in a tea cup. He really does not need both sides; they both need him. He retains sufficient predatory power to frighten them into reluctant acquiescence. If he growls at them, especially deploying the subtle threat of anti-corruption war, they will recoil into their shells or quake in their boots.

    But as humiliating as it may seem, should the president defy the governors and go along with the legislators, he will very likely get his way with little or no repercussion. He is not seeking third term, and can in fact not seek it, and he has no signature and futuristic bill waiting for their support through constitutional amendment. If he lends them a listening ear, it is simply to massage their brittle ego and keep them happy. If he chooses not to lend them a listening ear, there is little they can do to punish him. He is too lofty in his perch for them to inflict their usual insouciance. They are sometimes frustrated by his detachment and perhaps acute lack of depth, but since they themselves lack vision, almost to a man, they will feel less inclined to importune him on the esoteric issues of a great country in a great continent in a competitive world. The lawmakers may even quibble with the president over the fine details of the amendment, but the governors will simply try to paint a horrifying picture of the lawmakers and the unconvincing consequences of direct primary.

    Neither the presidency, nor the governors, nor yet the legislature is likely to look at the amendment within the grander context of who should determine what mode of primary to use in nominating candidates for party and state and national offices. Neither of the three is capable of the selflessness and grandeur the idea requires. Once they identify a problem today, especially a problem that rubs them up the wrong way, they angrily excise it. Having spent decades bureaucratising political parties in Nigeria, starting with the meddlesome two-party structure legislated during the Ibrahim Babangida military dictatorship, Nigerian governments have tended to see the parties as an extension of public service. Otherwise, why on earth would an APC-controlled National Assembly impose a primary mode on all parties in the country? What business do they have doing that? The issue of course is not what mode of primary is the best. That is nonsense: they all have their advantages and disadvantages. The main issue is what mode of primary a political party, or indeed a state chapter, wants. Once that is decided, then that is it. If a party does not show fidelity to its own rules, then that lack of discipline can be litigated. But to legislate and impose one mode of primary on everyone, regardless of its advantages, is irrational and meddlesome. Imposing a mode of primary, as the National Assembly has discourteously done to put proud governors’ noses out of joint, is a disrespectful way to fight one’s enemies.

     

    Finally, White Paper on EndSARS

    Reassuringly, two facts came out of the judicial panel report to probe, among other things, the protest and shootings at the Lekki Tollgate during last year’s EndSARS protests. One, the leaked report of the panel’s investigations and conclusions was, minus a few typographical errors, the same as the one officially submitted to the Lagos State government. When this column commented on the leaked report some two weeks ago, it was obvious the reports were the same, but it was still safe to cast doubt on its authenticity in order to give the panel the benefit of the doubt. Two, given the massive propaganda that accompanied the leaked report and the insidious purpose to which it was aimed, there were doubts that Lagos could find the courage to treat the official report with the boldness and dispassion it merited. Thankfully, Lagos was unsparing.

    On the Lekki Tollgate angle of the report, the White Paper treated the panel’s findings on their merit. Lagos did not need to go outside the report to substantiate its White Paper. It is pointless going over the contradictions, speculations and assumptions in the judicial panel report. These were treated in this place two weeks ago, and much more disturbing details regarding the insufficiency of the report are already before the public. What is clear is that the report itself is its own worst enemy. No one needs to go outside it to hang it. A few activists and lawyers, some of whom had not even read the full report before taking issue with it, insist on believing their own version of the truth. But more and more, after reading and digesting the report, many critics and commentators have beaten a tactical retreat, remorsefully convinced that there is nothing in the report to redeem it.

    The White Paper examined all the panel’s recommendations, accepted 11 fully, accepted six with modifications, rejected one, and regarded some 14 other recommendations as falling outside its purview. Lagos did not obfuscate in determining the reliability of the report. As far as it was concerned the panel’s fact-finding methods were riddled with contradictions and speculations, and its conclusions largely tangential to its findings. Did those who leaked the report realise the report’s failings and wished to remedy it by propaganda and threats? It is not clear. What is, however, indisputable is that there is nothing anyone can say or prove from the panel’s report that will convince the pro-massacre crowd that crimes against humanity did not occur last year at the Lekki Tollgate. Most of them have not read the report, but they are unshakeable in their faith as to what transpired at the scene. Even the few who have read the report distrust government so passionately that they regard the failings of the panel’s report and the contradictions contained in it as both a minor inconvenience and a product of the state and federal government’s shenanigans. Head or tail, the government could not win, the weakness of the findings notwithstanding.

    It was, therefore, surprising that Lagos offered an olive branch to a few activists who swore opposition to the White Paper before it was issued. They had made up their minds so conclusively that even if they were to be confronted with Pythagoras theorem that states that “In a right-angled triangle, the square of the hypotenuse side is equal to the sum of squares of the other two sides“, they would not be convinced. Indeed, they would regard it as state trickery and treason to the human cause. It is time Lagos moved beyond some of these opinion moulders, many of whom live by social media influencing, and whose self-importance is anchored on conjured stories designed to massage their own egos regardless of the pain to the general community. In the Lekki Tollgate affair, there is nothing to indicate that these activists, who have stuck stubbornly to lies and conjurations, are more important than the majority who are convinced from the panel’s report that nine people did not die at the Tollgate, and that in any case, their death, even if proven, is not more important or hideous than the other 90 who died elsewhere during the protests.

    The agitations over the panel report and the White Paper will taper off into nothingness as the months go by. A group of parents – it is not clear how many they are – are reported to have sought legal representation to continue the fight against the federal and state governments over the tollgate shootings. Did they present themselves before the panel during its one-year sitting, and were they able to prove anything, as evidenced by the panel’s report itself? Somehow, they believe they can upturn the panel report and convince everyone that their children and relations were shot dead at the Lekki Tollgate last year. They must hope that they can withstand fierce cross-examination in the courts. However, they must be encouraged to litigate the matter, present all the evidence they can get, and do their best to support their case. The public can’t wait; for then propaganda would be differentiated from reality, and fact from fiction.

    As many activists have shown in the Lekki Tollgate matter, social media is a devastating instrument to propagate lies, falsify facts, incite insurrection, and colour reality. It was deployed to dramatic and paralysing effect last year, to the point of convincing the unwary. Till today, many leading opinion moulders in the country still believe there was a massacre at the Lekki Tollgate, regardless of absolute lack of evidence, and many young social media influencers have secured foreign trips, visas, asylums and recognition on the ashes of misrepresenting and calumniating Nigeria. There is no dissuading them. There will always be ‘deplorables’ who use the social media for dangerous causes, and there will always be anti-establishment ‘gullibles’ who believe everything they read on social media. Instead of according hysterical activists respect and deferring to their assertiveness, it is the responsibility of offended parties, in this case, the government, to match the activists post for post, and noise for noise. They cannot incite with untruths and get away with murder; they must always be held accountable.

