Timeless Magazine

The Wait is Finally Over ! - ARISE Magazine Fashion Week Retruns to Africa

2012-01-22T16:36:00.001+01:00

“Africa's up-and-coming fashion designers put on a dazzling show in a
three-day runway event in an unconventional city.” CBS News

"[KlûK CGDT] Drama, emotional, traditional but fresh - each look had its
own story and moment." Vogue Italia Black

"The London fashion world has descended on Lagos to parade the
latest collection to put Nigeria on the fashion map." ITV News

"The gala event was the climax of ARISE Magazine Fashion Week - the
largest event of its kind ever seen on the continent." Telegraph

Due to the phenomenal success of the inaugural ARISE Magazine Fashion Week 2011, where 5,000 guests, 51 designers, 81 models, 5 musical acts performed over three days – ARISE is once again proud to announce that it will return to Lagos in March 2012.

The ARISE Magazine Fashion Week 2012 fashion extravaganza will run for an extended period of SIX days from Tuesday 6th to Sunday 11th March 2012. Once again, ARISE will invite 50 designers to participate in its 2012 Fashion Week show. The much anticipated finale will host the spectacular ARISE Magazine Fashion Awards. The very best of the designers will be invited to participate in the annual ARISE Magazine Fashion Gala at the Mercedes-Benz New York Fashion Week in September 2012.

At last yearʼs AMFW 2011 fashion event SEVEN designers: Lanre Da Silva-Ajayi, Jewel by Lisa, Asibelua, Bunmi Koko, Tsemaye Binitie, Pierre-Antoine Vettorello and KlûK CGDT were given a golden ticket invitation to showcase their designs in September 2011, as part of the Made in Africa by ARISE Magazine Collective at the Avery Fisher Hall, New York.

ARISE Magazine founder Nduka Obaigbena says: “There is a side of Lagos that chimes well with the international fashion scene. We at ARISE Magazine recognise that the city has much to offer in the way of vibrancy and extraordinary talent in abundance making it the cultural capital of Africa. Once more we are proud to be associated with nurturing new designers from the vast continent –
and continuing our support of those who are more well-known in Nigeria and in the diaspora.”
ARISE Magazine launched in 2008 and is Africaʼs first global style and culture title. On the 8th of March 2011, ARISE Magazine hosted its inaugural show in Lagos, where it invited over 50 designers to participate at the prestigious Federal Palace Hotel, Nigeria.
Its most recent show MADE IN AFRICA BY ARISE MAGAZINE (15th September 2011) at the Avery Fisher Hall, New York, received huge acclaims from the media including this quote from Londonʼs Daily Mail: "It was a triumphant show for Ms Da Silva-Ajayi and the African fashion set, also including Jewel by Lisa, Asibelua, Bunmi Koko, Tsemaye Binitie, Pierre-Antoine Vettorello and KlûK CGDT. They threw the cat amongst the pigeons of New York high fashion with an eclectic
mix of bright colours, eye-catching designs and bucket-loads of African attitude."

Previously, ARISE had a successful run of THREE seasons (in 2009, 2010 and 2011) of the ARISE AFRICA FASHION COLLECTIVES at New York Fashion Week's Bryant Park, New York, and the successful sponsorship of the inaugural ARISE AFRICA FASHION WEEK at the Sandton Convention Centre, in Johannesburg and Cape Town in 2009.

Valentine Day Offer

2012-01-19T12:46:00.000+01:00

“I don't understand why Cupid was chosen to represent Valentine's Day. When I think about romance, the last thing on my mind is a short, chubby toddler coming at me with a weapon.” - Author unknown

Valentine's Day is just a month away...advertise your goods and services in our February edition for as low as N15,000 for a 25 by 6 cm strip advert. Take advantage of this special season offer

Beyond the Fuel Subsidy: Conversations the Government and the NLC should be having

2012-01-09T12:09:00.001+01:00

By Ayodeji Jeremiah

(1) Despite strong economic growths in the past 5 years, our government is broke because there is extreme wastage on recurrent expenditure. Our government is too big and extremely expensive to maintain. Our National Assembly consumes a huge amount of our budget. The president, governors and local government chairmen and their assistants all have expenses that can be curtailed to bring down the cost of government but we don't see this happening. Why?

(2) Nigerians have to come to a realisation that for our government to work, it's time to do away with federal character and ethnic representation. A situation where we constitute a board and insist on having six commissioners on that board representing the six geo-political zones when that board can work effectively with two or three commissioners is unacceptable. Having a federal government with 36 or 42 ministers is unacceptable.

(3) Why is government so unwilling to repair the existing refineries? Each refinery can be repaired within 12 months while a new one can only be built within three years. If the government says there is no money to repair the refineries, how about borrowing money from the World Bank or ADB at reduced rates to do so? If those refineries work, supply will improve and people will be more than willing to allow subsidy removal to pay back such loans. At least, we will know what the government used the money for.

(4) Our Civil Service is bloated, disorganised and non-functional, yet majority of Nigerians continue to subsidise the salaries and financial inefficiencies in this sector. The NLC will not address this situation because it is not politically correct for them to do so. Fighting for N18, 500 minimum wage for less than 5 million Nigerians when majority of Nigerians are in the informal sector working in companies with less than 50 staff where the minimum wage law does not apply to them is not the way for the NLC to go. NLC should be looking at how to engage the government on how to free up resources for the informal sector, how to build new infrastructure and how to sustain our moribund manufacturing industries.

(5) If government is sincere about removal of fuel subsidy, they should give a timeline. E.g.
- Repair of existing refineries - January 2012 - December 2013
- Improvement of Power Supply to at least 10, 000 megawatts – January 2012 - December 2012
- Reduction of staff, salaries and expenditure in the Civil Service including both political and non-political office holders – January 2012 - December 2012
- Provision of Mass Transit Schemes - January 2012 - December 2012
- Repair of Railway - January 2012 - December 2013

The monies for the above can come from savings made in (iii) above and from public-private sector partnerships and from soft loans. Rather than collecting loans and mounting up debts to maintain an expensive bureaucracy and government, such loans and debts should be used to build new infrastructure

(6) There will be no 'cabal', no subsidy and corruption will be eliminated in the fuel supply chain if our refineries can work and fuel supply is improved.

(7) The fuel subsidy issue is not just economic and that is where the government got it all wrong. Anyone with A-Level Economics knows this subsidy cannot be maintained but the argument is also moral and political. Nigerians simply do not trust their government to spend the money realised from the subsidy removal wisely. Government should have come out with a detailed expense statement saying this is how and how the money will be spent with derivables clearly stated and dated.

The subsidy is the only thing Nigerians generally see as their gain from the government, removing it arbitrarily was wrong and then the government's damage control activities has been less than satisfactory. The House of Representatives, while they should be commended for their special session convened on Sunday January 8 should also be made to sit up. There are lots of other burning issues that we need their attention on. Playing on our emotions and sentiments should not be allowed, they are also culpable in the issues pertaining to our country. I did not see any statement from them slashing their salaries and bloated allowances.

If the NLC wants to go on strike, then it should not just focus on getting us back to N65 per litre of petrol. If at the end of the day, negotiations take place and we start buying fuel at N80 or N100 or N120 per litre, then nothing has been achieved.

Bolaji Akinyemi: Happy Birthday to a Great Nigerian Icon at 70

2012-01-04T16:05:00.002+01:00

Professor Akinwande Bolaji Akinyemi was born on 4th January, 1942. He graduated cum laude from Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. in 1964. He holds M.A. (International Affairs) and M. A. (Law and Diplomacy) both from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, Massachusetts, U.S. A., 1965 and 1966 respectively. He obtained his D. Phil. from Trinity College, Oxford, in 1969. He was the Director-General, Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), Lagos from 1975 – 1983 and Minister of External Affairs, Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1985 – 1986. He has taught at various schools including being Lecturer and Later Senior Lecturer in Political Science, University of Ibadan, Nigeria, 1970-1975; Visiting Professor, Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva, 1977; Visiting Professor, Diplomacy Training Programme, University of Nairobi, Kenya, 1977; Regent’s Lecturer, University of California, Los Angeles, California, February 1979; Visiting Overseas Scholar, St. John’s College, Cambridge, 1984 and Professor of Political Science, University of Lagos, 1983-1985. He is a Member, International Advisory Board, Centre for Strategic Studies, University of California, Los Angeles, U.S.A and Member, International Institute of Strategic Studies Committee on Regional Security Studies. He is currently Member, Presidential Electoral Reform Committee and Chairman, Presidential Think Tank, under the current Government of President Yar’ Adua of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Professor Akinyemi is a prolific writer and has authored several books and papers.

How to Transform

2011-12-26T00:22:00.001+01:00

By Ituah Ighodalo

If one looks at the world’s ecosystem and the background of creation, one cannot but wonder in amazement at the perfection created by God. As far as I am concerned, the only imperfection in the world today is ironically the creation put in place to rule the earth. I am irrevocably convinced that the source of most of man’s suffering in the world today is man himself (his self centeredness) and his Godlessness. The inability to care about anything but himself alone. For the Black man, the situation is worse; it is very painful for anyone to suffer in a world of outstanding resources freely provided by the Almighty. There is nothing that man needs, that has not been provided; for the Black man it is an absurdity of “water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink”.

I want therefore to share with you a topic I consider important and hopefully life changing. As long as a man keeps limiting his thoughts to himself, as long as he keeps thinking only within himself, he cannot do better than himself, no matter how rich or wealthy he is; he cannot do better than himself and therefore he cannot make giant strides or make outstanding progress in life.

When we limit our lives to ourselves and our thinking doesn’t go beyond self, we literally destroy the lives of other people. No wonder our country Nigeria is going through very critical periods because we are surrounded by people on a daily basis who limit their thinking to themselves and therefore they destroy the lives of others.

About six or seven years ago, in the church, I suddenly got a phone call that one of our sisters was critically ill; so I left everything I was doing and ran to the hospital in Anthony where she was and she was already in a coma. At that time she was a senior member of our Teenage Church about 16 or 17 years old. We took her from that hospital around 8 or 9 pm and rushed her to the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH). We got there around 10 pm in the emergency ward only to find that there was only one doctor on duty. Initially they refused to accept this girl because of a certain process. However on my contacting a young man I know in LUTH; she was subsequently admitted. She was then dumped on a small table because there was no bed. There was this small doctor on duty running among the 8 – 10 accident cases, sweating profusely. He will run to one patient, fix something, run to the other one fix another thing. I had to call and draw his attention that this girl needed his attention as he did not pay her any attention since our arrival.

This is supposed to be the primary teaching hospital of this nation. This is the hospital we should call the pride of Nigeria and yet there is only one doctor on duty on emergency with no facilities whatsoever. I was wondering to myself about what happened to Nigeria that things went so bad.
When I was growing up in Ibadan, the University College Hospital, (UCH) Ibadan, was a leading hospital in West Africa, it was the 8th best hospital in the entire world and here we are in LUTH with no facilities and no doctors. The nurses were slow and indifferent. They couldn’t be bothered, and couldn’t care less if somebody was alive or sick. Then suddenly, the doctor announced that we needed blood. So we began looking for blood, and went all over Surulere. We eventually found 2 pints which she used up immediately. Then there was no more blood from the blood bank, so they said: “who will donate blood? We got those who will donate but there was no blood bag. By now, the time was 2 am; we went looking for blood bags. Then one girl said she knows where we can get blood bags. We then drove that night crossing from one barrier in Mushin to another barrier in Mushin, because all the gates were locked for security purposes; we have become prisoners in our own homes. Finally we found the blood bags under one nurse’s bed in her home. We asked her: ‘what are you doing with the blood bags underneath your bed?’ She answered that that is how she makes her own money. We finally got the blood bags and then at 4:30 am the girl died. It was one of the most painful experiences of my life. Then I looked at myself; looked at Nigeria and asked how a nation that can be so blessed yet be so poor.

What is the problem with the Black man? It is the limits of his thinking. Hear what someone called Lord Fredrick Luggard said about the Black man when he became governor general of Nigeria around 1907 or thereabout.

“In character and temperament the typical African of all his race types is a happy, shiftless excitable person lacking in self control, lacking in discipline, lacking in foresight, full of personal vanity, with a little sense of veracity, fond of music, his thoughts are concentrated on the events of the moment and he suffers little of the apprehension of the future or grief of the past.”

A hundred years later and the African is still living in the same way and everybody is wondering: ‘what is happening to us? What is happening to Nigeria? What is happening to the average African person?’ If a man is poor in intellect, it would eventually reflect in his wellbeing and that’s why a lot of formerly rich Africans die extremely poor. The world is always predictable, there will always be good times and there will always be bad times. There would always be times of plenty and times of famine. But if you are in the right place, you discover that famine or not you will prosper.

How are you still thinking and what are you thinking about? What is the total summation and collection of your thoughts? Are you lacking in self control? Are you lacking in discipline? Are you lacking in foresight? Are you full of personal vanity? Do you have little sense for veracity? Are you fond of excessive music? Are your thoughts concentrated on the events and the feelings of the moment? Are you suffering from little apprehension of the future or grief of the past? Are you lacking in organization, deficient in management, deficient in the control of man and resources. Welcome to the world of the African.

I still cannot get over the way that Colonel Moummar Gaddafi died. It was typically African. Typically and traditionally a limited thought to himself, for 42 years he ruled in Libya and within six months everything had collapsed because the man really had neither depth nor substance. What surprises me is the capacity of the African to allow another African to dominate him for 42 years and that’s what frightens me about a lot of us; we have no thoughts, no depth, no thinking and we are willing to be led by the mouth by men not capable to polish our shoes. And we run to these places, run to these men, prostrate before them and allow them to dominate our lives because we are fearful, anxious, ignorant, limited, lazy, incompetent and unable to decide where our future is going. The Black man needs to change his thinking and character.

TIMELESS EDITORIAL - Nigeria’s Homosexuality Bill: Why it is Pro-norm and the West Hypocritical

2011-12-21T13:04:00.000+01:00

Nothing in recent times has gripped the imagination, drawn the ire (both for and against) and stirred the soul (and pens and tongues) of a very wide cross section of the public as the Homosexuality Act recently passed by the National Assembly, to await the President’s ratification. With it has come surprising yet predictable threats by Western nations to cut off aid and the collective rejection of the threats by sections of the society. The bill prescribes a 14-year jail term for anyone entering into same-sex 'marriage' or civil union.

Those who abet or aid such unions could also be sentenced to 10 years imprisonment, as would “any person who registers, operates or participates in homosexual clubs, societies and organisations” - a provision that seems to target homosexuality advocacy groups as well. The bill also sets out a 10-year sentence for “any person who... directly or indirectly makes public show of same-sex amorous relationships”.

If as reliable sources hint that the Embassy of the United States in Nigeria is presently wooing local human rights groups with funding with which to jump into the fray to heckle the populace with well-orchestrated anti-norm harangue, it would amount to the Americans meddling in the internal affairs of another sovereign state.

The trumpeters of human rights are in this case the bold-faced hypocrites. It is widely known, for instance, that virtually every jurisdiction in the West does not permit polygamy in their laws. But virtually all African countries allow polygamy, which is against the law in European and American countries.

The question might arise as to why people who are freely consenting and believe it (not that we do) to be the right thing for them should not be allowed to marry more than one partner, particularly since the concept of marriage is being redefined to allow same sex partners anyway.

As for the twin ‘consenting adults’ and ‘nobody is harmed’ arguments, the poser in the preceding paragraph puts to test the worn out argument of two consenting adults being entitled to do with themselves what they like and that law should not regulate what goes on in the privacy of people’s homes.

Firstly, what goes on between two people in the privacy of their homes has always been regulated by law. Conspiracy is a crime in most jurisdictions never mind that the people may never carry out their plans, the mere expressed intention to commit certain crimes is in itself a crime in the law of many societies.

The idea of rendering actions legal because nobody is harmed (in reality, seen to be harmed) is even more tenuous. What constitutes harm is an amorphous subject amenable to various interpretations. While there is overwhelming damning evidence for instance that two adults who mutually consent to divorce happily (that’s hilarious) leave their children scarred for life, divorce remains a very popular and very legal means of handling problems in marriage.

In contrast, there are even amusing examples of harmless (if one were to use ‘their’ standards) activities like streaking, and euthanasia which are still illegal in many ‘advanced’ societies. At the risk of stretching the example, one must also ask how polygamy which is consented to is more harmful than the acrimonious divorces that we see on Jerry Springer and Judge Judy. Clearly, therefore, those preaching tolerance from the burnished but rotten rostrums should be warming a seat in the pew.

And now we come to the issue of Aid. Were it not for the ruling class that has plundered the land for decades, the country would not have been subjected to the unfortunate tragic-comedy of UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s rant as a spokesperson of sorts for the West. The charade of the well-oiled high-stakes Aid industry and its beneficiaries has been rather well documented, but will bear some consideration.