    The judicial panel report was deeply controversial because of its suppositions and indefensible conclusions. The White Paper is not. But the EndSARS aftermath will not be easily dispelled. Lagos will implement 11 recommendations; it remains to be seen whether the federal government, whose agencies triggered the crisis in the first instance, will take care of its own side of the equation. The country is badly structured, and the security agencies have become antiquated, inefficient, and even incompetent and brutal. There is nothing to suggest that the federal government is truly remorseful over what has happened nor has it learnt anything from the crisis. Everything suggests that they saw EndSARS as an affront, and whatever they condescend to do eventually might end up being cosmetic. The system is too stupefying to allow them the flexibility and humility to tinker with the country’s structure. With many youths disaffected at a time of poor governance and declining economy, alienation might very well increase until there is another fire. That next fire may not be easily put out.

  • SNAPSONG 146

    SNAPSONG 146

    In this blessed country of ours

         No good deed goes unpunished

    No evil is considered

         Too evil to be rewarded

    Penury is hard work’s predictable outcome

         Indolence swells the fortune of the idle-handed

    If in doubt, hear this line from a juju anthem: 

         Ise kekere, owo nlanla*

    What do you say about a people

         Who have strong arms without

    Knowing what to do with them?

         What do we call a machette

    Sharp and shining, without a handle?

         How so often the deer falls

    In the town of kniveless hunters

         Venison so near, but vision so remote?

    We live near the river

         But perish from thirst

    Croaking frogs mock the madness

         Of their arrogant neighbours

    In our beloved country

         The thief is not the one who steals

    The real felon is one

         Foolish enough to be caught

  • Surest secret of longevity – Mama Mary Aina Ekundayo’s exemplary Life

    Surest secret of longevity – Mama Mary Aina Ekundayo’s exemplary Life

    In those days, there was always a nostalgia in the eagerness and earnestness in returning home during a mid-term break from school activities to have fun and fellowship with the family. The senior brother of this columnist, Chief Michael Oluwasanmi Ekundayo, erstwhile Clerk of the Ekiti State House of Assembly, returned home during such a break and met his mother sick. Recalling the incidence, it was a devastating and disheartening one for him. According to him, he resumed after the unpalatable break and was absent minded in the classes to the point that he was in a sort of soul travel to the mother he left at home thinking of two things: either someone will come to announce his beloved mother’s obituary or he would get back home meeting her corpse. However, neither of this ungodly thoughts came to pass. He later completed the term at his alma mater, Ekiti Parapo College (EPC), Ido Ekiti, and Mama Mary Aina Ekundayo was bubbling in sound health again! What a wonder!!

    Mama’s Life of Mystery

    This columnist was in the primary school in his home town, Ido Ekiti when on returning from school one particular day he, he met his mother at home after being ferried home on a bicycle. What happened? Mama while being deeply engrossed in harvesting crops in her husband’s farm was bitten by a poisonous snake. It was a gory and gloomy experience for the whole family of the late Pa Joseph Ekundayo of blessed memory. Amazingly, even though, in the old Western Region, Ido Ekiti boasted of one of the best health institutions at that time, courtesy of the proactive performing government of the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, my mother was treated traditionally. Virtually, it did not cross my mind then, that she could die. I witnessed the traditional treatment. Mysteriously, Mama Mary Aina Ekundayo regained her health.

    Moreover, my mother suffered many cases of bearing babies and dying; what the Yorubas tagged “abiku”; similar to the occurrence of “ogbanje” in Igbo culture.. She had up to six in a row and all died at childhood! So horrible and horrendous was a particularly unpalatable episode my mother recounted to I and my wife when we lost one of our daughters in 2000. My mother was staying with us at that time to take care of one of her grandchildren. In comforting us, she recounted how she lost two of her children within ten days! To the glory of the most merciful and gracious God, she lived up to One Hundred and Eleven years and joined the saints triumphant on Wednesday, 22nd September 2021, survived by four children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren; this columnist being the last born.

    Longevity: Life Lessons

    In starting this column, Pastor Enoch Adejare Adeboye’s exhortation was highlighted. He simply and squarely stated that ministering to the poor and needy is one of the surest means of attaining longevity as attested to in the Holy Writ (Psalm 41v1-2). Are the rich, opulent and wealthy paying attention? Mama Mary Aina Ekundayo exemplified and amplified this in her lifetime. It was on record that some customers of Mama’s palm oil business bought on credit and many of them failed to pay till she was too old to continue the business. She forgave them all the debts without grudging them. Mama Mary Aina Ekundayo outlived all of them and did not need that money again! Moreover,  Mama would wake up daily around 5am to pray, supplicate and intercede for her family and household. My mother so much believed in prayers. She consistently prayed for me a particular prayer point until it came to pass years after. My mother used to pray: you would work with a good government and you would be given a car. At that time, of my mother’s children, neither I or my wife, was a public servant. However, I did my PhD research studies in Malaysia and the then administration of Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN, graciously offered me a scholarship to complete my studies and thereafter granted me opportunity to serve as a civil servant in the prestigious Lagos State Civil Service. Eventually, I rose to become the Director, Monitoring and Evaluation in Lagos State and my mother’s prayer came to pass in her lifetime. She saw the car and entered inside while praying again for me.

    Conclusion

    This columnist, learns from both parents, the art of giving to the poor and needy. For instance, labourers competed to work on my father’s farm. Why? Baba Joseph Ekundayo would pay what he agreed with them and packed like 4 to 5 tubers of yam for them while going home! We the children were always taken aback. He, too, lived up to 103. I first heard about payment of tithe from my father, a farmer, attending Anglican Church! I do not know what Daddy Freeze and cohorts would say to that? It is too late for anyone to convince me against tithing. I saw it in my father’s life and his crops were high yielding and timely. Do you desire long life? One surest way is to, as a lifestyle, take care of the poor and needy. Let us take a cue from the exemplary life of my beloved mother, Mama Mary Aina Ekundayo who was interred on the 3rd of December 2021 at her hometown, Ido Ekiti, Ekiti State at the ripe age of One Hundred and Eleven (111) years. Eye mi, Omo Owa; Omo Ekun; Omo alaye gbede-gbede boni layin; Omo osoro baba ojo; lagodo baba ademu ...

     

    • John Ekundayo, Ph.D. – Harvard-Certified Organizational Strategist, and also a Leadership Development Consultant, can be reached via 08155262360 (SMS only) and drjmoekundayo@hotmail.com

     

  • Forstering National Unity: How the likes of Comrade Isa Aremu would like to see Nigerians bury their heads in the sand

    Forstering National Unity: How the likes of Comrade Isa Aremu would like to see Nigerians bury their heads in the sand

    “Northern Nigeria is not developing its human capital. It also does not have the time to do so anymore. Therefore, it is now ill-equipped to fit into either the knowledge-driven world of today or the new world of tomorrow. It needs at least 20 years to become significant in any way. But, rather than wake up to this benumbing fact, there is the pursuit of the illusion of dominance. Meanwhile the people of the region lack the skills for tomorrow, as majority of its youth lack everything that could make them part of a 21st century world. I think we are not doing ourselves much good by the way we are living, and by refusing to educate our children. We rather produce and send them to the streets to beg for what they will eat, neglecting their character and learning.” – the highly regarded elder statesman, Ahmed Joda of blessed memory in: ‘Attitudes North Must Change to Develop’.

    Comrade Isa Aremu, an alumnus of  George Meany Labour Centre, Maryland,  USA, and the prestigious  Institute of Social Studies, at the Hague, Netherlands, where he earned a Masters degree in Labour and Development, even though most probably a student of Ilorin Grammar School, Oko erin, Ilorin, Kwara State when, in 1976, I joined the late Medical guru, Professor Oladipupo Akinkugbe, as a foundation staff  of the then University College, IIorin was, in my view, very disappointing when he appeared alongside the distinguished Speaker, and discussants, at the ThisNigeria Media Limited Inaugural lecture and Gold award event which took place in Abuja, Wednesday,  December 2, 2021.

    Listening to Aremu, a celebrated Nigerian Labour leader, and currently

    Director- General, Michael Imodu Institute of Labour Studies, Ilorin, it was embarrassing he so completely misconstrued an occasion which was meant to critically analyse, diagnose and proffer, solutions to the suppurating Nigerian conundrum as one in which Nigerians must “always celebrate successes” ( of government), no matter what agonies they are daily  experiencing.

    Our comrade appears interested only in hearing  about how the 2nd Niger bridge has been ‘completed’, about the Ibadan – Kano – Maradi rail line etc, and such  other things some people call successes of the  President Buhari administration. Aremu, indeed, also had the sheer audacity to tell Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah, one of the very few Nigerians left, who could still speak truth to power, to “stop agonising”.

    Glad, however, the bishop told him that “there is a difference between darkness and light. between truth and lies and, of course, between justice and injustice”. And that Nigerians will not stand there pretending, and saying, let us just keep moving.”

    Let us hear Isa Aremu at some length and you would understand why Nigerian workers have been languishing since the exit of the likes of comrade Oshiomhole who, am sure, cannot be smiling at the present state of affairs in the country.

    Said Aremu who, I guess, must be eager to let government, qua government,  know that it has enough friends, out there, ever ready to praise it to high heavens: “I really disagree with Bishop Kukah whose narrative, from my point of view, goes contrary to the spirit of the theme of the gathering.  Speakers should help to bring inclusive narrative, not divisive narratives”. ”We must only

    amplify our successes as citizens”. “This,  he said, “is a time that  the Nigerian patriot must make proper discussions in a way that we can have proper dialogue.(Meaning?)

    “When you use categories such as Christians and Muslims, some of us are taken aback.  At this forum, we should only  talk of who we are, based on the spirit of the constitution which never defined us as Muslims or Christians. It talks about Nigeria and if you want to go further, it is very dangerous” “I think we are Nigerians and when we are discussing let discussion focus along that line. I think it is better to celebrate some of the successes we have made in nation building.We should celebrate it that we have gotten an uninterrupted democratic transition with all the shortcomings that come with it and for me this is the kind of narrative we should be talking about”. “So, I want to say that Bishop Kukah and others while talking, please  stop agonising. Let’s organise. And we need to organise to build a nation. We need inclusive language, we need inclusive orientation in a way that we build a nation”.

    Without a doubt, this comrade forgot that the same constitution  provides for a  Federal Character commission. Or he should educate us as to how that is playing out under this government. I have tried the best I can, editing Comrade Aremu’s contributions for both language, and space, but I still can hardly make head or tail of  it so as to evaluate how far he must  have impacted  on a topic as critical to our present condition as:”National Cohesion for growth and progress: The Nigeria dilemma”.

    I am happily leaving that to the organisers of the event.

    For me, that was as good as any  opportunity to have  painstakingly analyse the multi- dimensional problems that have not only seen Nigeria rooted to the very base of the least developed countries of the world, in spite of her tremendous resources, human and material, but has seen it graduate into becoming the Poverty Capital (PC) of the world. Take, for instance the seminal thoughts of, unarguably, one of Nigeria’s finest public servants, the recently departed Alhaji Ahmed Joda,  as captured in the intro to this article. Let us identify the key issues he touched: the North and its human capital development; time to fit into the knowledge-driven world, which he says no longer exists; lack of skills which only education can deliver; a poorly educated people who will, ipso facto, be mostly unemployable, except in menial jobs; children being sent to streets, rather than to schools, only to become easy target of recruitment for terror merchants and, of course, the illusion of dominance.

    The above are the very beginnings, up there in the Northwest, of the criminal gangs who, leveraging on our very poor policing system, have metamorphosed into a brutal kidnapping industry which has not only turned Northern Rivers crimson – as somebody once prayed – but has so convulsed the entire South, accounting for about 3000 kidnaps and N8.9B paid in ransom money, according to SBMIntel – Nigeria’s leading geopolitical intelligence platform.

    All these are issues, not just nepotism, or the total capture of the nation’s security architecture by one part of the country, which we are able to distil from a single paragraph of Alhaji Joda’s ramifying thoughts that should concentrate the minds of speakers at that event. It may not be presumptuous  to suggest that by the time he finally retired to his farm, Nigeria had most probably frustrated the patriot, statesman.

    When generations of youths are left uneducated, in a region most affected by climate change in the country, the youths are bound to wander, far and wide, even sometimes outside the country in search of livelihood, and these migrations have severally led to problems, as in herders versus farmers. This will ultimately make unity extremely difficult to achieve in a heterogeneous country like ours.These are the issues comrade Aremu,  and those who think like him, would like to see us bury under the carpet because government must hear, or see, no evil.

    Happily, only Aremu, of all the distinguished speakers at the event, believed that was an occasion for celebrating what he calls successes. Bishop Kukah, for instance, believes that it is the state that has created a division, not the citizens, who are, indeed, victims.  “Every where you turn in Nigeria today, he went on,  “what are people telling you? We are living in injustice”. “People use to think that only Ogoni people were suffering injustice”. “Are we going to continue to pretend, and say, yes let us move together?”  “Tell me, who is happy in this country today?”. “We are saying what we invested in we are not getting the result. We cannot continue to deceive ourselves by pretending that nothing is wrong. No, something is very wrong. And the question of fixing this country rest on us and the knowledge that I have now if I pay for transport, I must know where the bus is going”.”We now must choose people that have shown us evidence that they understand where we are hurting.”

    On his part, the Chairman of the event, Governor Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti state, had the following to say:”Our country is going through enormous challenges.We have to agree that Nigeria is sleeping and also agree that it is a giant which you can approach from all sides. It’s like an elephant and I believe that is the perspective from which so many of us would approach the Nigerian state. The Nigerian state is not in its most healthy state and regarding that, there should be no debate.  Regardless of political  or ethnic consideration, regardless of economic opportunity available to individuals, our country is in the doldrums. Luckily, in every adversity, there is always an opportunity and it is our ability to identify what those opportunities are that will take us further in this nation building journey.”