Pre-independence, the West did the stealing by itself, brazenly carting away resources and artefacts most of which are displayed proudly in their museums to date without remorse – imagine paying to go to your neighbour’s house to watch the TV he stole from your house.

Post-independence, they do the stealing through their stooges who have put hundreds of billions of dollars (one authority estimate $300 billion since independence) of our commonwealth in the safe keeping of Mr Cameron and his compatriots. Somehow in the warped logic of Mr Cameron, it is morally upright to rebuke your partners in crime on issues of homosexual legislation but have no problem receiving stolen goods the next day.

Rather than give Africa Aid, the West should repatriate all the money they daily collude with African leaders to steal from their people; return the money to its rightful owners instead of giving us a tiny part of the interest on the stolen money and cheekily calling it Aid. In addition, the West should focus on fair trade rather than Aid. Till date, several Western countries subsidize their economy but instruct our clueless leaders to remove subsidy of every kind.

It would have been comical if it were not tragic to threaten us with the withdrawal of Aid when Nigerians in Diaspora repatriated $10 billion last year alone.

It is crucially important to understand that righteousness cannot be legislated. Laws – those of God and Man – do not on their own make people good. The purpose of the law is to regulate behaviour by suppressing (not eradicating) evil desires and thereby sustain society and ensure its healthy continuance in perpetuity.

With contribution from Wole Olabanji, who works full-time raising a godly family and part-time as an architect in real estate development advisory. He also devotes considerable time to providing Biblical perspective to tackling contemporary challenges in business and governance.

EDITORIAL: 'Sanusi: fanning into flame embers of national discord'

2011-12-09T15:02:00.001+01:00

With the controversy over the proposed introduction of Islamic banking still raging, we consider it grossly irresponsible of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Malam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi to drag the country into yet another decidedly Islamic organisation.
The controversial CBN boss must have taken his cue from erstwhile military ruler Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida who in 1986 took a similar unilateral decision that constituted an act of impunity to the people of the Federal Republic.

Without the approval of the governing organs of the Federal Military Government, Mr Babangida put together a mission led by a private citizen, the then Sultan of Sokoto, Ibrahim Dasuki, to enlist Nigeria formally into the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (now Organisation of Islamic Cooperation), OIC.

Rubbing salt in the wound, the military honcho of the day set up an obnoxious diversionary 20-member panel to “examine the implications of the country’s full membership of the organisation”.
When Mr Babangida’s deputy, Chief of General Staff Commodore Ubitu Ukiwe, objected to the outrageous back-door move by Mr Babangida, saying he could not recall the matter coming before the Armed Forces Ruling Council (AFRC), the highest organ of government in the land at the moment, he was in effect shown the way out on account of it.

Mr Babangida was not done. Two years later, he again unilaterally made Nigeria a shareholder in the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), whose “basic condition for membership is that the prospective member country should be a member of the (OIC), pay its contribution to the capital of the Bank and be willing to accept such terms and conditions as may be decided upon by the IsDB Board of Governors.” Both commitments remain unrevoked.

The OIC, headquartered in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, is in its own words, “an inter-governmental organization ... which has membership of 57 states spread over four continents. The Organization is the collective voice of the Muslim world and ensuring to safeguard and protect the interests of the Muslim world.”

According to media reports, Mr Sanusi has gone ahead to pay the sum of about $US5 million to the nascent Islamic body as Nigeria’s contribution to the International Islamic Liquidity Management (IILM) Corporation. His is an act tantamount to burning the bridge back to shore when casting out to sea, declaring, in effect, ‘The die is cast.’

Based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, that Islamic body’s mission is: “Enabling a future global Islamic finance industry with greater connectivity, stability and sophistication”.

The corporation, which was established in October 2010 by the Islamic Financial Services Board (IFSB) is endowed with the mandate “to create and issue short-term Shari’ah-compliant financial instruments to facilitate effective cross-border Islamic liquidity management. By creating more liquid Islamic financial markets for institutions offering Islamic financial services (IIFS), IILM aims to enhance cross-border investment flows, international linkages and financial stability.”

We consider it an act of gross impunity for Mr Sanusi to have bypassed the National Assembly – in effect the people – as well as the Presidency to unwarrantedly invest the nation’s US$5Million in a self-advertised Islamic body, thus violating the essential character of the federation. Not to see this development as fundamentally wrong is to be blinded by religious prejudice.

While we concede the fact that Muslims have a right to set up Islamic banks should they so wish, we have to state in the strongest terms that government funds may not be commingled with or put to any religious purpose. What is expected of government is the setting up of guidelines and oversight functions as apply to and other commercial banks, whether through the CBN or some other such body. You should put your money only where your mouth is. Nigerians did NOT have a say in this matter.

What Mr Sanusi has done is unconstitutional and highly illegal. His present action (discounting previous ones) seems to suggest that religious (and other) zealots in positions of authority in Nigeria would not be bothered by the sensibilities of the overall populace and hence do not care if the nation disintegrates along religious and similar fault lines.

With the back-breaking brouhaha over Boko Haram ongoing and tearing at the very fabric of the national polity, Mr Sanusi has foisted yet another unnecessary controversy on the nation. His is an example of callous officialdom. The people simply do not need this peppery addition to their plate to chew ahead of an already ominous 2012.

The rights of non-Muslim Nigerian citizens have been infringed upon by Sanusi Lamido Sanusi’s brazen and crass action clearly borne out of his religious persuasion and personal aggrandisement. (“H.E. Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, Governor Central Bank of Nigeria” is listed as a member of the Governing Board, “the strategy and policy making body of IILM”. His deputy, Dr. Kingsley Moghalu, is a member of the body’s Board Executive Committee.)

The share of non-Muslim members of the Nigerian commonwealth has been “invested” in an Islamic Corporation though they are not Muslim and had been guaranteed freedom of religion by the Constitution.

Mr Sanusi, however, seems to be unrelenting as he appears to be a law unto himself. According to him, his plan is for Nigeria to sell its first Shariah-compliant bonds within 18 months as sub-Saharan Africa’s second-largest economy. He is reported to have boasted that his aim is for Nigeria to become “a hub of Islamic finance”.

VACANCY FOR EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

2011-12-06T20:11:00.001+01:00

JOB SPECIFICATION/DESCRIPTION FOR EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

Vacancy exists for this position in a media/publishing firm involved in the production of books, magazines and newspapers. A first degree in any field. Fresh graduate or maximum of two years work experience. Female candidates only.

Desired Skills Set:- An excellent command of written & spoken English.
- Must have drive and ability to work without supervision
- Ability to stay calm under pressure.
- A great attention to detail
- Ability to manage time effectively.
- Self motivation and ability to use own initiative.
- Must have flair for reading and writing across several genres.
- Good knowledge of Microsoft Office Suite is compulsory
- Knowledge of any of Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Acrobat Reader, CorelDraw, Adobe Indesign will be an added advantage.

Job Functions: support senior editorial staff including acting as a personal assistant to editors
 liaise with writers, reporters, photographers, printers, designers and production staff to negotiate and monitor time frames for stages in the publishing process
 organise and research story, article, book or magazine projects to tight deadlines
 amend and correct articles and manuscripts; summarise written material; update and rewrite material;
 assess articles/manuscripts and make recommendations on their publication to senior editorial staff
 routine and general administrative tasks/duties; including front office duties and facility management/maintenance
 conduct interviews
 writing of own articles and reports
 using your own specialist knowledge to contribute ideas
 source for freelancers or other writers/authors to produce new materials
 assist with the art direction and design of publications
 assist with sales, marketing and advertising of company products and services and deliver sales/marketing targets
 assist with and help in maintaining and updating company's Facebook Page, Blog and website

Interested applicants should send their CV and a Cover Letter as ONE attachment stating the advertised position as their subject to timelesscourage@yahoo.co.uk. The Cover Letter should be no more than one page in Ms-Word and should be the first page of the CV. Applications not in this format will not be entertained. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted. Applications closes on Friday December 16, 2011

Enjoy a TIMELESS Christmas

2011-11-30T13:34:00.001+01:00

Win a Mona Matthews Sandals!!!

Subscribe for 10 copies of Timeless for 3 months at the subscription rate of N250 per copy to total N7,500, pay and confirm your subscription latest by Friday Dec 17. The first 4 people to do so
automatically win these sandals. No raffle draws. Simply pay into TIMELESS COURAGE PUBLISHING LIMITED Oceanic Bank Account No 0351101005381 and once you do, send your name, phone number, and teller details by email to timelesscourage@yahoo.co.uk or SMS
08026861642.

What does Christmas mean to you?

2011-11-24T00:23:00.001+01:00

We write to invite you to partake in the upcoming December Christmas Issue of our magazine - Timeless. We would love if you can share with our readers what Christmas means to you - in not more than 300-500 words -

Kindly send your contributions to our email - timelesscourage@yahoo.co.uk or reply on our Facebook page.

Enjoy a TIMELESS Christmas

2011-11-17T23:28:00.001+01:00

Win a Mona Matthews Sandals by doing the following:

Subscribe for 10 copies of Timeless for 3 months at the subscription rate of N250 per copy to total N7,500, pay and confirm your subscription latest by Friday Dec 3. The first 4 people to do so automatically win these sandals. No raffle draws. Simply pay into TIMELESS COURAGE PUBLISHING LIMITED Oceanic Bank Account No 0351101005381 and once you do, send your name, phone number, and teller details by email to timelesscourage@yahoo.co.uk or SMS 08026861642.

http://www.monamatthewsshoes.com/

Mai Nasara wins Nigeria Prize for Literature

2011-11-02T18:24:00.001+01:00

On Monday, October 10, 2011 at a world press conference held at the Eko Hotel and Suites, Lagos, Nigeria, Mai Nasara, was declared the winner of the 2011 Nigerian Prize for Literature.

According to the judges, “After an exhaustive discussion of each of the three finalists, Eno’s Story by Ayodele Olofintuade, Chinyere Obi-Obasi’s The Great Fall and The Missing Clock by Mai Nasara, we decided that The Missing Clock by Mai Nasara is the winner.” Earlier on September 6, the Advisory Board for the prize, headed by Emeritus Professor Ayo Banjo, had approved and announced to the literary community a final shortlist of three books out of the initial shortlist of six.

The six works made the final cut from the 126 books submitted for the 2011 edition awarded for children's literature.

Mai Nasara is the pen name of Adeleke Adeyemi, a journalist and science communicator with interests as varied as girl-child education, television/film, tennis, poetry, biking, bird-watching, languages, and leadership studies.

Based on his belief that “the stories people tell have a way of taking care of them” (Barry L. Lopez), he is at work to set up a network of children’s libraries across Africa, starting from his native Nigeria.

Set to come after his critically acclaimed first children’s book, “The Missing Clock”, winner of the Nigeria Prize for Literature 2011, is another Reversal-Of-Fortune (ROF) story titled “Danfo Boy”. On his inclination to writing children's books, he says “It boils down to a desire to draw attention to the difference children can make. And thus make a difference for the child. Children have an astounding problem-solving slant in their thinking that adults have been taking for granted and thus untapped. I’ve been involved in their lives in various capacities: Sunday school, summer school literary/environmental awareness campaigns, etc.”

Maddened by the toll it takes on children, ‘Leke, as he is also fondly known, is active in the anti-malaria media campaign in Africa; from Nigeria to Ghana and Tanzania, with articles in specialised journals like “Eyes on Malaria” (Ghana); he has also written and produced songs in aid of the fight against malaria, like “One Little Mosquito” and “To Keep Malaria On the Run, Keep Our Gutters Running”.

He was one of a select crop of young journalists from Africa sponsored by the department for International development (DfID) of the British Government to Kenya, in 2009, for “Better Science Reporting” Workshop, after an earlier one at the International Institute of Agricultural Research (IITA) Ibadan. He came back from Kenya to set up Science Café Nigeria, which organised the 2010 AMMREN World Malaria Day Forum in Lagos.

For his 40th birthday (October 31, 2011), he plans to plant 40 trees in every town, from his childhood Katsina, to Akure, Ife, Owo, Kano, Kaduna, Zaria, Jos and Lagos, every place he has lived in up to 40 days, over the course of his life till date – as a way of offsetting (i.e. erasing) his carbon footprint!
Mai Nasara has been a staff and editorial writer with Timeless since 2006 and a copy editor with Next Newspaper since early 2011. He was educated at Government College, Katsina, the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ife and the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, where he earned his first degree in Geology. He is married to Wosilat Abolore. They have a daughter, Semiloré.

TIMELESS EDITORIAL: Post-Gaddafi Libya: The Road Ahead

2011-11-02T18:11:00.001+01:00

It was a death foretold, even by the strongman himself. He had a death-wish that quite simply wouldn’t be cured. The events of the last few weeks have been epoch-making, to say the least. The death of the Libyan strongman once described with characteristic candour by US President Ronald Reagan, as “the mad dog of the Middle East” came as an anti-climax. It is now a past that isn’t quite past.

In the wake of the nationwide civil intolerance by the populace, both armed and otherwise, starting in February and culminating in the collapse of the Gaddafi regime which had been in power for some 42 years, Libya is currently administrated by a caretaker government, known as the National Transitional Council.

A country in the Maghreb region of North Africa, Libya is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west.

With an area of almost 1.8 million square kilometres, Libya is the fourth largest country in Africa by area. The largest city, Tripoli, is home to 1.7 million of Libya’s 6.4 million people. The three traditional parts of the country are Tripolitania, Fezzan and Cyrenaica.

In the wake of the death of its ‘Brother Leader’, as Gaddafi fancied himself, outpourings of predictions about the future of Libya have been torrential. While degrees of expertise vary, the simple reality is that nobody knows what happens next.

The most obvious question to ask is who will now control the Libyan state. The National Transitional Council, with Mustafa Abdel Jalil as chairman, enjoys unstinted recognition from Western governments and pockets of allied nations around the world. Yet, that is not the same thing as recognition on the streets of Libya.

Reports from the country suggest that there are other political forces on the ground, including city-based groupings come from Benghazi, Misrata, Zentan and Tripoli. There are also a number of minor militias.

Pro-Gaddafi elements still exist, especially within the cluster of clans around his hometown of Sirte, where he was killed in action, or probably executed. These are likely to demand a place in any future government. There are also the traditional tensions between Arabs and Berbers and between Islamists and secularists to factor into these equations.

It is not for nothing that the United Nations said it wanted a full investigation into the circumstances surrounding Colonel Gaddafi’s death before his burial. Even his tucking-away, in a secret location deep in the Sahara Desert, something reminiscent of the treatment meted out to the remains of Osama bin Laden, is not enough guarantee that the ghost of Gaddafi will be kept at bay.

However, in the overall interest of nation-building and fence-mending, the UN would also have to call attention to the fate of Black African members of Libyan society for it to maintain its credibility as a force for good for resolving the lingering logjam on Libya’s path to a rebirth as a nation and a democratic and peaceful society.

All the ingredients are there for a protracted insurgency along the lines of what has been witnessed in Iraq. One can only hope that commentators who argue that Libya’s terrain is not suited to guerrilla struggles, and insist that the country’s ethnic and ideological fissures are not sufficient to spark conflagration turn out to be right.

It is slippery and it is unprecedented. The road ahead for Libya is as tough as nails as it is nebulous and uncharted. As one commentator has said: “There is no political heritage, no political culture, no political institutions. In theory they existed under Gaddafi but in practice they didn’t, so the biggest challenge is building a political culture. No one has been able to vote on anything for 40 years.”

October - Breast Cancer Awareness Month

2011-10-03T15:20:00.000+01:00

Breast cancer kills too many Nigerian women every year because most patients present at advanced stages where cure is not feasible. We can have more breast cancer survivors if we detect breast cancer at early stages. Let's Stamp Out Breast Cancer by doing a Breast Self Examination once a month, if you are above 50 years have a mammogram done once a year and if you notice any abnormal changes in your breast, report to your doctor immediately. Your breast health is your responsibility.

Hurray! 1st-31st of October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Sebeccly is running two help lines throughout the month to attend to all breast health and cancer enquiries from all over Nigeria: 08103258755, 08103258756. Stamp out Breast Cancer by calling in to ask questions on breast health, refer someone, spread the word. www.sebecclycancercare.org,
info@sebecclycancercare.org

Trinity House holds Honours Awards Ceremony and Trinity Nigeria Lecture to commemorate Nigeria’s 51st Independence

2011-09-26T20:00:00.002+01:00

As part of its activities to commemorate Nigeria’s 51st independence celebrations, Trinity House, a non-denominational, free flow Christian worship centre established in 2010 and powered with a vision to build leaders, professionals and leaders to be, will be holding two events, the Honours Nigeria Awards and the Trinity Nigeria series respectively.

The Honours Awards ceremony will take place during the church’s special Independence celebration service on Sunday 2nd October 2011 at 10am at the church premises, Landmark Village, Water Corporation Road, Off Ligali Ayorinde, Victoria Island, Lagos while the Trinity Nigeria Lecture will hold at the Metropolitan Club, 15, Kofo Abayomi Street, Victoria Island on Friday October 7, 2011 by 4 pm and will be delivered by Mr. Atedo Peterside, Chairman of StanbicIBTC Bank Nigeria.

The Honours Awards ceremony, which is an annual event is a day set aside a day to honour outstanding Nigerians/Africans of high integrity who have exemplified themselves in different areas of life. The objective of the Honours Awards is to recognize those who have contributed to Nigeria’s national development and acknowledge them as role models for this present and future generation. The awards are in the areas of leadership, professionalism, industry, and philanthropy and will be awarded this year to General T.Y. Danjuma for Philanthropy; Chief Chris Ogunbanjo for Industry; Mr. Akintola Williams for Professionalism; Chief Emeka Anyaoku for Leadership, and Mr. Kenneth Kaunda for the Africa Prize.

The Trinity Nigeria Series is a faith based, independent, non-governmental, non-partisan forum established to provide a platform for eminent leaders from different spheres of life, to discuss and share without any limitations, their views, ideas and knowledge on how to transform the Nigerian society, economically, politically and socially such as to provide an embodiment of knowledge that will serve as a guiding principle or reference point for future Nigerian leaders. The forum has been designed to be highly interactive and it is hoped that the format and the series in general will engineer new thoughts and bring to light ideas that will spur true leadership, abolish corruption and ensure the proper use of the nations human and capital resources.

Both events will attract eminent Nigerians from different strata of life. While the Honours Awards is open to the general public, the Trinity Nigeria Lecture is by invitation only. Both events are the church’s own way of contributing to the development of the Nigerian nation. Trinity House is a church that goes beyond the walls of church to reach society to change lives and transform nations.

Interview with Joshua Awesome

2011-09-16T19:38:00.001+01:00

At 35, he is a young dynamic and energetically passionate man, not just about his career and life but also the Nigerian nation. He wanted to be the first successful Nigerian to climb African's highest mountain, mountain Kilimanjaro!!! His name is Joshua Awesome. Joshua though started out as motivational writer and peak performance coach today shines at the Nigerian and African stage. After his return from his expedition, Victoria Praise Abraham had a chat with him. Find below the excerpts.

What inspired you to want to climb at all?It’s not what, but who? Sir Edmund Hilary. First man to summit Everest greatly inspired me. Also Ronnie Muhl the first South African to summit Kilimanjaro, who by the way is also my professional colleague both greatly, inspired me to want to summit Kilimanjaro!!!

Did you get any inspiration to climb so as to be the first Nigerian to climb?It does not matter if I am the first Nigerian to climb or not. I actually set three goals for myself for the project. Firstly, I wanted to take the Nigerian flag unto the top of Kilimanjaro, give back to a non-profit organization, the Sanford Health Foundation, a global health initiative with its headquarter in the United States of America. The foundation presently sets up health centers all over the world but the caveat is that someone like me has to raise and create awareness and raise funds for the foundation which the organization would back up with a 400m dollar grant. I wanted to do this for children in need of special care and for Africa and specifically for Nigeria. And finally I wanted to use the whole experience to revamp my career - a new story, a new experience. Kilimanjaro has helped me achieve this newness. Three and a half months to prepare, “content is king”!!! I have gleaned so much and learnt so much within the whole period, not to forget all the new relationships I have had to form along the way. The journey is as important as the destination!!!

Tell us about the Kilimanjaro experienceIt is so far the most unforgettable experience of my life and it completely transformed my life and being. It was 3½ months of grueling training and 7 days experience; every day I spent 6 hours hiking from one level to another. Statistics show that 22,000 try to climb Kili every year and 40% never make it to the top, out of the 60% that make it – 2 out of 4 does not make it down alive.

Can you tell me factors that helped you achieve this uncommon feat?I would say God Almighty would be the number one factor. I needed His help and guidance at every step of the way. I recall at some point during my training when I thought I could not go another mile, but I was reminded that quitters never win and winners never quit and also during my final climb, I fell and I thought my legs were going to give way on me but God who saw me every step of the way finally gave me success. You also need patience, passion, perseverance and principles. Finally People!! I am grateful to a lot of people for making the entire experience memorable and successful, special thanks goes to my guide and so many other people who helped in one way or the other.

You recently got married. Do you think being married helped you succeed at all?Definitely I would say a big Yes! My wife though very conservative is very supportive and was especially so during the whole expedition. I have an extremely loving and supportive family. My entire family both nucleus and extended were rooting for me during the entire expedition.

In one sentence describe Joshua Awesome?In one sentence, Joshua’s life mission is also Joshua’s passion and it defines who Joshua is which is, simply to “inspire and inform individuals so they can get involved in life.” In one word “I am ‘An Inspiration’.

Can you name 5 people that greatly inspire you?In no order of importance they will be: Dr. Myles Munroe; Dr. Mike Murdock; Oprah Winfrey; Prof. Pat Utomi; My Parents

What is your life goal?It is tied around my life mission, which is “to inform and inspire people to get involved in life!!

Mr. Awesome, can you tell me what angers you, or what you hate?Abuse, of every kind; a life without passion; promiscuity and poverty

Tell me what makes you happiest? Or simply put what do you love?Life; Energy and Water

After Kilimanjaro what next?My next expedition would be Elbrus, the highest mountain in Europe. I should hit that target soon. I am also looking forward to raising funds for Sanford Health Foundation. I want them to bring the whole Sanford experience down to Africa.

Would you do it again?Yes in 2012 I intend to go up Kilimanjaro again but this time around I will take inspiring Nigerians who want to climb with me, that should be interesting!!

For the sake of our audience who would like to know where exactly is Kilimanjaro located?Tanzania (East Africa)

Were you able to pick up the local language while in Tanzania?Oh yes, I had to learn phrases like “Ha kuna matata” – which means no worries; “Pole pole”, which means slowly! slowly!, an attribute you need to successfully summit Kili; “Asante sanna” which means thanks a lot and “Jambo”, which means “Welcome”!!!

Did you like their food in Tanzania?I have to say I enjoyed their soups mostly

Last words MR. AWESOME!!!Start something, stay with it until it produces results, and never ever give up!! It’s beautiful at the top.

Goethe Institute Celebrates World Music Day at Freedom Park

2011-09-16T19:26:00.000+01:00

Goethe-Institut Nigeria, together with the Alliance Française recently organised their second Art Slam event at Freedom Park (Broad Street, Lagos Island). The event took place within the context of the World Music Day. Several artists were invited to perform live on stage. Since May 2011, Goethe-Institut Nigeria has been organizing monthly events at the Freedom Park. These “art slams” are centred on a specific topic and combine artistic performances with a friendly competition. It is a new way of creating exposure for talented artists by giving them an opportunity to showcase their creative gifts to the public. A jury made up from the public chooses the winner. The monthly event showcases the finest in Nigerian contemporary music in an exciting show at Freedom Park.

Timeless Editorial - Could ‘9/11’ have been prevented?

2011-09-10T16:43:00.000+01:00

Of course, hindsight is 20/20 clear, as far as vision goes: U.S. President Bill Clinton could very well have nipped the plot in the bud. There is an important, almost urgent point to carrying out postmortems. It is so that we do not needlessly repeat history.

The attacks of September 11th 2001, when the United States of America suffered its worst calamity ever in peace time and on its own shores, were an organised terrorist act carried out by 19 hijackers, organised by numerous members of al-Qaeda.

Reasons for the attacks were stated before and after the attacks in several sources. These include the fatwā, videos and interviews of its recently deceased financier and face and leader, Osama bin Laden, as well as videos of his successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Motivations pinpointed for the attacks include U.S. support for Israel, the presence of the U.S. military in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (hosts to Islam’s two holiest shrines at Mecca and Medina); also cited is the U.S. enforcement of U.N. sanctions against Iraq.

Indeed, the watershed now simply albeit ominously referred to as ‘9/11’ has come but has most definitely not gone.

One decade after, the most visible manifestation (in modern times) of the ‘Grudge War’ against Western civilisation (with roots in the Judeo-Christian worldview that though ignored by it are nonetheless held against it), which was taken to the gates of its bastion by the disgruntled high-profile elements of the Islamist establishment, has continued on not a few fronts.

To understand all these, our alphabet must start with ‘A’ for ‘Afghanistan’; the last, certainly from the point of view of the begrudging, has to be ‘Zionism’, whatever that means.

In his prescient groundbreaking 1996 book (first published as an article in the journal Foreign Affairs in 1993), “The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order”, an insightful and powerful analysis of the forces driving global politics from the last into the present century, Samuel Huntington put forward a rather simple thesis:

The international system, formerly based on major Soviet, American, and Third World power blocs, is in transition to a new system composed of eight major civilizations. These are the Western, Japanese, Confucian, Hindu, Islamic, Slavic-Orthodox, Latin American and – “possibly”, says the theorist – African “civilisation”.

If only pre-9/11 America had listened to Mr. Huntington. In his stunning dare of a book, he explained how the population explosion in Muslim countries and the economic rise of East Asia are changing global geopolitics, developments that challenge Western dominance, promote opposition to supposedly “universal” Western ideals, and intensify inter-civilisation conflict over issues like nuclear proliferation, immigration, human rights, and democracy.

As noted by Mr. Huntington, the Muslim population surge has led to many small wars throughout Eurasia, and the rise of China could lead to a global war of civilizations. Mr. Huntington sets forth a strategy for the West to preserve its unique culture while emphasizing the need for people everywhere to learn to coexist in a complex, multi-polar, multi-civilisational world.

To understand the mind of al-Qaeda, the story must be told of the origins of the madrassa schools in Afghanistan. That was the land that terrorist body found room large enough to grow a body around its flaming heart.

Afghanistan had been invaded by the Soviet Union in 1979. The United States, fearful of a further expansion of Soviet influence, provided weapons and large amounts of cash to the Afghan resistance fighters.

After tens of thousands of deaths and years of warfare, the Soviets realised that they were not going to win control of this fiercely independent country. It marked the end of decades of Soviet expansion – and the beginning of the implosion of an empire that had reached too far and stretched itself too thin.

The United States watched the withdrawal and decided that with the Soviets vanquished, American’s job was done. The U.S. could pull out immediately and leave the Afghani people, amongst the poorest in the world, to live amongst their piles of bombed rubble. The American government did not lend a helping hand, as someone has said, “so much as buy them some brooms to help start the cleaning.”

It would prove a major strategic error. There was the need to rebuild the destroyed buildings, including the hospitals and the schools. The Soviets had been merciless in their attempts to intimidate the Afghan people by bombing them back to the Stone Age.

The U.S. did not stick around long enough to help in the rebuilding; its reason for intervention was anti-Soviet, not pro-Afghani. The Afghan government needed help in rebuilding; neighbours Iran and Saudi Arabia were only too eager to help.

Both countries also wanted to fill the vacuum that had been left by the departure of the two superpowers. They each made a big commitment to constructing schools. The only problem is that these were not secular schools. They were madrassas, or religious schools, that taught a very hate-filled version of Islam.

The Saudi schools taught their own anti-Western Wahhabi version and the Iranians built schools that taught their students to curse ‘the Great Satan’, America. The only difference between the Saudi schools and the Iranian ones was the degree of anti- Westernism in their curriculum.

According to CIA estimates, between them the governments of Iran and Saudi Arabia sponsored the opening of over ten thousand madrassas in Afghanistan. A large percentage of the terrorists at large today were trained in these schools.

How different the world would have been today if those students had been taught one-two-threes and ABCs instead of being groomed to chant ‘Death to America’?

In Asne Seierstad’s stunning portrait of Afghan life, The Bookseller of Kabul, there is a chilling passage where the book’s protagonist muses on “how first-year schoolchildren learn the alphabet: ‘J is for Jihad, our aim in life; I is for Israel, our enemy; K is for Kalashnikov, we will overcome; M is for Mujahedeen our heroes; T is for Taliban…’ War was the central theme in math books too…: ‘Little Omar has a Kalashnikov with three magazines. There are twenty bullets in each magazine. He uses two-thirds of the bullets to kill sixty infidels. How many infidels does he kill with each bullet?’”
How does all these relate to yet another question, ‘Can another ‘9/11’ be avoided?’ And, how does all these relate to Nigeria’s homegrown Islamic terrorist enfant terrible, Boko Haram? Surely, the similarity in the streak of disdain for ‘Western education’, so-called, in both cannot be missed.
Terrorists in both climes (the American CIA has identified an affiliation between the two) have simply moved in to fill the vacuum where proper education was lacking.

This disdain for education that replaces an empty mind with an open one has come to serve as a crutch but also a weapon in the ‘Grudge War’, something to limp along with but also take out to whack the rest of the world on the head with from time to time.

While it is true that most Muslims are not terrorists, most terrorists in the world have been and still are Muslims, often folks heroes for hordes of the faithful all over the world. The fact is that Muslim leadership has done far from enough to change the profile.

This needs to change. Desirable education for grappling with New World realities for equipping the individual to make a contribution to society is neither Western nor Islamic; it quite simply is. For example, the numeral system in universal use today was a contribution from the Arabs, most of whom have been Muslim.

Hence the mal fide moment when leading Muslims, using the system against the system, sought to rub in the vanquishing point of ‘9/11’ by clamouring to have it as a site for a shrine (interfaith, so-called; a blatant canard) must be recounted and recanted by Muslims.

The children are watching – and waiting to be properly educated. As Mohandas Gandhi said, “If we are to reach real peace in this world and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we shall have to begin with children.”

10th Anniversary of September 11, 2001 Attacks

2011-08-16T12:17:00.000+01:00

For 102 minutes on September 11, 2001, the world looked on in horror as terrorists flew hijacked passenger planes into New York City's mighty twin towers, destroying the iconic buildings and killing more than 2,700 people. As the world commemorates the 10th year anniversary of the world's deadliest terrorist attacks, Timeless will like to hear your story. Where were you when it happened? What were you doing? What were your thoughts after? How did you feel about attacks? Send your comments to timelesscourage@yahoo.co.uk or post on our Facebook page

TIMELESS EDITORIAL - Can Nigeria cure its Boko Haram disease?

2011-07-05T11:30:00.000+01:00

The events of Tuesday June 16, 2011, when the Boko Haram sect of insurgents out of Borno State carried their war of attrition against the Nigerian state right inside the headquarters of the nation’s police force, have erased any doubt on the intractable nature of the security problem the band of Boko Haram guerrilla fighters poses.

Unless the matter gets the clinical attention it demands from the authorities, the disease may prove debilitating, rendering the state unable to attend to other even more pressing matters. In the end, it may eat so much into the fabric of state to unravel it.

Boko Haram is a security quandary for leadership at all levels; it highlights its abject failure. Whatever “concrete measures” have so far been taken “to nip it in the bud”, these must now be seen to have failed woefully; this calls for their thorough review.

The security challenges occasioned by the endless attacks by the group are bound to make the provenance state from where the disease broke out ungovernable; the whole Northeast region (particularly Borno, Bauchi, Kano and Gombe states) appears to be tottering on the brink of lawlessness.

Maiduguri is fast becoming another Somalia, where outlaw groups have taken over and where no government exists. So far, the impact and presence of government can only be felt on the streets of the capital city where armed soldiers who have failed to contain the killings and terror have allegedly made a hobby out of terrorising innocent residents in the name of perfunctory searches for members of the sect.

Sometimes, there are cases of alleged extortion perpetrated on the residents, where the economy has all but collapsed from the persistent onslaught by Boko Haram and resultant curfew imposition by government in response.

In the beginning, it was possible to keep count of the number of people killed; now, the heightened frequency of the killings has so shot up that accurate tally is being kept anymore.

The Boko Haram sect, who engaged security forces in a fire-fight in 2009 following sundry earlier skirmishes on the streets of Maiduguri, would probably have been successfully routed by now were it not for the extra-judicial killing of its leader, Mohammed Yusuf, along with dozens of his followers. Perhaps part of the cure, if it is not too late to be effective, is the ongoing arraignment for their murder of two assistant commissioners of police along with 15 other police officers.

In line with this, the family of the 70-year-old Baba Fugu, the father in-law of the late Boko Haram leader, Muhammed Yusuf, ought to be treated with fairness in the matter of their suit in court challenging the old man’s murder by the police.