    The pity of all these is that even when President Buhari is not, anywhere on record,  as saying that citizens cannot ask questions of his government, knowing very well that in a democracy, the Oval office, or the Presidency, is not the domain of a KABIYESI – the Yoruba word for a king who you cannot question – many are out there, like Comrade Aremu, who believe that asking questions about governance is off limits to the citizenry, no matter how  ill one government, or the other, serves the people. That is an absolute ‘No no’, in a democracy, and if such people hate to hear that, then  they could very well take a one way ticket to The Peoples Republic of China.

  • Journalism: Moving away from the norm

    Journalism: Moving away from the norm

    One of my favorite quote on the changing landscape of media practice is by the publisher of Sahara Reporters, Omoyele Sowore who told a gathering of senior journalists years ago at a new media training that ” journalism is not changing, it has changed, it is you that has not changed” and my addition to that quote is ” you must change if you want to continue to be relevant in the profession”.

    The change in this context is not what journalism is about, it is about the process and the tools used to perform the tasks expected of Journalism.

    The change is not about the noble mission and vision a journalist or media organization should have. It is not about the agreed role of the media to inform, educate and entertain. It is not about the constitutional role of holding the government accountable that remain sacrosanct, it is how we can be more effective. It is about the diversity of types of journalism we can now practice instead of remaining old school or analogue.

    We are now in a multimedia age when distinction between print and broadcast is blurred and professional journalists should be multimedia-able.

    The basic knowledge required of any journalist include being knowledge about issues to write on and being able to write, irrespective of the platform. No aspiring media professional should think of excelling without being able to write.

    What is required to be a modern journalist and being able to move beyond the norm, in addition to the basic knowledge and skills essentially it is as I earlier noted knowing the new forms of journalism and the new tools to use.

    The new forms include enhanced investigative journalism, Data Journalism, Solutions Journalism, digital journalism, Fact-Checking and much more.

    You must have the ability to go beyond what is called He said, She added journalism. You must be able to do evidence-based reporting that is forensic in how you go about your investigation, have well illustrated report with not only pictures, but infographics, videos and maps. Your research must be very thorough with relevant data and relevant facts.

    You must be computer and digital compliant to be able to use the tools effectively.

    Going beyond the norm means you must not be satisfied with being a local journalist, but one that keeps abreast of new developments globally in the profession, belongs to the right networks and can collaborate to do cross-boarder reporting.

    Beyond the norm will also involve not publishing or broadcasting for the sake of doing so, but measuring the impact of your report, ensuring maximum reach across platforms and some levels of advocacy.

    Beyond the norm will also mean being able to come up with new media projects, products or approach to disseminating information. Can you come up with an idea for an app, publish a must read newsletter, have a podcast channel, use Artificial Intelligence etc.

    Beyond the norm means not publishing websites, blogs and other platforms with copy and paste content. It will require being able to produce premium content that can attract unique traffic and revenue (including paid for subscription)

    Beyond the norm means not waiting till you graduate before utilizing skills you are learning to make necessary impact in the industry. Your ambition should not be only about seeking jobs in legacy media but coming up with media start-up ideas that can challenge the status quo.

    Instead of believing only the negative stories about the media industry, you will be equally interested in getting the success stories and be determined to make a difference in your career.

    There are many local and international media support organisations offerings lots of resources and opportunities which can enhance the practice of journalists’ beyond what it used to be.

    A modern day journalist is just a reporter, but must be also be a specialist, researcher, have digital skills and more to continue to be a relevant professional.

    Excerpt from lecture at Ogun Campus Journalism Summit by the Press Club, Moshood Abiola Polytechnic, Abeokuta.

     

  • The crude curse

    The crude curse

    Rising crude prices is a thing of joy to wise crude-producing countries. That affords them the opportunity to make more foreign exchange with which to make life worthwhile for the people. It also affords them the opportunity to save enough for the rainy day. But that is in countries with good heads who not only take care of today but also save against tomorrow, knowing full well that oil prices fluctuate and that their countries’ fortunes should not undulate with the volatile crude prices. This is the situation in those countries that know the value of planning and do refine their crude oil themselves. I am talking of countries that understand that a wise person leaves a good inheritance for his/her children. Not the one that keeps accumulating debts for generations unborn.

    Definitely not one like Nigeria that is abundantly blessed with crude oil but cannot refine it even for domestic use, not to talk of considering exporting the refined products for extra cash. It therefore finds it convenient to export the crude oil in its crude form for relatively peanuts, and importing the value-added products at cut-throat prices. That can only happen in a country where money is not the problem but how to spend it. That is why Nigerians become sad Sam whenever crude prices are rising. This is what is playing out right now in the country. Crude prices are on the upswing and while other crude-producing countries with responsible leadership are smiling to the bank, Nigerians are apprehensive that their own government is telling them to get ready to pay more for fuel. Already, they have spoilt the incoming year for millions of Nigerians, who have started thinking of how to cope, when in February, 2022, the new price regime is expected to begin.

    Petrol, we are told, would from next year sell for between N320 and N340 per litre. Note, the Buhari government inherited N87 per litre in 2015. Several officials in the administration, including the Minister of Finance, Zainab Shamsuna Ahmed, have been singing the inevitability of the price increase into our ears. Perhaps the most recent of them is the Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd (NNPCL), Mele Kyari.

    Kyari spoke in Abuja at the presentation of the November edition of the World Bank Nigeria Development Update, titled: “Time for Business Unusual.” According to him, “There will be no provision for it (subsidy) legally in our system, but I am also sure you will appreciate that government has a bigger social responsibility to cater for the ordinary (citizen) and therefore engage in a process that will ensure that we exit in the most subtle and easy manner.”

    Even Kyari, as group managing director/chief executive officer of NNPLC was silent on the country’s moribund refineries, which is where that “business unusual” that was the title of his address at the forum should appropriately begin from. How come we are importing fuel, which is largely the basis of the so-called subsidy that successive governments have always threatened to withdraw? How come none of the refineries under his watch is functioning?

    As with other public officials, mum was the word from Kyari on this important aspect.

    Then, Malam Nasir el-Rufai, the Kaduna State governor who joined the World Bank presentation virtually; he too was not different from the pack. The governor’s headache is how he and his colleagues would meet their monthly obligation to their workers. They do not seem to care about where the cash would come from, even if it means draining the blood of Nigerians. So, tell me, is that not official Yahoo Yahoo? El-Rufai said 35 out of the 36 states of the federation may not be able to pay salaries next year if subsidy was not stopped. Again, like other government functionaries who have been speaking on subsidy, el-Rufai was silent on the fact that we are talking about subsidy in because we are importing fuel. There was nothing new in what could pass for an epistle in his contribution to the issue. Just the usual half-truths and pretence that governments in Nigeria love the people.

    Hear el-Rufai: : “This hullabaloo about petrol is something that we must as a country have a conversation and agree that it has to end. We cannot continue to provide petroleum to our neighbouring countries, which is what we are doing.

    “Why are we doing this? For whom are we doing it? Who is the beneficiary? Which is the cabal that is the beneficiary of this and why should they hold this country to ransom and bankrupt the Nigerian economy?”

    The question of Nigeria supplying its neighbours cheap fuel, which is one of the reasons often touted for fuel, price increase is not caused by the ordinary Nigerian. That is left to the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS). This service makes humongous money for the government and a fraction of that ploughed back into the NCS would be enough to get the right number of personnel for the agency to perform, armed with the relevant modern equipment.