Whatever happened to the judgement of the court in their favour? Baba Fugu had reportedly presented himself to the state Police commissioner on being told that he was a wanted man. Instead of taking down his statement, the police took his life even though he was not known to have any relationship with the Boko Haram other than being Mr Yusuf’s father-in-law.

The history of Boko Haram is a testament to government’s inability to put in place effective measures for ensuring justice and egalitarianism. In the beginning, Muhammed Yusuf was reportedly encouraged and bankrolled by former Borno State governor Ali Modu Sheriff, who wanted to use the group’s numerical leverage for political gains. To this end, we are calling for Mr Sheriff to be compelled to appear for interrogation by the newly constituted commission of inquiry set up by the Federal Government.

It has been alleged that Boko Haram financier, the late Buji Foi (also summarily executed by the police), as Mr Sheriff’s commissioner of religious affairs, was possibly his stooge within the sect. Indeed, the extra-judicial killings have led to allegations that, given the haste with which they were carried out, certain persons along the corridors of power had something to hide.

The commission of inquiry set up by the federal government to investigate the uprising was said to have returned a verdict of guilty on former Governor Ali Sheriff and the then Commissioner of police. Why has government not made its content public? Can the Freedom of Information Act be invoked to make this happen?

Therefore, there is an urgent and compelling need to prosecute Mr Sheriff if indeed he is found guilty. In fact, his appearance and possible subsequent prosecution will go a long way in assuaging the truly hurt feelings of the Boko Haram sect. The question must be asked: Could there have been a pact between Mr Sheri ff and the group, which the former reneged on, which has left the sect enraged?
The security approach adopted by security agencies, notably the police, is not only faulty but dastardly. As a retired policeman in Maiduguri once told reporters, ‘’The moment a shooting takes place in any neighbourhood, Operation Flush operatives rush to the scene and round up young men and claim that they have arrested the culprits. How can any gunman who committed an act hang around the scene of the crime to be arrested just like that?”

As a result, many young men made scapegoats for the failure of the security agents to apprehend the real perpetrators of the killings end up radicalised. And so the Boko Haram cancer cells continue to ravage the body polity.

World marks Third Sickle Cell Day

2011-06-16T13:32:00.000+01:00

41 years old TBoz, American singer and actress was a member of the popular and succesful 90s female music group TLC and is living with Sickle Cell Disorder. Initially withholding details of her ailment from others, TBoz (Tionne Tenese Watkins) went public with the disease in 1996 and is now a spokesperson for the Sickle Cell Disease Association of America. She has stated that her faith in God and her optimism has helped her stay free from the more serious effects of sickle cell disease.

On 22nd December, 2008, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution A/63/L63 that recognises sickle cell disease as a public health problem. Among the objectives of the resolution is the celebration on 19th June of each year as a World-Day of Sickle Cell Disease. On June 19 2009, the first sickle cell disease awareness day was held at the UN headquarters organised by the International Organization for the Fight against Sickle Cell Disease (OILD/SCDIO) in partnership with the World Health Organisation (WHO), the United Nations Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and United Nations (UN). Activities included a video report on sickle cell anaemia, testimonies stand, exhibition by patients' associations and international NGOs, an art exhibition on the disease, panels of discussion and round table, a First Ladies meeting and a gala dinner.

The World Sickle Cell day is celebrated across the globe with special emphasis in African nations and Asia. The celebrations include a press, media campaigns, music shows, cultural activities, and talk shows. Since no known cure exists for sickle cell disease, the main goal is to prevent further complications due to sickle cell disease. The main emphasis is hence on educating medical professionals, care givers, and associated personnel about prevention, research, and resources to minimize the complications due to sickle cell disease. Hence June 19th is devoted mainly to spread awareness, through talks, seminars, pamphlets, literature and consultations. Sunday June 19, 2011 marks the Third World Sickle Cell Day.

What is Sickle Cell Disease?Sickle cell disease is an inherited blood disorder that mostly affects people of African ancestry, but also occurs in other ethnic groups, including people who are of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern descent.

It affects haemoglobin, the protein found in red blood cells (RBCs) that help carry oxygen throughout the body. It occurs when a person inherits two abnormal genes (one from each parent) that cause their RBCs to change shape. Instead of being flexible and disc-shaped, these cells are more stiff and curved in the shape of the old farm tool known as a sickle — which is where the disease gets its name. The shape is similar to a crescent moon.

Common variants of the disease include SC, SD, SE, CE, Sβ thalassemia and SS. SS and SC are the most common in Nigeria.

Red blood cells with normal haemoglobin (haemoglobin A, or HbA) move easily through the bloodstream, delivering oxygen to all of the cells of the body. These are shaped like discs or doughnuts with the centres partially "scooped out" and are soft and flexible. They can easily "squeeze" through even very small blood vessels.

HbS molecules on the other hand tend to clump together, making red blood cells sticky, stiff, and more fragile, and causing them to form into a curved, sickle shape. Red blood cells containing HbS can go back and forth between being shaped normally and being sickle shaped until they eventually become sickle shaped permanently. Instead of moving through the bloodstream easily, these sickle cells can clog blood vessels and deprive the body's tissues and organs of the oxygen they need to stay healthy. Unlike normal RBCs that last about 4 months in the bloodstream, fragile sickle cells break down after only about 10 to 20 days, which usually causes anaemia. Anaemia is what happens when the body's number of red blood cells (or amount of haemoglobin) falls below normal. People who are anaemic often feel weak, tire more easily, and may appear "run down."

Signs and SymptomsThe symptoms of SCD follow a general pattern, which includes predominantly jaundice and anaemia characterized by erythroid hyperplasia. Other very common symptoms of sickle cell anaemia based on organ damage are characterized by: painful crises, stroke, paralysis, avascular necrosis of the femoral head, loss of splenic function and pulmonary hypertension. Painful crisis can occur in the chest, stomach, arms, legs, or other parts of the body. This is caused by sickle cells blocking blood flow through the blood vessels in those areas.

People with sickle cell anaemia can also experience complications from impaired blood circulation and infection-fighting problems. These include a higher risk of certain infections as well as a condition called acute chest syndrome, which is caused by inflammation or trapped RBCs in the lungs. Sickle cell anaemia is not contagious, so you can't catch it from someone else or pass it to another person like a cold or an infection.

A child who has inherited the sickle cell gene from only one parent will not develop the disease, but will have sickle cell trait (these are people with the AS or AC genotypes.) People who have sickle cell trait don't have sickle cell anaemia or symptoms of the disease, but they can pass the sickle cell gene on to their own children. Because people with sickle cell trait don't have the disease, they may never discover that they carry the gene. That's why it's recommended that people who are unsure of their genotype status ask their doctors about testing.

The periods of pain commonly referred to as pain crises, vary in their severity, how often they happen, and how long they last. Whereas one person may have only one sickle cell pain crisis a year, another may experience them more often. Crises may be brief, or may last hours, days, or even weeks.

What Can Doctors Do?To diagnose sickle cell anaemia, doctors use a special blood test called haemoglobin electrophoresis to look for HbS in a person's blood. There is no cure for sickle cell anaemia, and it is possible for some people to be ill enough to die from the disease. Doctors can provide treatments that help prevent complications from the disease, though. Folic acid, a vitamin that helps the body produce new red blood cells, is often prescribed for people with sickle cell anaemia. Pain medications help relieve the symptoms of crises.

Some crises can be managed at home with pain medicines, rest, and extra fluids. But if a crisis is especially intense, one may need to go to the hospital for intravenous (IV) fluids and stronger pain medications. People with sickle cell anaemia may also use oxygen to help ease symptoms during a crisis or an episode of acute chest syndrome. People with sickle cell anaemia may need to get transfusions of healthy red blood cells to help carry oxygen to the tissues of their bodies more effectively, and some may need many transfusions on a regular basis. Several new treatments have helped reduce painful crises and episodes of acute chest syndrome in adults with the condition. These drugs have also decreased the need for hospitalisation.

What Can Patients Do?With the right precautions, people with sickle cell disease can do most of the stuff other people do. To stay as healthy as possible, they should take these steps:
• Eat a balanced, healthy diet.
• Take vitamins, including folic acid supplements, as prescribed. They should however
avoid iron supplements.
• Drink plenty of fluids to prevent dehydration.
• Avoid extreme cold or heat.
• Exercise regularly, but in moderation. Exercise is important for staying healthy, but
overdoing it can trigger a crisis in some people, particularly if they become dehydrated,
overheated, or exhausted.
• Get plenty of rest.
• Avoid alcohol, drugs, and smoking, which can aggravate sickle cell disease and its
symptoms. Some people with sickle cell disease are prone to lung problems, so smoking
is particularly risky and must be avoided.
• Avoid places low in oxygen. (For example, it's not a good idea to go hiking at high
altitudes or spend lots of time swimming under water or in the air in planes.)
• Prevent serious infections by contacting your doctor as soon as illness symptoms start. Be
sure to get any immunisations (such as pneumonia and flu vaccines) that the doctor recommends, and always call your doctor if you have a high fever (over 101° Fahrenheit).
• Learn as much as you can about the disease and see your doctor regularly to help prevent
complications.

People with sickle cell disease may need to put some limits on their lives, but with the help of doctors, friends, and family, they can manage the condition and live their lives to the fullest.

Over 5 million people are known to be afflicted by the Sickle Cell Disease in Nigeria. Sickle-cell anaemia contributes the equivalent of 5% of under-five deaths on the African continent, and up to 16% of under-five deaths in individual West African countries (WHO, 2006). The statistic in Nigeria though revealing may be even more due to unavailability of adequate statistics in a nation like ours. While an average of 150,000 babies are born annually with the disorder, only 25% of them might make it to their 5th birthday. It’s important to note that Nigeria being the most populous country in Africa accounts for three quarters of the populations living with SCD. It is therefore imperative, that we consider the alarming rate at which the population of those living with SCD is increasing.
People living with SCD, apart from the painful crises may experience depression, low self esteem and stigmatisation. Parents abandon children, marriages are destroyed, relationships are broken, those employable are stigmatised all as a result of SCD. Statistics predicts that by the year 2015, if care is not taken, the population of people living with SCD would have hit 40 million. It is not uncommon to have people tag the disease ignorantly as a death sentence.

Nigeria being a vast country and as a result of inadequate health information, basic elements of knowledge and information have been reduced to a minute percentage of the populace, thereby rendering the majority of the population ignorant. Counselling, research and management of the disease is also severely limited. The deficiency of genotype awareness and testing, inadequate understanding of basic management needs; poor health care and treatment in our hospitals has further created an abyss in solving the problems associated with SCD.

In Nigeria, the medical management of the sickle cell anaemia is achieved by the administration of some routine drugs which have been shown to be able to improve the quality of life of the patients. Apart from Folic Acid as mentioned above, other commonly prescribed drugs for sickle cell anaemia in Nigeria include anti-sickling agents like: Niprisan, Ciklavit and pain medications, which could include but not limited to; Paracetamol, Aspirin, Feldene, to stronger medications like Morphine, Fortrin, Buscopan depending on the physicians prescription. Several Nigerian families and caretakers of SCD patients have resorted to untested herbal and unreliable drug options to get by which are much cheaper than medically clinically tested drug solutions.

More specifically, people in the lower strata of the society do not have easy access or funding towards proper treatment. In Nigeria the poverty rate stands at about 50-60% (World Bank report 2006). However, the average cost of medication on a monthly basis for the effective management in a person living with SCD is about $60. This places most Nigerian families at a disadvantage in being able to purchase the basic drugs. There is therefore an urgent need to facilitate proper medical care through drug provisions at subsidised rates to provide a healthy and enabling environment for their survival. Continuous awareness must also be maintained through the mass media, the various Sickle Cell Clubs across the country, NGOs and religious organisations. Funding for research into viable treatment procedures and drugs must be made available for our research institutes, teaching hospitals and universities. Regular seminars should also be organised for General Medical practitioners to update their knowledge on the disease.

Movie Review - “KJB - The Book that Changed the World”

2011-06-10T21:43:00.000+01:00

Title: “KJB - The Book that Changed the World”

Genre: Culture & Society

Release Date: April, 2011

Studio: Lionsgate

Format: DVD

Ages: 12+

Review by Mainasara

“KJB - The Book that Changed the World” is a 90-minute Drama Documentary about the translation of the King James Bible. Narrator John Rhys-Davies leads us back, through landmarks and relics, into a darker time to discover and savour a tale of saints and sinners, power and passion. The greatest translation of the Bible ever, it burst onto the stage to upstage things in a world and culture that would never remain the same again.

According to Christiancinema.com, “This fantastic DVD features great cinematography, shots inside beautiful churches and in the country, re-enactments of events of the sixteenth century, a remarkable host in John Rhys-Davies with his booming voice, and the scholarly mini-lectures of expert scholars. This intriguing documentary will inform and educate and each viewer will have a whole new appreciation of the King James Bible after viewing it.”

There is simply so much history to learn here: the events leading up to the crowning of King James; various events of the time (rendered by expert scholars such as Dr. William Storrar, Professor Carl Trueman, Dr. Ashley Null, Professor William G. Naphy and others); about King James, the man who believed God guided him and who was born a Catholic but became a Protestant; the background of the making and printing of the Bible, as well as the story of a schism which nearly resulted in the loss of lives.

The screenplay was written by Norman Stone (who is also director and producer) and Murray Watts. The film premiered in November 2010. John Rhys-Davies (known best for his role as Gimli the Dwarf in the “Lord of the Rings” Trilogy and in “Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark”) is the narrator of the docudrama. King James was played by Andrew Rothney, outstanding in a play adaptation of one of the oldest pieces of literature in known existence, the “Epic of Gilgamesh”, a 4,000-year old Sumerian tale.

“KJB - The Book that Changed the World” is a fantastically beautiful and excellent film which demonstrates, in vivid Technicolor, the credibility and integrity of the Bible as the record of the veritable word of the God of the Judeo-Christian revelation.

EDITORIAL - Our debt to King James Bible at 400

2011-06-06T12:22:00.001+01:00

Indeed, it is as British politician, historian, and writer, Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800 - 59), said: “[This] English Bible [is] a book which, if everything else in our language should perish, would alone suffice to show the whole extent of its beauty and power.”

Owing to a mix of factors, King James I convened a conference at Hampton Court in 1604, where the decision was made to commission an entirely new translation, to take into account more available manuscripts and increased scholarship over the years. Since it derived its authority from the king, it would be known as the Authorised Version.

The king approved a body of 54 scholars (seven did not make it to the end), divided into six committees. The work took off fully in 1607, with a first draft out by 1609. Redrafted the following year, it was finally completed for publication on May 2, 1611.

Ever since, no translation has commanded attention as the King James Version (popularly known as the KJV) Bible. Further, no other has enjoyed patronage as much as the King James Bible.

Not many people know that the KJV is 400 years old this year; even fewer of the 1.5 billion speakers and users of English worldwide care to ever acknowledge its impact on the language. It stands to ponder that not a few English translations of other holy books, although done much after it, have a propensity to get rendered in the old-fashioned phraseology of the King James Bible.

To quote the Encyclopaedia Encarta, “The outstanding prose works of the Renaissance are not so numerous as those of later ages, but the great translation of the Bible, called the King James Bible, or Authorized Version...is significant because it was the culmination of two centuries of effort to produce the best English translation of the original texts, and also because its vocabulary, imagery, and rhythms have influenced writers of English in all lands ever since.

“The KJV of 1611 became an enduring work in an age when religion mattered to almost everyone in a way that is difficult to appreciate today. It influenced their lives, their attitudes, their actions – from the highest in the land to the lowliest man or woman.

“It had an enormous effect on peoples’ lives. Its language and terminology may seem archaic today but it was the everyday parlance of ordinary people and its language became entwined into English literature over many generations, not just in England but wherever the Bible was carried into what has become the English-speaking world today.”

There is no gainsaying the fact that the King James Bible has shaped the English language like nothing else before or after it. Its passages have been the portions (and sometimes even potions) that have kept political and religious fervour going.

From the adulatory addiction of the ‘KJV-only’ reactionary movement within Christendom, to the nonetheless appreciative avant-garde preachers and teachers of the Bible who are also open to the slew of new successor translations of the Good Book, the King James Bible evokes something close to reverence.

It has come down imbued with a larger-than-life image – a mirror that pans back-and-forth between our origins in the misty past and our moorings in the clamorous present.

Much of the phraseology that undergirds the English language has come down to us from the first day of the King James Bible. Examples abound: ‘A thorn in the flesh’; ‘Labour of love’; ‘Physician, heal thyself’; ‘The apple of my eye’; ‘Widow’s mite’; ‘A thorn in the flesh’; ‘In the twinkling of an eye’; ‘New wine in old wineskin’, and ‘Thy brother’s keeper’.

We can relate to the words of US President Ronald Reagan: “It is my understanding that the Bible...has been the bestselling book in the entire history of printing.” Yet activities to make an important milestone as the 400^th anniversary of the watershed event of the issuing of the KJV remain scant and far in between, particularly in Africa.

It would not be out of place to stage many such events as one planned but not much publicised: the series of commemorative events planned by the West African Theological Seminary (WATS) and the Bible Society of Nigeria (BSN), as conferences and exhibitions, across Nigeria in June and November, and in select capitals in West Africa in September.

In an era of phenomenal mass failure in English examinations in Nigeria, at all levels really, a throwback to the roots of the language as codified in the King James Bible, as lessons drawn out of the rigour of its development, should prove worthwhile as a radical solution to the malaise.

Generation Y - and how they are changing the world

2011-05-06T20:30:00.000+01:00

By Ayodeji Jeremiah

Most of us have probably heard of the term ‘Baby Boomers’. Some of us will probably also have heard of the term ‘Generation X’ and ‘Generation Y’. These terms refer to cultural generations – groups of people born in the same date range who share similar cultural experiences. Auguste Comte, a French philosopher was the first person to make a serious attempt at studying generations in this context. He suggested that social change is determined by generational change. Karl Mannheim, a Jewish Hungarian sociologist also did seminal work in the study of generations. Mannheim emphasised that the rapidity of social change in youth was crucial to the formation of generations, and that not every generation would come to see itself as distinct. In periods of rapid social change a generation would be much more likely to develop a cohesive character, he concluded. He also believed that a number of distinct sub-generations could exist. Jose Ortega Gassett, a Spanish philosopher was another influential generational theorist of the 20th century. These along with American authors William Strauss and Neil Howe have been very influential in defining the concept of generations. Strauss and Howe’s book, ‘Generations: The History of America's Future, 1584 to 2069’ is frequently cited in books and articles on the subject. While this concept of generations as we know it is very common and more popular amongst Americans; the study of its influence and importance cannot be overemphasised as it permeates to other societies overwhelmingly albeit with different outcomes and consequences.

Since the advent of the ‘Baby Boomers’, (probably the most influential and largest generational group to date) no other generation has had as much impact on social, political, economic and religious change as much as the focus of this article, ‘the Gen Yers’ as they are also called. Before we look at their influence however, it is important we know who they are. Doing that entails we know those before them.

Experiences that occur during the formative childhood and teenage years create and define differences between the generations. These social markers create the paradigms through which the world is viewed and decisions are made. Baby Boomers were influenced by the advent of the TV, Rock and Roll, the Cold War, the Vietnam War, the threat of nuclear war, and the decimal currency. Gen Xers saw in the Personal Computer, AIDS, single parent families, the growth in multiculturalism, and the downsizing of companies. Generation Y’s have lived through the age of the internet, cable television, globalisation, September 11, and environmentalism. Such shared experiences during one’s youth unite and shape a generation. There is an ancient saying that bears much truth: “People resemble their times more than they resemble their parents”.

The Baby Boomers refers to the generation of children born between 1946 after World War 2 and the early 1960s. Across the world, it was the largest demographic group (now being replaced presently as the largest by Generation Y). The name stems from the increase in birth rates seen across the world after the war due to increasing peace and prosperity. This group that grew up in a time of affluence came to define the 60s and 70s (just like the Gen Yers are now defining the 2000s).

Generation X refers to those who were born between 1965 and mid to late 70s (1976-1979.) Many grew up as "latch key" kids, home alone after school while both of their parents worked, and/or they were raised by a single parent. They saw their parents married to the workplace, often devoting long hours to factories, the office or on the road. Their parents sacrificed time at home with their families. This group is often perceived as the most ignored, underappreciated and overlooked of the more recent generations. It is also the smallest in number of all the generations. Their contributions were largely in the development of Internet and communications platforms, which the Gen Yers are now putting to use massively.

Generation Y, the subject of our piece (also called Millennials, Generation Next or Echo Boomers) refers to those roughly born between 1980 and 2000 (the offspring of the famous baby boomers.) Characteristics of the generation vary by region, depending on social and economic conditions. However, it is generally marked by an increased use and familiarity with communications, media, and digital technologies. In most parts of the world its upbringing was marked by an increase in a neoliberal approach to politics and economics. Members of the group expect entertaining and fast-paced information and are assumed to be self-centred, demanding, and hard to integrate into teams. They are also more environmentally aware taking the initiative to go green as they now say at every opportunity. They are awash with choices, from buying an individual song on iTunes instead of a whole prepackaged album to not three major TV networks but 200-plus cable channels, covering a spectrum of interests. Rather than buying Wall Street Journal or New York Times (in the US) or the Guardian or Times (in the UK) or Thisday or Guardian (in Nigeria); they have access to hundreds of blogs and websites where they can get their news from. These set of people don’t have to memorise anything as all they have to do is ‘Google it’. How this will influence learning and knowledge remain subjects of various theses in colleges across the world.

As they grow up, leave school and enter the workforce, they are becoming a force to be reckoned with. Also, as they become politically aware, they are leveraging their use of digital technology and the new social networks to force political changes as witnessed recently across North Africa and the Middle East. In a recent Newsweek survey, members of this group account for between 35% (and in some countries) as much as 60% of the population especially in Africa, the Middle East, India, and South America. These regions are political and economic hotbeds that are just experiencing an awakening. Economic growth in these regions are growing at an astonishing pace (between 4 and 10%) leaving the US, Western Europe and Japan in the dust but with only few of the populace enjoying the fruits of such growth. Even Nigeria is experiencing GDP growth of 7-8% compared with 2-4% for the US and most European countries. With access (sometimes restricted) to Facebook, Twitter, Google and YouTube, the Gen Yers in these regions are seeing their counterparts experience economic prosperity, being able to change their governments every four or five years, having unrestricted access to digital media and technologies and wondering why they too can’t experience the same. Not unlike most of their parents who took part in the political tumult of the 60s, they too are partaking directly and indirectly in changing political destinies across the world.

While due to cultural differences across regions, a Gen Y in the US might not necessarily behave the same way as a Gen Y in Nigeria or the one in Nigeria might not necessarily behave the same way as one in China; most Gen Yers across the world however share similar traits and characteristics that are forcing changes in the way we conduct business, the way we market products, the way we advertise, the way we employ people, the way we conduct elections and even forcing legislations in some societies to favour erstwhile socially awkward and unacceptable behaviours. This same generation is also forcing changes even in the way we worship God.

While most Gen Yers believe in ‘a God’, they view organised religion as a source of intolerance and a nuisance. While most pray and read religious manuals or books, they do not attend regular religious services and tend not to identify themselves with a particular religious group. Most will even describe themselves as ‘spiritual’ and not ‘religious’ to emphasize their stand as far as God is concerned. While churches in Europe are closing down, unable to cope with these changes, those in the US and Africa are using music, drama, the ‘mega church’ concept and community organising/work to keep members of this generation in church. Members of this group do not want to worship in your small town church, they like unconventional music and drama to go along with the sermon and they want their church to get involved in social mobilization and community work.

Gen Yers also tend to be more liberal on issues of sex. Even in conservative societies like Africa’s, members of this group tend to frown less on homosexuality seeing sexual orientation not as a choice but more like age and sex, (things you don’t have a choice over). This has led to seismic shifts in the way homosexuality is viewed by society with laws now being made to legalise, cater for and protect so called same sex marriages. They also tend to have sex earlier being earlier exposed to the technicalities of sex and being also better informed. Despite their sexual awareness, they are also acutely aware of the dangers of AIDs and other STDs and take precautions concerning these.

This group tends to be more peer oriented. The rise of instant communication technologies such as email, texting, and IM and new media through websites like YouTube and social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter, explains the Gen Yers reputation for being somewhat peer-oriented due to easier facilitation of communication through technology. This has also changed the face of advertising as advertisers now use targeted advertising to get across to members of this group. Most members of this group are more likely to make a purchase (of a product or service) if their peers have done so and are also likely to not to make a purchase if their peers makes a negative review about such. 7-9 of every 10 amongst this group owns a cell phone (probably a Blackberry or another smartphone) and a computer. Even in low income societies and amongst low income groups, acquisition of a cell phone or a computer is not seen as a luxury but a necessity. This has led to financial institutions and schools partnering together to offer schemes that make it easier for members of this group to acquire such. Cell phone makers are cashing in on this churning out smartphones (phones with Internet and Social Networking capabilities) at an alarming rate. The rise of mobile social networking and instant messaging and email is also placing a demand on the attention spans and tasking abilities of this group. There is that urge to check every Facebook post, every chat, every IM and every mail as they come in and also reply immediately. 70% of all text messages are sent by members of this group. Members of this group view themselves as being excellent multi-taskers but recent research suggests that from being far from the truth. Research from Temple University’s Centre for Neural Decision Making suggests that this addiction to information and addiction to incoming tweets and texts leads to objectively poorer decision making. The research showed that people faced with a plethora of information are apt to be poor at making choices and poor ones at that.
Politically, members of this group want change and results fast. They get quickly disillusioned if things don’t go their way and if their anointed candidate doesn’t deliver on time. Members of this group vaulted Barack Obama into office in the US in the 2008 elections but were nowhere to be found during the 2010 US midterm elections when the Republicans won over the Congress. They have also been responsible for the fall of the governments in Egypt and Tunisia and forced changes in Yemen, Morocco and Saudi Arabia, but after forcing these changes will they be available to provide support and ideas for the new leadership in these places. Again, as with other areas of their lives, they want microwave solutions – fast, ready and instant. The patience to work things out long term is usually absent and politicians will do well to learn these facts and know how to harness them in cultivating this group of people.

In the business world and workplace, managing Gen Yer has become one of the hottest topics among HR consultants and business managers. Across the workplace, they are seen as being lazy not willing to work long hours. They have learnt the importance of balancing work and life from their overworked ‘Baby Boomer’ parents. They want to work, but they don't want work to be their life. They aim to work faster and better than other workers and are not prone to meetings. They want to hold only ‘productive’ meetings. They want to make an important impact on their first day at work and want to be given direct ownership of tasks and responsibilities with less hierarchical organisational structure. They believe in their own self-worth and are high maintenance workers. They change careers faster than college students change their majors, creating frustration for employers struggling to retain and recruit talented high-performers. "Generation Y is much less likely to respond to the traditional command-and-control type of management still popular in much of today's workforce," says Jordan Kaplan, an associate managerial science professor at Long Island University-Brooklyn in New York, US. "They've grown up questioning their parents, and now they're questioning their employers. They don't know how to shut up, which is great, but that's aggravating to the 50-year-old manager who says, 'Do it and do it now.'" They are very independent and place a great deal of demand on their employers. They want jobs with flexibility, telecommuting or work from home options and the ability to go part time or leave the workforce temporarily when children are in the picture. Generation Yers don't expect to stay in a job, or even a career, for too long, they're sceptical when it comes to such concepts as employee loyalty. In the workplace, conflict and resentment can arise over a host of issues, even seemingly innocuous subjects such as appearance, as a generation used to casual fare such as flip-flops, tattoos and capri pants finds more traditional attire is required at the office. Conflict can also flare up over management style. Unlike previous generations who've in large part grown accustomed to the annual review, Gen Yers have grown up getting constant feedback and recognition from teachers, parents and coaches and can resent it or feel lost if communication from bosses isn't more regular.

By understanding what today’s youth most value, we can determine how to most effectively engage them. Even if many chose to reject these values however they are still culturally dominant. The values in vogue today are as follows:

Relational Connection
Gen Y is seeking after more than just friendships. They want community: to be understood, accepted, respected, and included. Research from the Australian Leadership Foundation shows that while they spend most of their spare time with their peers, they often fail to experience real unconditional love, and connection when with them. Above all else, they wish for “a happy relationship” and “a loving family”. A stereotype is that this generation has no loyalty however they do demonstrate strong loyalty to their friends. They work hard to live up to what their peers expect of them, and their self-esteem often rests on how well regarded they are in their group or sub-culture.

Bigger Meaning
This generation has observed their parents get the rewards of hard work: houses, cars, and material wealth. Gen Y has benefited from this being the most materially endowed, and entertained generation of teenagers ever. Yet they have seen the costs of their parents’ success in terms of broken marriages, absentee parenting, and an epidemic of stress related illnesses. For their part Gen Y have been left disillusioned with the materialism they have enjoyed and boredom remains a big problem for them (57% state that “never being bored” is of highest importance to them). Therefore they are looking for more than just continuing the consumerism experiment. Indeed when deciding to accept a job, salary ranks sixth in order of importance after training, management style, work flexibility, staff activities, and non-financial rewards. For the young people of this generation, a job merely provides the income to do what they want to do. They are on a search for fun, for quality friendships, and for a fulfilling purpose. There are more voices than ever trying to win over a cause-seeking generation. Whether it is environmentalism, social issues, human rights, or volunteering, they are getting increasingly involved.

Trusted Guidance
Research again shows that the one of the strongest felt need amongst Gen Y is for guidance or direction in their life that is trustworthy. There is much advice on offer but not much of it is believed by this sceptical generation, and rightly so. By the age of 18, the average young person has viewed over 500,000 TV commercials, in addition to countless Internet, radio, and outdoor ads, much of which is pure hype. This generation is hammered with hype and has the hype radar up screening out most messages. This generation wants guidance in the form of a navigator, not a street directory. Our society is full of proverbial street directories, which show the way to financial, relationship, or life success. However most Gen Y’s are unsure of where they are now, let alone where they are going, and so they are seeking specific direction from someone who knows them, their situation, and has even travelled that way themselves. They are looking for real life role models and mentors who not only know the way, but also go the way, and can show the way.

Understanding Generation Y is important for all of us whether we are involved in educating youth, or in a leadership role in the workplace or a spiritual based organisation. A quality outcome is dependent on our understanding of them. Once we have a foundational grasp of their characteristics, communication styles, and social attitudes, we will be well equipped to effectively impact this enormous and emerging generation. Before too long they will be the bosses and will be taking over the world.

The TIMELESS Social Network Offer

2011-04-13T11:23:00.000+01:00

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April Edition of Timeless Magazine

2011-04-11T15:37:00.000+01:00

Why do we spend so much time counting other people's money - a look at the world's billionaires for 2011?

These and other stories below in your premium, innovative, influential newsmagazine.

Ituah Ighodalo at 50: A special exclusive feature on our Editor in Chief.Like his elder brother (Asue), he had his primary education at the Mary Hill Convent Primary School where he at an early stage started showing his creative talents when, he started writing short stories. By the time he completed elementary four (Primary Four) at the Catholic Missionary School, he had succeeded in writing two different booklets.

Emeka Smith Unleashed
I never thought comedy would be a moneymaking thing for me. I never imagined I could get a car through comedy, I never imagined I could rent an apartment through comedy; I never imagined I could put my younger ones through school using comedy.

The Overly Involved Boss by Folake Oluwole, Corporate Coaching expertAs CEOs or Managers, we often times interpret quiet authority as loss of authority. In the bid to always be in control, we end up being out of control. An overbearing, quick to criticise boss (which is very different from identifying an area of need) will erode the confidence and zeal of team members.

Expectant Moms and their Various Worries by Titilope OyeladeDon't stress yourself over all the "rules" pregnant women now have. If you accidentally eat a snack or food you're not sure is safe, there's no use worrying after the fact. Our mothers had fewer restrictions than we do, and we turned out fine.

Yummy Mummy's Spring 2011 Collection by Amama EkwereOriginally, Yummy Mummy’s focus was to be glam up pretty ‘preggies’, giving a sense of a special ‘yummyness’ during the months when hormones and burgeoning bodily changes served to make one feel a tad bit ugly.

Dressing your Body Type by Adeola AdegboyegaEvery woman has something about her body she'd like to hide, whether it's heavy thighs, a podgy tummy or a too-round bottom. With just a few visual tricks, your problem areas will disappear and your true beauty will surface leaving your virtue intact!

How the Easter Story can help us overcome the politics of fear by Archbishop John Sentamu, Archbishop of YorkWe are living, so I'm told, in frightening times. The last economic crisis has meant that for those who deal in the business of prediction economics, the world has become a scary and uncertain place. But beyond this fear of the (monetary) sky falling in, there are many people operating in the "real" economy and "real life" for whom the fact that the world can be both scary and uncertain isn't news. There are the real and daily tragedies of life that rob us of any sense of security.

The Thisday Arise Fashion Week by Victoria Praise AbrahamsFor the first time in Africa’s history on African soil, 50 great African designers gathered in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial nerve centre to showcase the best of African designs.