    Moreover, el-Rufai should know that the subsidy is not the reason the state governments would not be able to pay salaries. The reason they can’t pay is because many state governments are lazy and incapable of imagination. State (regional) governments were not living off one another in the first republic. So, why don’t we return to that glorious aspect of our past? In a country where the president is so fixated with, and fascinated by the past, such that he would not allow old things to pass away, we will continue to be treating symptoms instead of causes. States properly so-called must be able to fend for themselves. Otherwise, they should cease to exist. Pure and simple.

    As a matter of fact, the way our government officials, particularly the elected ones reason shows they are out of touch with reality; out of touch with the people. Indeed, Nigerians should begin to understand the reason why many of our public officials do not want to get out of government once they get in. After becoming governors they want to be senator, and after that become minister or head of one juicy government agency or the other, so that their problem would continue to be the problem of Nigerians. These officials think it is the way many of them in government get cheap money that the rest of us get it, too. Or that the government picks our bills the way government picks theirs. They do not seem to realise that for the few Nigerians that are lucky to have fairly good jobs, 30 days make one month. As a matter of fact, for many, it is more than that before another pay day. Not to talk of the jobless millions out there.

    Yet, if anything, it is the incompetence and corruption of the political elite that has turned Nigerians that God created as butchers’ children, to bone eaters, by ensuring that our refineries were killed. Tell me what government has not killed in Nigeria. Is it not the political elite that killed our hospitals? Is it not the political elite that killed our educational system? After killing everything good in the country, they jet out for medical tourism, they send their children abroad to get quality education. All of these at the expense of the hapless tax-payers. They are now complaining that it is too much to splash N250 billion monthly subsidy on petrol on about 200 million ordinary citizens; innocent people who were not responsible for making our refineries moribund. And, to show the lack of creativity in the government, the Buhari government that we invested so much hope in, after monumentally disappointing Nigerians on all major fronts said, in place of the subsidy, it would give some 40 million poorest-of-the poor Nigerians N5,000 each, to cushion the effects of the subsidy withdrawal on them. It stopped shy of calling this ‘palliative’ like past governments did apparently because Nigerians have always known that palliatives in Nigeria is a fraudulent government concept or scheme.

    I have so far refrained from bringing Labour into the picture because I do not think Labour is going to do anything significantly different from what it had done in the past in the subsidy question: that is, raise the hope of Nigerians only to dump them at the last minute. And really, I do not think Nigerians or any long-suffering people need any prompting by anybody or group, reliable or unreliable, to know what to do when pushed to the wall. Poverty or hardship does not know tribe or religion. It is significant to note, however, that if the Jonathan government whipped us with cane on subsidy, the Buhari government has come with horsewhips laced with razor blade to do the same thing it condemned its predecessor who did not even increase fuel price anything near what the Buhari government is contemplating, for.

    The fact of the matter is that the government has completely lost steam. If it thinks its jaded sermonising on subsidy withdrawal will have any impact on Nigerians, it is merely deceiving itself. Definitely, the government has come to the end of the road even with borrowing because no sensible country should be willing to lend to Nigeria again, after seeing that there is no creative thinking in government and that those in government only believe in the easy way out.

    Subsidy removal would make sense to me (and I guess the generality of Nigerians) if the country does not have crude oil, or if crude is refined locally with the government bearing a part of the cost which it now wants to drop due to liquidity challenge. In this situation, there can be a debate. We can talk. But not in a situation where the government merely wants to pass its ineptitude and corruption in the system to the common man.

    But, why is Nigeria making crude refining look like rocket science? After all, other oil-producing countries are getting it right. Why would bean cake become bone in the mouth of Nigerian governments? These are germane questions the government must answer before talking about subsidy withdrawal.

    My only advice to the Buhari government is that it should know that there is a limit to human endurance. We saw a bit of that last year. This government is barely being tolerated. We have never witnessed the kind of hardship we are enduring under the Buhari government. Nigerians are like other rational human beings; so, the Buhari government should not push them to the extent of making them lose their coping mechanism. It is only a greedy fly that follows the dead body to the grave. Let the government stop behaving like one on this fuel subsidy issue. Nigerians should not continue to fund the insatiable appetite of the ruling class for all manner of exotic lifestyle. The Buhari government should tell the world what it has done in over six years to make Nigeria refine crude oil, at least for domestic use, instead of harping on subsidy withdrawal on imported petrol, as if our lives must depend on it.

    A word is enough for the wise.

     

  • Teachers and Kaduna’s restless el-Rufai

    Teachers and Kaduna’s restless el-Rufai

    Governor Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna State has been giving teachers and civil servants plenty of meat to chew in recent weeks. He must hope that their ageing dentition can still cope with the tough meat he is giving them. Teachers in the state, more than any other group, have been at the receiving end of his generosity, as they perch awkwardly on the horns of a dilemma. Some 22,000 of them were sacked in 2017, and to show that the exercise was devoid of malice he replaced them barely a year later in April 2018 with close to 16,000 freshly recruited teachers. At a stage in the exercise, however, the state discovered that more than four thousand were incompetent to be teachers, and so they were again sacked. Since then, the state has been engaged in a bit of a ding-dong with teachers over competency tests. Just last week, another 233 teachers were relieved of their positions over false certificates, with the state insisting that it would still test the competence of teachers in the state. There will of course be no end to the sackings, nor to the competency tests.

    The Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT) has predictably been left agitated and distressed. It is obligated to protect its members from unfair and arbitrary treatment; but how does the union protect members who present fake certificates, or teachers who are demonstrably incompetent? But that is the crux of the matter. The state insists it has the right to subject its staff, whether teachers or civil servants, to competency tests, because it is paying the bills. But teachers and their union insist that such a task is best left, according to the law, to the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN). They have decided to boycott the test, regardless of what the repercussions would be. If they stay united, Mallam el-Rufai will have to decide again whether to sack them or back down. It is not clear what he will do. As for the teachers, they appear tired of the instability and apprehensions to which the governor’s policies have sentenced them. They fear that his restlessness knows no bounds, and that every time they give in to some of his brain waves, more surprises will come out of his repository. The governor is not always right in his politics and policies, going by his nature, but he has a right to be worried about the quality of state workers, whether in the civil service or, particularly, teachers.

    However, restlessness is idiosyncratic to Mallam el-Rufai, not to say sanctimoniousness. Most of the time, he thinks he is right. Once his mind is made up, he goes at whatever it is that agitates him hammer and tongs. He will battle the state’s teachers till his last week in office. He will not nearly always be wrong on them, given the abysmal quality of many teachers everywhere, but there is no guarantee that he will laugh last. The fact is that teachers and civil servants, competent or incompetent, will outlast him. And in the long run, it will not matter whether he did what was right or not; what will matter, unfortunately for him, is how he did it. He saw the last local government elections, which his party won handsomely, as a vindication of his style and politics; but in reality it was a fickle measure of the popularity of his policy and style. Mallam el-Rufai is in the closing months of his governorship; it may be time for him to begin to reassess his style and retune his government’s policies. In seeking a rapprochement with the people he has governed for nearly seven years, sometimes self-righteously, he must seek a balance between the quality he believes is so intrinsic to his personality and the failings and weaknesses of a system that is fundamentally and structurally defective, not only in Kaduna, but nationally.