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Tribute to Pastor Ituah Ighodalo at 50

2011-04-07T11:10:00.000+01:00

“I am committed to your success”, this is his mantra to us. But much more than a slogan, he means and lives it. You can’t come across him and not be changed or affected in one way or the other. He leaves a lasting impression on you. He believes passionately in the ability of each and every person and in their God given destiny to succeed and where there are restrictions on the path of anyone (preventing them from fulfilling their purpose,) he (with the help of God) does everything to ensure the removal of such. He is a likable and charming fellow and despite his own challenges (like he said recently at a workers meeting, even pastors have challenges), he does everything to help solve whatever problem you bring before him. In doing what he does, he is just living by his passionate belief in Acts chapter 10: 38, “everywhere Christ went, he was doing good.” The quote that “Any religion that claims to be concerned about people but does not address the economic conditions of the people is a dry religion” (by Martin Luther) might as well be ascribed to him. We say a very happy birthday to our dear Pastor Ituah. God continue to bless and uphold you. We love you.

- From all of us at Trinity House

2011 Presidential Elections: Why would it be different?

2011-03-31T12:33:00.000+01:00

By Ayodeji Jeremiah

The forthcoming general elections of April 2011 (the fourth since the departure of the military from governance) promises to be quite exciting. In 1999, there were only three political parties: the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the All Nigeria’s People Party (ANPP) and the Alliance for Democracy (AD). The two presidential candidates then, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo (who contested on the platform of the PDP) and Chief Olu Falae (who contested on the joint platform of the ANPP/AD) were both Yorubas, a measure taken in order to placate the South West region of the country over the June 12 debacle.

Chief Obasanjo went on to become president initiating a string of reforms and bringing in a team of technocrats including World Bank Managing Director, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweanla to manage the finance ministry. Debts of over $30 billion were negotiated, forgiven or paid off. The new President took over a country that faced many problems, including a dysfunctional bureaucracy, collapsed infrastructure, and a military that wanted a reward for returning quietly to the barracks. The President moved quickly and retired hundreds of military officers holding political positions, established a blue-ribbon panel to investigate human rights violations, released scores of persons held without charge, and rescinded numerous questionable licenses and contracts left by the previous military regimes. The government also moved to recover millions of dollars in funds secreted to overseas accounts. The fight against corruption was also instituted during this period.

Most civil society leaders and Nigerians witnessed marked improvements in human rights and freedom of the press under Obasanjo. The new president faced the daunting task of rebuilding a petroleum-based economy, whose revenues have been squandered through corruption and mismanagement.

In 2003, the then incumbent president Chief Obasanjo contested against General Muhammed Buhari (contesting on the ANPP platform) and a plethora of 17 other minor candidates in elections that were marred by vote rigging and some violence. Buhari, who lost unsuccessfully contested the results in the courts. The last general elections in Nigeria held in April 2007 have been described as one of the worst, if not the worst in the history of elections in the country.

Late Umaru Yar'Adua and Goodluck Jonathan, both of the People's Democratic Party, who were elected President and Vice President, respectively, competed against 21 other presidential candidates. Notwithstanding the irregularities in the 2007 elections, a lot of Nigerians believed that life most go on. Attempts made by opposition parties and members of civil society groups to call out pro-democracy protests on the scale of the June 12 1993 watershed elections were largely met with apathy from Nigerians. This might not be unconnected with the fact that many Nigerians believed that many of the opposition parties then (there were about 50 parties in all then) including the major ones such as the Action Congress (founded and powered as a splinter group of the AD by Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu), All Nigeria Peoples Party, the Alliance for Democracy, All Progressive Grand Alliance, the People’s Progressive Alliance, the Labour Party and Fresh Democratic Party did not get their acts right before the elections and did not work quite as hard also.

Most of the presidential candidates presented by these parties also seemed to have a larger than life image of themselves. Of the 22 presidential candidates then, amongst whom were former Vice President Alhaji Atiku Abubakar (Action Congress); General Mohammed Buhari (All Nigeria Peoples Party); Professor Pat Utomi (African Democratic Congress, ADC); Reverend Chris Okotie (Fresh Democratic Party, FDP); Governor Orji Uzor Kalu (People’s Progressive Alliance, PPA); Chief Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu (All Progressive Grand Alliance, APGA); Alhaji Attahiru Bafarawa (Democratic People’s Party, DPP); Chief Adebayo Adefarati (Alliance for Democracy, AD); only very few were easily recognised by Nigerians. A lot of Nigerians including educated and well exposed ones could not name more than five or six candidates when asked to mention those contesting the 2007 presidential elections.

Considering the torrid political history of Nigeria; everyone is waiting with bated breath for the April 2011 elections. Will 2011 be different from 1964, 1983, 2003 and 2007? What does the future hold for Nigeria in terms of political leadership? Will old rivalries and wounds be resuscitated to the extent of destabilising the polity or will Nigeria witness a dramatic change that will lead us to our El-Dorado? Being the biggest democracy in Africa, it is not just Nigerians that are waiting but the whole world.

Major Presidential Contenders in 2011
This year, we have 18 candidates contesting the presidential elections of which four major front runners have emerged namely the incumbent, Goodluck Jonathan contesting on the platform of the ruling party (the PDP); General Muhammed Buhari contesting this time on the platform of his newly founded party, the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC); former corruption czar Alhaji Nuhu Ribadu, contesting on the platform of the now rebranded Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and Alhaji Ibrahim Shekarau, governor of Kano state, contesting on the platform of the ANPP.

Prior to submission of lists to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in February, President Jonathan and General Buhari were the leading favourites; Jonathan by virtue of his incumbency and belonging to the largest political party in the country and Buhari by virtue of his popularity in the North West and a master stroke in picking a popular Southwest pastor and activist as his Vice-Presidential candidate, Tunde Bakare. Bakare had bought political capital in 2009/2010 by virtue of his leadership of the Save Nigeria Group, (a political action group) which took charge and organised protests and rallies when the nation was more or less without leadership for over 50 days when the late president was incommunicado and his vice president (Jonathan) was powerless in ruling the country.

Bakare’s choice is believed to have been influenced by Buhari’s aim to allay fears of his Islamist stance and win over converts in the south-western pats of the country, where he is not very popular. Some people are however still sceptical of the CPC ticket due to what is seen as the non-conformist and antagonistic nature of the two men on the ticket. ACN however, (whose candidate, Ribadu is quite popular amongst the youths) increased the popularity of its candidate with its pick of respected banker and accountant, Fola Adeola as its vice presidential candidate. Prior to this, a lot of people had considered Ribadu as an also-ran with not too many willing to consider him despite his anti-corruption credentials due to what they termed his rabid nature and inexperience in political and governance matters. Adeola’s emergence has however reduced these fears. ANPP which had hitherto been the second largest political party and now the fourth largest was not in any serious contention for the presidency until the presidential debate organised by NN24 and Next Media groups. The performance of its candidate, Ibrahim Shekarau on the day of the debate surprised many. For about 12 hours after the debate, Shekarau was ‘trending’ on Twitter and Facebook. Google searches on him quadrupled over the next one week. Shekarau, suddenly became the ‘special bride’ overnight.

The other fourteen candidates including Dr. Pat Utomi, Chief Dele Momodu, Rev. Chris Okotie, Mr. John Dara amongst others will probably pick a few thousand votes here and there. Shekarau, unless a miracle happens will probably not win though will eat significantly into the votes of Jonathan, Buhari and Ribadu. The 2011 elections will therefore be a three pronged fight between these three.

Why should Nigerians expect anything different in 2011?
First is the appointment of a respected former university lecturer and activist as the electoral umpire, Professor Attahiru Jega, the INEC chairman. Jega has instituted several reforms at the administrative and organizational level across board in INEC and has also put in place measures to stem electoral practices both by staff and by parties. He has actively put up resistance and stood his ground against the political parties over some actions and decisions. His case has been helped by the passage of the Electoral Reforms Act, whose passage at the National Assembly was held up for several months until outcry from civil society groups and the citizenry. It also helped that President Goodluck Jonathan in wanting to be seen as having organised a free and fair election pushed the passage of the bill at the National Assembly.

Second is the increased involvement and interest of the youths across the country. A of young Nigerians between 18 and 35 years of age will probably be voting for the first time in their lives in the forthcoming elections. Beyond voting, a lot of them have been actively involved in scrutinizing the various candidates, campaigning for their preferred candidates and getting their friends, family and colleagues involved in registering to vote. Thus, this might be another ‘Obama’ moment being repeated in Nigeria where the youths might determine the outcome of the elections as happened in the 2008 US presidential elections where they turned out enmasse to vote for the first African-American president in US history,

Third is the use of technology. Phones now have the capacity to act as still or recording cameras with capacity to transmit pictures and videos to online sites and social media pages. Again, the group mentioned above (Gen Y as they are referred to) is responsible for this tectonic shift. That is why the Inspector-General of Police might be on a collision course with a directive that cell phones will not be allowed at polling booths. How this will turn out before the elections remains to be seen. The directive, if allowed to stay will seriously hamper the ability of this group of people who are bent on not just voting but ensuring that their votes are protected. The Gen Yers are going to be a strong electoral monitoring group in the forthcoming elections and it will be in the best interest of the government, INEC and the security agencies to co-opt this group rather than intimidate, harass or coerce them in anyway. Events in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya have only helped to stoke the interest and zealousness of this group of people.

Fourth is the willingness for change across the country. After 12 years of democracy under the PDP government, people are clamouring for a change of batons. Jonathan, though a front runner in the forthcoming elections will definitely pay with some loss of votes (if he doesn’t lose) for this angst amongst the citizenry. In fairness to the Obasanjo government of 1999 to 2007, policies and programmes were put in place which if the YarAdua/Jonathan government had implemented from the word go will have shown remarkable improvements in the governance of the nation. This was what happened in Lagos when Babatunde Fashola took over from Asiwaju Bola Tinubu in 2007. Jonathan therefore is seen as part and parcel of the continuation of the Obasanjo/YarAdua government despite steps taken to show that he is his own man.

Expectations post April 2011
One of the major fears expressed by political pundits is a fallout of the last point from above – ‘the anything/anyone but PDP syndrome.’ Across the nation in the past eight years, there have been stellar performances from some PDP governors and representatives. Some of these who are vying for re-election may probably be swept up in the coming tornado represented by the ACN and the CPC. It has not helped that in the last one year leading up to the elections, not less than three states have been taken over by the ACN, the performances of whose governors we cannot measure right now. The ACN now controls nine states of the federation and looks set at taking probably another six, all things being equal. The question now remains: in a country where the parties do not have clear cut ideological leanings and where cross carpeting is frequent from losing parties to winning parties, will some selected performing politicians not be punished for the ‘sins of the many’.

Also to note are the myriad problems facing the country which any respected economist will tell you cannot be solved overnight. Expectations are however high from the citizenry that the new government (whatever hue it may be) is expected to not just deliver but do so fast. The probability of disaffection settling in within a year very high and all the contesting politicians are aware of this. There is therefore the possibility of any government to want to play to the gallery and take populist decisions which may however be inimical to the country’s growth in the long term. US President Barack Obama is currently experiencing the same problems and was punished severely for it in the mid-term elections last November. Nigeria, however is not structured politically for mid-term elections, so the country might be stuck with a non-performing albeit popular government for four years.

By the Side
One of the surprising things about this election is the emergence of a Muslim-Muslim ticket in Ribadu and Adeola without much ado. Not only has the ticket been widely accepted, Christians from all the major geo-political zones of the country are on a cue to vote for this ticket. This is an indication of the maturity of the electoral system and democracy in general. Though this type of ticket was voted for overwhelmingly in 1993 (the Abiola/Kingibe SDP ticket), the military did no good in obliterating that landmark through its actions between 1993 and 1998.

Another surprising thing that may also be generally glossed over is the tussle in Kwara state over who emerges the governor. Bukola Saraki, the outgoing governor and an erstwhile presidential contender refused to bow to the wishes of his father, the political godfather of the state, Dr. Olusola Saraki in allowing his sister, Gbemisola Saraki, a serving senator in taking over the reins from him. Saraki has anointed a former Commissioner in his cabinet to be his successor. His father and daughter have decamped from the PDP to contest the governorship election on another party’s platform. This again shows the maturity of the system, which we fear may be defeated by the ‘the anything/anyone but PDP syndrome’ (see above).

Prior to the emergence of President Goodluck Jonathan as the PDP flagbearer, the issue of zoning heated up the system with the North insisting that Jonathan should not contest and allow another northerner to contest and complete the late Yar’Adua’s term. Four northerners were then shortlisted and a consensus candidate selected to compete against Jonathan at the PDP primaries. Former military president, Ibrahim Babangida, former National Security Adviser, Aliyu Gusau, former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar (who had decamped back to the PDP from the ACN) and outgoing Kwara state governor, Dr. Bukola Saraki were screened before a committee before the eventual emergence of Atiku. Jonathan went on to soundly defeat Atilu at the party primaries. This would not have happened in Nigeria of yesteryears despite whatever misgivings anyone might have about the conduct of that primary. Jonathan since then has embarked on fence mending to get the support of these northerners and bolster his chances at the polls.

A Vibrant System
Commentators have expressed satisfaction with the high level of the electorate’s participation in the run up to these elections. April 2011 would probably witness the largest turn out of voters comparable or exceeding what we saw in June 1993. Analysts are however more concerned that this vibrancy in the system not be allowed to run out before 2015. This year’s elections have probably witnessed the highest no of political debates ever conducted before elections. Someone even expressed surprise when it was mentioned that debates have been part and parcel of our electioneering since 1993 with the exception of the ridiculed Abacha transition program of the five leprous fingers syndrome.

Whatever the outcome of these elections, one thing is certain; it won’t be business as usual across board. Politicians will probably realise that their chances of re election are much better if they perform. Governor Fashola is a case in point. Lagosians are expecting a landslide in the election results in his favour. If the performing governor had decamped from the ACN, (especially with rumblings and rumours of wrangling between him and his erstwhile boss and party leader,) he would still have won on any party platform he choose to go to.

Though politicians may still be hell bent on rigging elections, the chances of doing so successfully and getting away with it are quite slim.

Matters Arising
Beyond April 2011, Nigerians should keep in mind that a lot of reforms still need to be put in place. Frequent party crossing/cross carpeting especially just before or just after elections needs to be restricted. A lot of Nigerians still ignore the legislative arms of government as if they are non-existent or not important. Nigeria still runs a representative democracy in which all arms of government, both executive and legislative are important. Fashola, as popular as he is in Lagos had to carry his legislative arm along in passing across his bills and getting his programs executed.

Also of note is the high cost of running and maintaining our democracy. The people need to make a demand for the cutting of these costs. Nigerians finally have to be educated that running for office goes beyond looting the system and ‘enjoying the dividends of democracy’. Many see political positions as an opportunity to partake of the so called ‘National Cake’, which I believe is shrinking more and more by the day and spreading the goodies amongst their people.

Nigeria is one of the most endowed countries in the world. With a population of 140 million people, it is also amongst the ten most populous in the world. Its special place not only in Africa but the world makes its peculiar challenges and problems of particular interest to the rest of the world. It is hoped that the new government of Nigeria come May 29, 2011 will overcome the challenges facing it and deliver on the gains being expected by not only Nigerians but the whole world.

Books by Pastor Ituah Ighodalo

2011-03-26T20:45:00.000+01:00

Ade Plumptre Behind The Lens

2011-03-24T13:46:00.001+01:00

Meeting him in a minute gives the impression he’s not a friendly person but after a chat that lasted about an hour, we saw the real and down to earth talented photographer. Ade Plumptre has eyes for details. According to him, he loves things done, set up and put in a particular order, which he says has been a part of his life from childhood. Enjoy the excerpts below in an interview he had with Taiye Tunkarimu & Tola Awoyemi.

His Background
Right from childhood, Ade Plumptre has always loved order, when things are not the way it should be, it causes a problem for him. “I learnt photography from an architect and architects keep details and everything has to be in order.” There are certain principles of Photography because I mentor a lot of people and teach people. The first thing is to understand these principles and guidelines and as you grow you can break the rules! Never break the rule all in the name of creativity, when you become a professional, then you can break the rule.

Tell us about your self
“I was born into a Christian family (old school), my mum was an S .U, and my parents instilled certain values in us. We travelled a lot because my father was a military officer and also a medical consultant. We were out of the country and in many states, even though I grew up from a Christian family, I was a military brat, went to military school, Jos, did my National Youth Service Corps in Port-Harcourt, worked in the Financial Sector and then decided to be a photographer while I went to hustle with my cousin who was an architect”

Was Photography a passion or you just stumbled on it?
“I remember my father giving me a camera when I was in secondary school and it was fun taking pictures but as I grew, I find out that passions are things that you develop, I have heard a lot of artistes telling their stories and saying they are into their artistry because of passion, I tell them to come down to earth and be realistic. We all know that it’s because of poverty. I was never a 9am – 5pm person; I love to do my work and get it done and have time for myself. As we all know when you work on salary it’s never like that, even when you have accomplished your task, your boss still wants you around, and I never believed in it so I went to hustle with my cousin who is an architect and also a photographer. The rest is history. I enjoy waking up, taking photographs, meeting clients and getting my job done. It’s wonderful! Once in a while I do creative stuff, Fashion and Style for magazines and portrait of people around.

What has been your greatest challenge and how have you managed it?
“There are many challenges not one not two, one major challenge is getting good quality pictures. I thank God am opportune; I travel and make money so am able to buy good equipment. When I travel abroad, some of my colleagues wonder at the kind of cameras and equipments I buy, while they go out to hire or rent cameras, Lights, Studio Space, and pay on credit for over 12 months”. There was a time I wanted to buy a camera worth 2000 pounds, the shop attendant wanted to call the police because am a Nigerian and I didn’t have a credit card or an account. It’s the money I made and saved with a friend in the United Kingdom and when I had enough, I travelled to buy it because it is what I use to work and come out with good quality pictures. I am an event photographer; I do a lot of Marketing Strategy and Portraiture. I have enjoyed working with M-Net South-Africa, when you work with people outside; it pays more because they understand your worth and where you are coming from. When I started, it was a little bit rough, but generally, I face the challenges every other business person goes through. I tell people that if you know what you are doing and you have a passion for it, you will succeed. Initially it could be hard getting clients and people’s acceptance, yes! you don’t expect it to be smooth, it’s all part of business, you need to build yourself from somewhere, I had to start from somewhere, there were jobs I had to take then that now I wouldn’t take, there were friends I had to hang out with that I have discarded because they are not adding value to my life!

What do you plan to accomplish professional and personally in the next five years?
I won’t lie to you ooo, I want my daughter to go to the best university in the world. When I work, I work for my family, that’s the reason I have made my house so comfortable that I have my studio just around me. It’s so bad that my only social gathering is church and I find it hard to go out. I have Cable Television, my wife and my daughter around so if I need to know anything about the world, my cable television and internet solves it! So basically I just want us to grow together and as we get older, I pray that the things I desire from God come through for me because there are lots of things I need but more of the spiritual because we only scratch the surface. We only know the God that heals us, provides for us and all that. Photography puts bread on my table, that’s what I use to feed my family!

His view on Christians and knowledge
All over the world, only a few Christians are doing well! Information is very crucial, the Bible says my people perish for lack of knowledge, the Bible is not referring to Bible knowledge, it is referring to basic understanding and the quest for information. When you go to Dubai, we shout eh eh eh, are they Christians? NO! But they understand that knowledge and know how to harness it.

How do you relax?
If am not working, I watch football or am in front of the television but unfortunately Arsenal is making me cry but am not the kind of person that sticks to a club only when its smooth sailing, whether or not we are losing, I still remain a Gunner!

Redemption of the First Born - New Book by Pastor Ituah Ighodalo

2011-03-20T16:59:00.000+01:00

This book is for all firstborn children, first born sons, for those who have first born brothers and sisters and for those who intend to have first born children. The term 'First Born' is self explanatory: a first born is the first child of a woman or a man. Children, particularly, the firstborn come under attacks by life, by society, amongst the family, brethren and even inadvertently from their parents and then of course from the enemy. There is also a lot of pressure, on the firstborn to live by example and to follow the example of the parents and do what exactly the parents wants the fellow to do. Also when attacks on the parents fail, those who are unable to get the parents tend to go after the children, especially the firstborn. The first born is very important in most families especially in the Jewish family and not only for the Jews in Israel but also for the spiritual Jews. It is therefore very relevant to our situations too since we are the spiritual Jews.

Price - N500 only (postage inclusive)

Call 01-4358330, 08023851601 or emailmailto:timelesscourage@yahoo.co.uk to order your copy

Resellers & Outlets also wanted at attractive commission payments.

In the March Edition of your premium innovative magazine - Timeless

2011-03-07T13:02:00.000+01:00

Ituah Ighodalo asks 'how can we resolve the Nigerian situation'?
Pictures and Reports of the Book Launch by UK Based Darey Wealth
Tolu Abiola Lawal gives us Tips on Flight Safety

Tola Majolagbe writes on Fashion Tips for Plus Size Women

Ubong Udoh asks if Cloud Computing is just another buzzword or is here to stay

Folake Oluwole coaches on how a Job can become the Job
Adebowale Jeff Johnson advices on Active Listening Skills
Interview with Ade Plumptre - Celebrity Photographer
Help for Single Parents with Teenagers with Mark Gregston
Five Things that Every CEO keeps Secret

George Ashiru reminisces on his childhood and growing up years in 'Irons in the Fire'
Ayodeji Jeremiah on Building Organisations founded on People

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TIMELESS EDITORIAL: The ‘Christian pilgrimage’ fraud: Stop the scam now!

2011-02-24T14:57:00.000+01:00

Christianity – which took its precursor system of faith, Judaism, to a whole new definitive level – is in a class all by itself as the only faith without any injunction whatsoever to adherents to undergo pilgrimage, or any journey of faith, to any ‘holy land,’ so-called, anywhere.

The practice is at best unchristian and may even be anti-Christian. Believers in the Judeo-Christian faith tradition have most unwittingly weakened their own witness by being high-strung on inanities that are no more than tripping around on excuses.

It promotes corruption, cronyism, and misguided spirituality for the Christian. Now a multimillion-dollar business, it has survived only because it preys on Christian sensibilities and ignorance of their Scriptures and historic faith. It is a shame that Church leadership, not just in Nigeria but all over the world, has anything to do with it.

Many ‘Christian pilgrims’ have been known to abscond while on their excuse of a religious jamboree to travel to another country where the grass seems to be greener, thus further degrading the good name of Nigeria.

It is high time government hands off pilgrimage affairs, what is properly a private business best left to tour operators and travel agents, for people with the means and intent on undertaking such trips, for whatever private reasons.

The president of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) are hereby called upon to lead the way in doing truth in this regard: to put a stop to government patronage of Christian sensibilities and begin a campaign of turning down the political incentivisation of spiritual matters and of faith.

In Christianity, according to the word of its Lord, Jesus Christ, and His holy apostles, who followed directly in His steps, pilgrimage isn’t just not a necessity, its pursuit under any guise whatever amounts to gross inanity, a frivolous abuse of God-given resources.

Some adherents of the Christian faith have, like their ancestors of faith, often succumbed to the human penchant to be seen to ‘belong’, by clamouring to be allowed to carry on “as the other nations” – a weakness to be purged from the Body, not pandered to.

National Geographic Editor in Chief, Chris Johns, whose world-renowned magazine has a recent Special Edition issue on “Sacred Journeys”, or pilgrimages, wrote in the foreword to that edition that he related to a Canadian Christian “how exhilarating [his] experience” had been journeying up the summit of the Ol Doinyo (“Mountain of God”) in northern Tanzania, East Africa, and now “[he] understood why the Maasai venerated the peak”; he reported the candid Christian response he got: ‘[The Christian] replied that he had no need for a sacred mountain. All he needed for his journey, he said, was the Bible and Jesus Christ.’

According to the great Roman Catholic theologian St. Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335 – 394), an early Father of the Church (born in present-day Niksar, Turkey), sent in 381 by the Church to reorganize the churches of Arabia, in his essay, “On Pilgrimages”: “When the Lord invites the blest to their inheritance...He does not include a pilgrimage to Jerusalem [the principal ‘Christian pilgrimage site’] among their good deeds; when He announces the Beatitudes, He does not name among them that sort of devotion....there is no gain for the godly pilgrim in return for having been there [hence no] reason [to] undergo the toil of so long a journey...”

The newly enlightened National Geographic journalist later in his write-up conceded that “spiritual journeys...can be...simply to a quiet place in our hearts.” Indeed it should. (Emphases added.) It is to this simplicity of faith that the Lord Jesus Christ calls his own as he explained, at the beginning of the Christian era, to the Samaritan woman he met at Jacob’s Well (a pre-Christ pilgrimage site for a sect of Judaism).

In response to her challenge of “Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship,” Jesus replied: “Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. Ye worship ye know not what...But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” True (i.e. conscientious) Christians believe Him--and not human religious traditions that seek to venerate mere places as, properly speaking, objects worthy of adoration, or worship.

National Geographic fittingly focused on an incongruity “in Syria [where] Muslims and Christians worship together at ancient Christian shrines thought to cure infertility...” The magazine reports how “...full of hope, supplicants travel great distances to touch a holy rock or a brass plate.”

Every year, best estimates state there are 300 million faith-tourism travellers around the world, generating USD 18 billion in revenue. The Christian per cent of the number are represented in Thomas, one of Jesus’ 12 Disciples who doubted the word of the Lord and insisted rather on something palpable and got--from a saddened but understanding Lord--a stinging rebuke, instead of a blessing in return.

The abuse is pointedly poignant in Nigeria, with church leadership playing a game of ‘what’s-good-for-the-goose-is-also-good-for-the-gander’ in seeking government sponsorship to go on purported pilgrimages, to balance out scores and settlements being kept with ‘the people of the other religion’, a shameful scenario they don’t consider to be unworthy of the honour of the Christian God and His Christ.

The Scriptures have been abused in trying to justify the pretentious practice by quoting, right out of context, from the Resurrection passage in the earliest Gospel account by Mark: “The angels said unto them...he is risen ... Come see the place where they laid him...” while conveniently leaving out the fact that there’s no agreement among the various Christian communities of faith where the tomb in reference was situated – a powerful pointer to the tomb’s instructive irrelevance as a focus of devotion of any worth.

Among the ranks of ‘pilgrims to the Holy land’, stretching over many centuries, starting in the 9th, have come the Crusaders –the most inimical witness against the Christian witness today – who turned renegade to their faith because of their self-prescribed quest of reclaiming pieces of ‘Holy Land’ real estate bounty from its latest occupiers.

For the Christian pilgrimage on earth, the following passage from Micah represents the sane and binding Christian injunction to follow. It is devoid of the smell of an idolatrous past or a foolish future: “He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” – What any Christian both can and is actually expected to do anywhere they may be located on earth.

Any Christian that feels like going to Israel to see Biblical tourist destinations is free to do so using his personal resources. But we ask that we stop calling such trips ‘pilgrimages’ and government should hands off sponsoring such ‘Christian pilgrimages.’ The argument of ‘what’s-good-for-the-goose-is-also-good-for-the-gander’ while politically correct is morally and spiritually wrong.

10 Years of the GSM Revolution in Nigeria: The Good, The Bad and The Silly.

2011-02-11T15:27:00.000+01:00

10 Years of the GSM Revolution in Nigeria: The Good, The Bad and The Silly. How has the technology changed or impacted your life economically, socially, technologically? Share your insights with us and get published in our upcoming March edition on this revolutionary communications platform. Share on our Facebook page or send us a mail at timelesscourage@yahoo.co.uk

In the February Edition of your Premium TIMELESS Magazine

2011-02-08T15:00:00.000+01:00

In the February Edition of your Premium TIMELESS Magazine:

A Book Review by Taiwo Tunkarimu of The Chronicles of an Entrepreneur, a book by award winning entrepreneur Darey Wealth

10 Most Common Startup Mistakes by Christopher Hytry Derrington, a US based serial entrepreneur who has served as CEO or interim CEO in 13 companies over the past 18 years. He has a BS in Engineering Management-Aerospace Engineering from Missouri University of Science and Technology and a MBA from Entrepreneurs School of Hard Knocks.

Folake Oluwole, a corporate and career coach and the CEO of GTD LTD (i.e. GETTING THINGS DONE LTD), writes on Corporate Coaching as a tool for a retentive, productive and happier workforce.

Bukola Idowu Managing Partner of Opportunity World Consulting (a Business & Human capital development firm, writes on Steps on getting the Best Job for You.

Ituah Ighodalo states steps we must take to Make Our Democracy Work in Nigeria. It's not undoable he says.

Pictures and Reports of Governance 500 event organised by Alder Consulting December last year.

Interview with KICC Nigeria Resident Pastor Femi Faseru. "A Christian is not a church goer but a Christ follower- one who believes in God, the Holy One of Israel and the path to that God is through is Son, Jesus."

Tola Asabo on the Concept of Telling All - "There are so many "whys" that I cannot answer on the reason why we are never "told-all", given all the details of the possible outcomes of the steps that we are about to take by those who have taken those steps before us. Maybe it is so we are not stripped of our expectations, joy, enthusiasm and innocence of that first foray into the unknown."

Akintokunbo Adejumo on The Role of Youths in Nation Building

George Ashiru on Conceptual Principles for the Resoration of our Nation

Tola Majolagbe and Titi Oyelade on the Perfect Valentine.

Subscribe for your hard copy for the full stories by calling 08023851601. Also like our Facebook page for snippets of these stories and much more.

An Open Letter to our Seven Presidential Candidates

2011-01-26T10:11:00.000+01:00

An Open Letter to our Seven Presidential Candidates

January 2010

Dear Sirs,

I will like to congratulate all of you contesting as presidential candidates on various party platforms: President Goodluck Jonathan, General Mohammed Buhari, Mr. Nuhu Ribadu, Alhaji Ibrahim Shekarau, Chief Dele Momodu, Dr. Pat Utomi and Mr. John Dara. Well done so far and I wish you all good luck in the upcoming elections.

I will not go into analysing your chances at the polls. Some of you are well known more than others. Some of you are in parties that have the resources to prosecute elections in a country like Nigeria. All of you claim to have Nigeria’s interests at heart. We do not sincerely know the reasons why you are all contesting despite whatever you might tell us. Some people have suggested that some of you may be better off in the Senate. You all have your supporters and detractors. All said and done, I hope the best man for the job wins.

We are however interested in what plans you have for solving specific intractable problems in our great country Nigeria. We do not want you to tell us that power supply will be available within 12 months. How will you go about it? Be specific. You are all so busy right now planning for your campaigns and the elections that you barely have time for other things. Have you put together some sort of economic and strategy team? By now I will expect you to have done so. Is it after you win the elections that you will start thinking of your cabinet members? A word of advice sirs, while for the sake of political expediency, you will be expected to give out some slots to your party, contributors and different constituencies here and there; it will be advisable to let everyone know some ministries are non-negotiable namely Defence, Foreign Affairs, Finance, Power, Education, Petroleum Resources and Health. A tall order? I know. Getting the right people into these ministries can however make a lot of difference. And yes, Works, so that all those roads can be repaired quickly.

Now to the brass tacks. How do you intend to tackle some of the following issues? We do not want complex, high fallutin reports. In simple lay man’s terms, kindly explain to us what you will do. These things as they say are not rocket science. It will be nice if your government is not business as usual. We are not asking for miracles (maybe we are!); we just want to see that basic things get done. That brings me to another advice for your Excellencies in waiting. Please on no condition, under no circumstances must you go and commission a borehole, a school building or even a road. It is an insult to our collective intelligence. These are things that any country more so, one like Nigeria should have in abundance. I can however forgive you when you commission a brand new power station with a capacity for 3000 – 5000 Megawatts. That will be the day!

Now please kindly keep the following in mind:

Fuel Subsidy/Petroleum Refining - How do you intend to continue to subsidise fuel while simultaneously encouraging private sector participation in the downstream sector? What plans do you have for revamping of our refineries? Removing subsidy is definitely politically incorrect and morally odious.

Power Supply - Powerful unions and interest groups are making privitisation and commercialisation of PHCN difficult. If PHCN works, several companies involved in generators and diesel supply will go out of business. People are ready to pay for power supply if it is available. Power plants however don't come up overnight. It takes four to five years. How do you intend to address these issues?

Transport, Road Construction and Maintenance - Gone are the days when our rail system was very efficient and used for moving goods and services from one place to another. Now, we all depend on moving from one place to another by vehicular transport, which due to the bad state of our roads has become very risky business. How sirs, do you intend to tackle this issue?

Education - Can tertiary education continue to be free? If yes, how does your government intend to fund it? Should the government continue to be involved in the running of secondary schools (the Unity Schools) without compromising standards and quality? How do you plan to motivate teachers, attract funding for more schools, libraries and teaching training?

Cost of Governance/The Civil Service - In view of the stance taken by the Presidential Advisory Council that the present government is too large and in view of the CBN's governor statement that 25% of our budget is used to service the government machinery, how do you intend to keep the costs of running your government low? Is your government going to have 42 ministers just for the sake of federal character? We honestly do not need 42 ministers and you all know it but how are you going to handle all the godfathers, hangers on, political associates, party members, governors and other acolytes? What about the fact that our civil service is too large and bureaucratic. The NLC will not allow you to sack people. How will you convince them that government does not necessarily have to be the largest employer of labour?