    But this advice is coming a little too late for the four-day working week he has just introduced in Kaduna, starting with the civil service, and promising to widen it to embrace the private sector sometime later. It is not clear whether he did his calculations well, particularly concerning the issue of productivity, or whether he looked at the practicability of the idea. Perhaps anxious not to be accused of pandering to Muslims by hacking Friday off the existing five-day working week, he deployed the arguments of the office culture changes birthed by Covid-19, the need to spend more time with family, and leeway to practice agriculture as excuses to limit presence in office to Monday to Thursday. Though in the first instance Covid-19 has made physical presence in office somewhat redundant, it would, however, required modern technology to sustain physical absence. There is no indication that Kaduna or most civil services in Nigeria have reached that level of technological sophistication to justify extended physical absence from office. It will take some time, some doing, computer literacy, and improvement in technology and telecommunications network to reach a level where workers can be trusted to productively work from home.

    Second, when the state suggests that workers need time for agriculture and family, would that be within the eight-to-five working hours the government stipulates? Some reservations have been expressed as to the real motive of the government, but it is clear that little monitoring can be done to make up for lack of physical presence in the office on Friday. Already, it is known that Nigerian public sector workers are notoriously lax, even in office. To trust them to be diligent out of office would be stretching government luck too far. Extending closing hours to 5pm will do little to increase productivity. And on Friday, it will be even more futile for any supervisor to monitor a worker beyond jumat, regardless of the volume of work and technological sophistication. Changing working hours will do nothing to raise productivity; it will lower it.

    Governor el-Rufai reminds many Nigerians of the uproarious changes wrought on Osun State by former governor Rauf Aregbesola regarding public holidays and education policy. The state has battled since then to restore normality. Mr Aregbesola and Mallam el-Rufai are kindred spirits. Both are cocksure of everything, and they hardly let anyone get in a word edgeways. There is no proof that the Kaduna working week changes have been properly considered. However, once it takes root, the in-coming governor will be hard put to restore normality, unlike Osun.

    New COVID-19 variant, Omicron

    The Nigerian government has been unsure how to respond to the new Covid-19 variant, Omicron, detected a few weeks ago in South Africa. It is probably the fifth variant sequenced so far. Not much is known about it, but it has led to stiff measures against South Africa, including many countries barring travelers from Southern Africa. Nigeria is right to denounce the immigration sanctions imposed against South Africa, but beyond that there is no concerted effort to protect Nigerians against the new variant or ensure it does not spread further than the few thought to have been already infected in the country.

    Nigeria emphasizes vaccination, and boosters. But less than five percent of Nigerians has been fully vaccinated, and the country’s shambolic policy on vaccination, including forcing people to take the jab, is unlikely to be significant in slowing the spread. Other factors that had slowed the spread of previous variants and made the pandemic less fatal to Nigerians will come into play once more. Apart from this, campaigns to compel adherence to Covid-19 protocols should be ramped up, while aggressive testing should also recommence. Handling incoming travelers professionally and scrupulously adhering to Port protocols, which were badly managed in the worst of times, must now be reinvigorated.

  • Worming your way into her heart

    Worming your way into her heart

    LAST week we saw how married women worm their way into their husband’s heart and since then many married women have brought it into my notice  that since it takes two to tango, we should also relate the experiences of some men. So today, with permission, we shall be looking into the true confession of some men both married and single, their real names withheld.

    This is an account from Mr. Keith, a graphic designer, who has been married for six years.  Mr. Keith looked straight into my eyes and said ‘sexual problem became a thing of the past in my marriage, when I took quality time to understand my wife better. Mind you, this does not say I have to step outside of my male nature but I put my self-ego aside and told myself that I need to know this woman better. Before now, I tend to be more defensive, now I am more considerate and thoughtful. Sometimes, it is as basic as understanding what my wife want, ‘Ronke’ [her wife real name withheld] frequently want to talk to me more, she just want to talk, but I just want food, sex and rest, nothing more and nothing less. “For the first five years of our marriage,” Keith says, “I’d come home and Ronke would say, ‘How was your day?’ And I would say, ‘Fine.’ That would make her just withdraw from sex.

    However, when I took out time to appreciate that conversation is a basic emotional need for most women, I began to chat with my wife often and also listen to her and reflect her feelings. In addition, I did that without looking at my watch, and without one eye on the TV, amazingly, my wife’s sexual appetite skyrocketed, she lifted the ‘life threatening embargo placed on our sex life’.  Now I know the appropriate answers to her questions and I have a spicy, passionate, hot sex bed. Eighty-two per cent of wives who say they are sexually satisfied also report feeling respected by their partner before, during and after sex.

    ‘Before I got married I had an ‘ex’ that left me for someone else at the peak of our relationship, but while I was doing my P.H.D programme, in the university, I met her again, even though  I told myself I wasn’t going to fool around with her, but I just couldn’t resist her as much as I tried. I pretty much lived a double life for a long time. Even though this continued long after I left the school. However, since I never got caught, I thought neither knew about the other but my wife was suspicious and as a result our sex bed suffered a great deal. That was years ago, I realize now that I was not mature enough to recognize how hurtful my behaviour was and how I nearly lost my marriage and my children,’ says  Mr. Boyofure.

    I’m sure the experience of Mr. Oloja, a single and searching young intelligent musician would be a ‘food for thought’ to the single and mature men out there. “There was a time when I was cheating in almost every relationship I was in. I had an insatiable appetite for the ‘wonder’ that was hidden beneath each woman I was attracted to. I sincerely believed through cheating and exploration, I would come to find the kind of person I was meant to be with.

    “I cheated with friends of a friend of a friend, anything in skirt I go for it. However, regrettably, I’m still searching at 46 years, ladies I would have loved to marry just ‘play me’ truly what goes round comes round.

    Mr. Ojalo’s case is slightly different, he said and I quote: ‘Funmi all I did was to put into practise all you said in the last couples’ cruise we had. I observed them, improved on them, practised them and they all worked for me. You said, one in every four married women are “too tired” to have sex and married women who have sex about three times a week are perceived to look 4 to 7  years younger, and since I wanted a younger woman in my wife I engage more in foreplay and she melts like ice-cream on my bed. You also said that sex triggers brain chemicals that can improve creativity at work. So, I  helped her take  her time to really figure out her  feelings  since, women with high emotional intelligence experience more orgasms and  reschedule our sex time to first thing in the morning. What do I get? The best of my wife sexual performance before I face the day which has increased my productivity level.

    For Mr J,J, ‘You said husband should continue the sweet things they used to do while still dating their wives that those things get them sexually hot.  More also, study has found out that women are more turned on when their husbands just snuggle with them while watching TV at night and that couples who cuddle regularly are  less likely to get unhappy.  In addition you said, when women watch a man kissed a woman it help them to be in the mood for sex than having sex with her out rightly. So I invented my own version. I try kissing my wife in front of a mirror. My wife does not wait to feel turned on before she makes some wild moves. Wahoo Funmi you need to be there to see what goes on!

    You need Mr. Osifoka’s remark, and here it goes. ‘Funmi I told you my penis is not long enough, that my wife is not enjoying sex as I want her to, and you said that a woman has a better possibility at climaxing during sex if the walls of her vaginal canal are stimulated. A study found that penis length does not help accomplish this but the penis thickness does. Tell your wife to make you feel bigger by keeping her legs together during sex. It creates more friction. You said since scientists believe that some women have a more active G-spot than others do. Trying various positions for sex will make us sing a new song. Such as, like leaning back while she is on top, may help me stimulate her G-spot. You even said experts have discovered a new pleasure centre: the anterior fornix, known as the A-spot, located on the upper wall of the vagina, near the cervix.

    When I stimulate this area, it increases lubrication. The moves that arouse her G-spot will hit this area too. You said the nerve endings in the clitoris are much more densely packed than in the penis, so it’s more sensitive. All I need to do is place a finger on either side of her clitoris and move up and down. The indirect contact keeps her clitoris from being over-stimulated. The miracle is that I became a better lover and disregard my inadequacies. Thank you Funmi, I do not need to go for penis enhancement surgery again.

    Mr. Badegeshin’s wife has been sexually active prior to the time of her sickness; after recovery, he was not sure if his wife should still be involved sexually. Here is his remark. ‘Funmi all you told me is this ‘having sex once a week can improve your wife’s immune function by 30 per cent 40. A 2010 study found that the better a woman’s genital self-image, the easier it is for her to orgasm. When women orgasm, the areas of the brain associated with fear shut off. Most couples over 65 still have sex at least once a week. Off we went today I am sexually happier at 67 years of age and she is healthier. When you encourage a couple’s cruise for us I yielded immediately because you said about one-third of married people report that sex is better while away on vacation and our major indoor sport is sex and thirty minutes of sex burns, on average, 85 or more calories. Kudos ‘joo’

    For Mr. Okafor, his wife was brutally circumcised and he is not finding it funny at all. However, read his remark, “when you said that every area of my wife’s body would get the job done, I was very sceptical, because I thought the real action is in the vagina. You said women are ten times more sensitive to touch than men. So before the action really gets going, run your fingers over your wife’s entire body, some women can orgasm from breast stimulation alone by spending extra time there. You might want to go all night, but since your wife has been circumcised she would prefer a lesser penis activities to lip and hand performance, give her oral sex. ‘My oh my’ all is well now.’

    QUESTION ONE

    I am a single girl and want to just stay without sex until I am married but my friends said that my vagina will become stiff and useless when I eventually get married. My question is this, if I do not have sex, does my vagina change at all?

     

    ANSWER

    Not in any major way, however, some married women notice that their vagina feels less flexible. When you have intercourse frequently, the tissues of your vagina expands because of its elasticity but if you are not having regular sex, your vaginal tissues constrict a bit.  In so much that inserting a penis, may be slightly more difficult. This is why some newly married women who have not been sexually active previously report feeling a pang of pain once they start having sex, though they may not be virgins. I do not think your decision is a bad one, all you have to do when married is to add some lubrication before intercourse this would ease any discomfort.

     

    QUESTION TWO

    Sometimes I get a sharp pain in my lower belly during intercourse, is it because my husband penis is on the big side?

     

    ANSWER

    Relax and do not stress yourself if these pelvic pangs occur mid-cycle, before ovulation, your ovaries may be slightly tender having sex may press on them, causing a sharp pain. Deep thrusting may also cause pain.  To be on the save side try moving your legs closer together during sex to keep your husband from going in too far, since you indicated that his penis is rather big. Nevertheless, if this pain strikes at other times of the month, it is advisable you see your Gynaecologist. It could signal endometriosis or another serious condition, which has nothing to do with the size of your husband penis.

     

    QUESTION THREE

    My vagina sometimes hurts during and after sex, in-fact it a pepperish pain that I feel most times. Because of financial constraints we decide not to have children now so we usually make use of condoms.

     

    ANWSER

    The most common cause of pain during sex is vaginal dryness, so be sure you are fully aroused before you have intercourse and try using a lubricant. The condoms you are using could also be the culprit: You may have a latex allergy or be irritated by spermicidal. Switch to polyurethane base condoms. However, if you have determined that none of these is the cause of your discomfort, see your gynaecologist. You may have an infection, such as yeast or bacteria.

     

    QUESTION FOUR

    We have been married for three years now without a child, and lately I found a piece of whitish tissue hanging from my wife’s vagina. Do you think it has something to do with infertility or what could it be?

     

    ANSWER

    The tissue may just be a leftover piece of your wife’s hymen. The hymen is the membrane partially covering your wife’s vaginal opening, which usually tears the first time you have intercourse. When the hymen breaks down the middle, a tissue remnant can remain at the opening (where you or your wife may not notice it) for years before falling off. It is not harmful, and has nothing to do with infertility. I would rather you relax, and seek help from the appropriate quarter.

  • National Assembly and constitution review: waiting for Godot?

    National Assembly and constitution review: waiting for Godot?

    The main themes in Waiting for Godot include the human condition, absurdism and nihilism. The human condition: The hopelessness in Vladimir and Estragon’s lives demonstrates the extent to which humans rely on illusions—such as religion and politics according to Beckett—to give hope to a meaningless existence” – Google    .

    This past week, elder statesman, Edwin Clark,

    alleged “that the National Assembly spends about N1 billion annually on the effort to review the nation’s constitution without making any headway.”  He went on to “challenge President Muhammadu Buhari to convoke a meeting of representatives of Nigeria to deliberate on the report submitted by the Governor Nasir el-Rufai committee set up  by the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) on restructuring”. He then ominously warned “that unless the injustice perceived by parts of the country is addressed, the issue of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and other agitators will be a child’s play”.

    My liking the perennial constitution review by the National Assembly to Samuel Beckett’s WAITING FOR GODOT, is another way of saying that for the National Assembly, the exercise is nothing more than a sink hole, another way for legislators in the Poverty Capital (PC) of the world, aka Nigeria,  to further add to their humongous emoluments which rank among the highest in the world; including countries that Nigeria’s annual budget, which we borrow to execute, does not amount to one per cent of their own.

    It is obvious that no session of the National Assembly ever appeared eager to have the exercise concluded and, when it did in 2015, it inserted enough booby traps to foreclose President Goodluck Jonathan’s assent.

    More germane, however, is the fact that Nigerians, across board, are convinced that not even the Assembly’s  best effort will be good enough for the Nigeria they yearn for.  This fact was captured in a very expansive statement by the Northern Elders Forum (NEF) when it declared as follows in a statement that has since been echoed by many other  Pan – ethnic organisations in the country:

    “Nigeria’s future, it said, rests largely on its willingness to address major constraints to equity and justice, a functional structure, consistent good governance, security for all citizens, a credible electoral process, growing understanding between, and among all groups, and an economy that grows and narrows inequalities between classes and regions.” Continuing, it says: “national goals cannot be achieved by a process that makes wasteful expenditure around false hopes a routine. The legislature and executive branches of government have large quantities of reviews, recommendations and reports from past attempts at amending the constitutions and these represent enough resources for a review if the legislature is serious about this vital national priority”. “The Forum recommends the alternative of leaders of thought, elders, groups and professional organisations and representatives of government, to freely discuss every element of our co-existence as a country under principles of voluntarism, genuine representation, mutual respect and integrity of the process”. Specifically, it said: “A Nigerian Peoples’ Conference on Review of the Constitution will benefit from past work in this direction in addition to contemporary challenges, which the country needs to address in a context that allows free and productive engagements without pre-determined ends.” The outcome of this conference, it concluded, should be submitted to the two arms of government, which should provide for a referendum in the constitution so that Nigerians can directly decide on how they want their nation to be structured and function”.

    I have also severally written  on the subject. For instance, in “Constitution Review: That Nigerians Would Not Be Taken For A Ride Again”, I wrote as follows on 8 March, 2020:

    “Just as President Yar Adua denounced the election that brought him to office in 2007, former President Obasanjo recently said that the 1999 constitution on which he was sworn in as President, is  not working, nor will it ever work, as it cannot take Nigeria out of its  present predicament”.

    But  has the National Assembly  come to this realisation? Do the members appreciate that what Nigeria requires today is far beyond the perfunctory amendment  of a jaded and totally inappropriate  constitution? I think they should be told, loud and clear, that what Nigeria needs now is a Constitution Drafting Committee, whose report  should  be approved by Nigerians at a national referendum.

    Unfortunately, even if they are aware of this minimum desideratum for peace, precedents already set at  these exercises  are too tempting for them not  to want a  repeat.

    Given the need for Nigerians to be on their  guide, I consider it a bounden duty to bring to the attention of  all,  the following  unflattering report of a PREMIUM TIMES investigation published 11, December 2015, on an earlier constitution review exercise. This should  warn Nigerians against them conducting another.  It should also alert the  EFCC,  which recently demonstrated courage by commencing  investigation into the N35B defence funds  believed to have been looted over a decade ago, to also bring the legislators allegedly implicated in those deals under its purview . For those so   accused,  that should be  a grand  opportunity for them to clear their names.

    But more crucially, the President would be giving his place in history, a major  boost if, rather than permit another sterile constitution amendment  exercise, he would urgently convoke a Constitution Drafting Committee to  fashion out a new constitution which will not lie against itself, claiming to have been made by “we the people”.

    It is therefore being suggested, as already opined by former President Obasanjo and many other eminent Nigerians, that it will be a sheer waste of time, and resources, to just look on whilst the National Assembly continues with this  chimera  of a constitution review.

    The Senate President, Ahmad Lawan had, on February 6, 2020,  set up a 56- member committee for this purpose with all  the principal officers as members in addition to one senator from each state, and two others, selected to represent each geo-political zone.

    Welcome then to the Prime Times report titled :”How Lawmakers Pocketed N8 Billion In Failed Constitution Amendment”.

    “In an investigation lasting months, this newspaper found that between 2011 and 2015, the 53-member House of Representatives Ad-hoc Constitution Review Committee and its 49-member counterpart in the Senate in the 7th National Assembly withdrew N3,250,000,000.00 and N4,500,000,000.00 respectively to purportedly execute the fourth alteration of the Constitution.

    It is not immediately clear how the lawmakers spent the outrageous funds but insiders say a huge chunk of it was pocketed by members of the committees in what one source described as ‘unprecedented naira bazaar’, by a committee of the National Assembly’.

    Officials of the committees continued to make withdrawals even long after the exercise was concluded. It remains unclear what those withdrawals were spent on.

    The Committees, which operated independently, withdrew the monies in tranches from their accounts domiciled in an Abuja branch of the Guarantee Trust Bank.

    Curiously, some of the withdrawals were made long after they submitted their final reports to both chambers for consideration and a few weeks before the general elections and the inauguration of the 8th National Assembly.

    The Committee withdrew N83.33m on March 2, 2015 and the same amount on March 23, five days before the Presidential and National Assembly elections and on April 13, barely two days after this year’s governorship election.” – PREMIUM TIMES, December 11, 2015.

    The House Committee’s major activities during the process included a retreat in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, between May 27 and 29, 2012; Peoples Public Sessions held simultaneously in all the 360 federal constituencies on November 10, 2012; and public presentation of collated results on April 18, 2013.

    It held 25 meetings altogether while the assignment lasted. There was also a retreat for the Technical Experts on Constitution and Legal matters who produced the work-plan as well as some civil society organisations drawn from the six geo-political zones.

    Members of the House subsequently voted on the various sections proposed for amendment on January 30, 2014.

    The Senate Committee, on the other hand, held a retreat in Asaba, Delta State; organised zonal and national (Abuja) public hearings; conducted opinion polls; undertook study tour to the United States, Canada and India; held consultations with seasoned experts and constitutional lawyers; and organised town hall meetings in the senatorial zones.

    It presented its final report to the Senate on June 5, 2013.

    The Committee whose membership included the principal officers of the upper chamber who served as “members of the steering committee,” finally organised a retreat in Lagos to consider a draft bill. That was after the senators voted on the amended sections on three occasions – July 2013, April 2014 and June 2014.

    But those who should know say all these engagements could not have cost the nation more than N1billion altogether. They said some of the public sessions held in states were funded by state governments.

    Then Senate President, David Mark  did not answer or return multiple calls. Neither did he respond to a text message sent to him.

    Ditto Deputy President Ekweremadu. When contacted, Imam Imam, the media aide to Speaker Aminu Tambuwal, asked this newspaper to direct all inquiries to the Clerk of the House of Representatives.

    Deputy Speaker, Hon. Ihedioha, who chaired the House Ad-hoc Committee, merely told us in a text message to feel free to reach out to the Clerk of the House of Reps to furnish us with all the details”.

    Mr. Omolori could however not be reached and did not answer or return calls. He also did not  respond to a text message sent to him.

    Several attempts by this newspapers to speak with the Clerk to the National Assembly,  failed. The  spokesperson of the House, who served in the ad-hoc committee, did not answer calls by this newspaper”.

    “However, a former senator who served on the Senate Ad-hoc committee, Anthony Adeniyi,

    told  Prime Times in a telephone interview: “I can’t confirm the figure you are quoting. I don’t think we spent that much,”  while another senator, close to the constitution review committee, but who requested anonymity for fear he might be attacked by his colleagues, said, “I can confirm that they withdrew more than that. Committee members were just sharing money”.

    Can Nigeria afford such irresponsibility in this era of a gruelling pandemic?

    Nigerians  beware”.

    Add to the pandemic,  the suffocating financial meltdown that may, according to the latest revelation of the NNPC, GMD. Mele Kyari, see Nigerians being asked to pay up to N340 per a litre of petrol.