These are just a few items that I think myself and other Nigerians may be interested in. Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedules to read this and I look forward to your prompt response. God bless you and God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Yours faithfully,

Ayodeji Jeremiah
Your faithful and loyal Citizen

At Farafina Book Review, You Feel How True (and Powerful) A Story Is

2011-01-13T12:14:00.000+01:00

By Adeleke “Mai Nasara” Adeyemi

Frodo: “I’m all right.”
Sam: “No, no you’re not all right. You’re exhausted…It’s that thing around your neck.”

The invitation to attend avant-garde Nigerian publishing house Farafina’s monthly Book Review, called for 2008 MacArthur “genius” Grant Fellow Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s The Thing Around Your Neck brought wafting to mind a snatch of cinematic conversation from “Lord of the Rings.”

The dialogue is from the last in the trilogy—“The Return of the King”—a work most ominous from ladlefuls of interminable intrigue, something within the clutch of the writer of Thing. The potluck parallel is pertinent: a Review participant would assert that, from his reading, though “highly literary, Chimamanda seems to write with film in mind as well.”

The terse and weary exchange came at a make-or-mar juncture for humanity, at least in the vision of the book writer J.R.R. Tolkien; for his Frodo, pop culture icon, the “thing around your neck” is the Ring of Power.

For Chimamanda (readers and subjects will have only to the first name of the rising literary queen), the audience of December 4, 2010 at Terra Kulture, on Victoria Island, Lagos (in partnership), would say ‘Ring of Power’ is a symbol of how well-rounded the award-winning nouveau niche storyteller—easily the most accomplished Nigerian female writer—succeeded at making her first short story collection, published in 2009.

It came after two roaring book successes, a winning colourful streak that started with the coming-of-age Purple Hibiscus (2003) and carried on with the vicariously cathartic Half of a Yellow Sun (2006).

The present 12-piece collection (all previously published apiece) is an array of stories spun from strong human feelings and foibles, taking on sundry demons, from religious extremism to immigrant headaches, haunted history and pungent familial relationships seething with sibling shenanigans.

They come imbued with the power to engross; but does each story really ring true as a powerful enough statement on how the New African Life is lived, at home and in the Diaspora?

That was the task set for the conclave of bookworms. And came they did, prepared to “carry it for a while” (to echo Frodo’s Sam), regardless of their own exhaustion from having waltzed through Lagos’ legendary traffic. Or perhaps they were showing up to relieve fatigue from the tedium of clichés cluttering their lives, to communally dip into a book by a writer universally attested to be refreshing.

Their leader was the unassumingly cerebral Victor Ehikhamenor: literary connoisseur, visual artist and columnist with Nigeria’s avant-garde award-winning newspaper, NEXT. To set the ball rolling he read the first in line, “Cell One,” on the tragedy triggered by a mother’s smouldering love, is set where the writer grew up, the university town of Nsukka, in Nigeria’s southeast. Many agreed it bears out the age-long aphorisms: “Charity begins at home” and “You reap what you sow”.

The lead reviewer was ready with his verdict on why that story (and indeed every other in the collection) had to be written: “As a society, we tend to live in denial.” In keeping with the straightforward mission of Farafina, his is a clarion call on all to step up the ante of “telling our own stories”—but first to ourselves, to see come true Hispanic American literary theorist Barry L. Lopez’s prediction: “The stories people tell have a way of taking care of them.”Farafina was founded on the vision of bringing the writer of the day (and her kind) to the attention of her native Africa.

Proceedings were moderated by budding literary activist Wana Udobang of Inspiration FM. She would apologise for the weak-strong character of the collection; the writing, she explained, was both pre- and post-Purple Hibiscus, the author’s debut.

The free-of-charge (locals say ‘F.O.C’) event, “organised to boost Nigeria’s reading culture” was, as always was open to all book lovers. For those yet to get a copy of the book before the review, Farafina put up its blurb on their blog and website.

Spicing up the interlude of the day, Dolapo Martin, with stage name D-Tune, came with a string of ballads doled out to his own accompaniment on acoustic guitar; the crooner enjoyed singing as much as his audience relished every strain and turn of lyrics that told the story of sheltered and frustrated love and a father’s unwillingness to let go and let boy.

The gathering returned to grapple, among others, with the searching question: who does Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie write for? Especially given the short story that lent its title to the collection, “The Thing Around Your Neck,” set in Connecticut, in the land of the author’s sojourn and rise to power.

There was also the question of whether Nigerian, nay African, Diaspora stories were not being “churned out” to pander to Western demands for them. (The lead reviewer of the day has ‘been there’ and, says he, won’t be deterred from “writing up my own, too, for consumption by all!”)

Perhaps the touchiest issue of the day was “whether Chimamanda can be accused of ‘agenda writing’,” a question stirred up by a story in the collection, “The Shivering,” set on the campus of Princeton University, which seemed to demand that the writer bend over backwards to make the protagonist extremely likeable.

Someone wondered if it’s “all a bid to sell his kind to us”—later revealed to be homosexual—“to tell the world we have also ‘arrived’ as a tolerant people, able to handle red-hot buttons with a grin!”

The Farafina Book Review takes a break in January, to resume February 2011; book for the day will be brought to the attention of fans and patrons in the blogosphere, as well as announced in traditional media for the benefit of the general public, well in advance.

Impressively well-attended, the gathering yielded a fistful of insights, despite (perhaps because of) its feistiness. Adjourned, it will reconvene; hopefully bigger, around the promise of—that which rings true and powerful—a story.

2010-12-13T13:48:00.000+01:00

http://www.timelessnewspaper.com/

The Essence of Christmas by Ituah Ighodalo;
Christmas Chocolate Delights;
Weight Loss with a Nigerian Diet by Titilope Oyelade;
Choosing that Special Christmas Gift for that Special Him or Her by Tola Awoyemi;
Are we telling our Men the Truth by Tola Asabo;
Interview with Kehinde Dacosta-Lawrence;
Finding & Keeping the Right Workforce by Bukola Idowu,
Tolu Ifekoya on Samson Siasia's appointment - is he the Messiah we have been waiting for in Nigerian football;
The Feet, Finger and Face that Speaks by Taiwo Tunkarimu
The Introverted Personality - its not wrong, its just different by Shola Adu-Okubote;
How to Never Lose an Argument by Adebowale Jeff Johnson

All these and much more in TIMELESS.

http://www.timelessnewspaper.com/

AN UNBEATABLE TIMELESS OFFER - 20-50% DISCOUNT ON ALL ADVERTS FOR JANUARY EDITION

2010-12-06T14:27:00.000+01:00

Book and confirm your adverts for your products and services in our January edition between now and Friday December 17 and get between 20 and 50% discounts on your advert placements. Full Waivers on Special Positions, see below (based on first come first basis). Free Artwork Design also for your adverts.

ADVERT RATES

COLOUR
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Two-page Spread N250, 000

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Loose Inserts @ N5, 000 per 1000 copies & Handling Charges of N20, 000

Four Consecutive Placements attracts a Free Placement

Special Positions such as centre-spread, inside front cover, inside back cover, and back cover attracts a 25% surcharge

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TIMELESS MAGAZINE - Compelling Content, Innovative Design

2010-11-29T15:35:00.000+01:00

Nigeria at 50: Leading Change by Ituah Ighodalo

2010-11-24T13:32:00.000+01:00

By Ituah Ighodalo

What is Change?
Change can be positive or negative. Something can change from the better for worse and something can change from bad to good. In our context in this article, we are looking at change as that process of transforming something from what it is to the best it can be. It can also be defined as the process of making things better and making better things continuously.

Why must things Change?
The world itself is constantly changing. We have had several world orders that have brought one form of change or the other to the world through their cultures and technologies or way of life. The Assyrian Empire – The Babylonian Empire – The Persian Empire – The Greek Empire – The Roman Empire. The British Empire. What happened during Noah’s time is not what is happening today. There have been changes in knowledge, changes in thinking, changes in circumstances, changes in lifestyle, changes in attitude, changes in the economy.

From our perspective of positive change, there is always a better way of doing things. Before the advent of colour television, we had black and white TVs; before that there was TV without sound. Now we have the Cable News Network and satellite TV. We have had the Betamax, the VHS, the CD, the DVD and now the Blueray. The GSM phone technology and email have now become common place. Before we had to rely on telegram and analog phones for our communication purposes.

There is something waiting to be discovered by you. The men and women that led these discoveries and made these changes of monumental proportions are men of like mind like you and I. They did not have two heads, or four eyes or 15 fingers. They were willing to pay the price to see change and be the change agent. They were willing to lead change.

At 50, Nigeria must change
What was Nigeria like in the 50s, 60s, and 70s? Nigerian universities were amongst the best in the Commonwealth in the 60s. We were the leading exporters of cash crops like cocoa, oil palm, and groundnut. Our green passport was highly respected. Nobody frowned at you or looked upon you with contempt for owing and carrying one. Sometimes in the 1970s, our then Head of State stated unequivocally that lack of money was not our problem but how to spend the much available money. We lent money to other nations. The naira exchanged at good rates with the dollar and the pound. Nigerians didn’t have to travel abroad for medical check-up.

What is the situation like today? There is no power supply; the roads are bad, our medical infrastructure is so deplorable that treating malaria and typhoid has become a problem for our doctors, there is no food and people are going hungry, education is poor with those who can afford it sending their children to US, UK and even Ghana, Botswana and South Africa for higher education; the private schools hae virtually taken over the primary and secondary school sectors yet there is no improvement in WAEC and NECO scores. Unemployment is at an all time low, our currency and economy are weak and cannot support basic manufacturing and trading processes and the attitude of the people towards their nation is weak and deplorable. In short things are tough.

Why are things the way they are?
How did we get to the situation we have found ourselves in? Several reasons could be adduced for our problems with the main one being leadership or a lack of it. We have had poor, uneducated, uniformed, visionless, uncommitted leadership by largely selfish and ignorant people who lack proper training and character.

David Cameron, the British Prime Minister comes from a generation of leaders who have held positions of responsibility and accountability. The opposition Labour party in the UK is led by the Miliband brothers, who also descend from a generation of leaders. In the US, a relatively younger nation than Britain; you must demonstrate your leadership track record that has benefitted society. People come from the Congress to become Senators and Governors before saying they want to be President or Vice Presidents. People are also held accountable. Same in Singapore, Malaysia, even India and I dare say Ghana. In Nigeria, we have enforced a process that never brought up the best.

You cannot give what you don’t have.

How do we change or lead a change?
(1) We must be ready and willing to change: there must be a willingness to leave the past and move into the future. Change cannot happen if the people are stuck in a time warp unwilling to move forward.

(2) We must see the change: This is where vision comes in. We need people who can communicate that change to others. Myles Munroe at a seminar earlier in the year said “you can only lead people to the degree of the future that you have gone yourself. The act of leadership is taking people from where they are to where they have never been before. The result of true leadership is discomfort and change. The most important source of leadership is vision.” The change we yearn for must be something that can be easily communicated to others.

(3) We must find the people with the appropriate character to lead the change: leadership is all about personality and character. Again it was Myles Munroe that said “an army of sheep led by a lion will always defeat an army of lions led by a sheep.” It’s all about character. Nigeria, a nation of 150 million people is not short of human resource. It’s just that the system keeps throwing up those with corrupt and questionable characters. That must change.

(4) We must put in the processes for change: Processes in our educational, religious, electoral, and legislative and governance systems that will bring about change must be put in place. If someone has tried a process that works that brings about change, that process must be documented and taught to others and replicated across all spheres of our society.

(5) We must commit to and be faithful to the change: We must be ready as a people and as a nation to endure the hardships and the consequences that the change will bring about. Change is not always easy. People naturally will always want to remain in their comfort zones. They have to be forced to change their thinking, their attitude, their way of life. We must be faithful as a nation to such changes

What do we need to lead change?
(1) Education

(2) Vision

(3) Determination

(4) Strength & Hardwork

(5) Truth, Boldness, Honesty, Integrity

(6) Capacity, Skill and Gift

(7) Fairness

What do we need to do for Nigeria?
(1) Corruption must stop: We must discourage corruption at all levels. Corruption does not take place only in government. At religious organisations, private offices, schools, even our homes, we must discourage all forms of corrupt practices.

(2) People must be enlightened, informed and emboldened: We must bring our people out of ignorance and fear. A situation where our leaders continue to enslave the people in order to lord it over them must stop.

(3) We must insist on clean electoral processes: The people must rise up and get involved in the electoral process. No more armchair politicking. We must all register to vote, go out to vote on election days, monitor the whole process in our different areas and generally get involved.

(4) We must search for right leadership with the right character and proven track record, encourage and support them to participate

You must be ready to get involved at whatever level, starting with yourself and your environment. It is possible and Yes, We can. God bless Nigeria.

The TIMELESS SOGA Reading & Phonics Workshop for Teachers/Parents/School Heads

2010-10-22T14:35:00.000+01:00

Helping a child learn to read, is a gift that will last a lifetime. How prepared are our teachers, parents and school heads in helping children acquire this gift?

This workshop will cover phonics, reading, writing, speaking and vocabulary related programmes and activities. Participants will leave with invaluable tips, guidance, information and materials to help their children and students learn better and faster. By applying the techniques learnt in this workshop, your child/student will not only have greatly improved reading skills, but his/her comprehension will increase as well. The workshop will also focus on how to help children with reading difficulties.

Workshop Topics:
• Pronunciations
• Memory
• Sound Segmenting
• Sound Blending
• Processing Speed
• Attention
• Visualization
• Reading Fluidity

Fee: N10, 000 (Ten Thousand Naira)

Date: Saturday November 20, 2010

Time: 12 pm – 4 pm

Venue: Plot 144, Gbagada Expressway, Beside ISN House, Just Before TREM HQ, Anthony Oke Bus Stop, Gbagada- Oworonshoki Expressway, Lagos

Registration
Interested participants should register by sending their names, organisations, phone numbers and email addresses to timelesscourage@yahoo.co.uk. To complete the registration, participants should kindly pay the sum of Ten Thousand Naira (N10, 000) into our account with details as follows:

ACCOUNT NAME: TIMELESS COURAGE PUBLISHING LIMITED
BANK: OCEANIC BANK
ACCOUNT NUMBER: 0351101005381

We encourage schools to bring this workshop to the notice of their parents and teachers and encourage/facilitate their involvement as schools that have group bookings of a minimum of 5 participants qualify for a free B/W 25 by 6 cm strip advert space in TIMELESS magazine (worth N30,000.) Schools with group bookings of 10 participants qualify for a free colour quarter page advert (worth N75, 000).

For further details and or enquiries please call:
Ayodeji Jeremiah
01-4358330, 08026861642

A Question of Leadership

2010-10-03T19:51:00.000+01:00

“I have read the obituaries of leaders, but never have I seen a birth announcement for a leader. I can only deduct that somewhere between birth and death, by training, by choice and by strength of character, people become leaders.” –from Success Mark Cards.

As Nigeria celebrates its 50th independence anniversary, there is need for some soul searching and reflection. Looking at the situation of Nigeria today, it is obvious that one of our major challenges is that of leadership. Poor leadership has stifled our growth and stopped us from achieving our potential. But it is never too late. As we celebrate this jubilee and prepare for the next round of elections, it is important to once again look at the attributes and principles of leadership. If those aspiring to leadership can learn these principles and practise them, we will be in a much better situation and not only at the national political level. Corporate and religious organisations are becoming increasingly interested in the subject and its intricacies as it is becoming increasingly obvious that leadership is a major need for today’s generations and those yet to come. From small churches to major political parties and corporate organisations to countries around the world, decisions being made by those at the helm of affairs continue to affect us all in minute and major ways in our everyday lives. Leadership is one of my favourite subjects and in this article; I share with you some of what I have learnt over the past several years.

Leadership can change the mindset and mentality of the followers. Leadership can create action where there was hesitation; courage where there was cowardice; optimism where there was cynicism, and strength where there was weakness. A leader can create a spirit of hope where there was despair. Leadership determines the mentality, the destiny, the attitude, and the commitment of the followers. The act of leadership is taking people from where they are to where they have never been before. The result of true leadership is discomfort and change.

The Need for Clarity
Leadership according to experts underscores the need for clarity. The nature of leadership demands that there always be an element of uncertainty. Uncertainty is not an indication of poor leadership; it underscores the need for leadership. It is the environment in which good leadership is most easily identified. If we all know what to do in every situation at all times, if we are all able to stand up at any given moment and give directions with absolute certainty, there would be no need for leadership. Leadership therefore means being clear even in the face of uncertainty and not allowing uncertainty to paralyse people, systems and processes.

The Need for Vision
Leadership is at its best when the vision is strategic, the voice is persuasive and the results tangible. Whether with a few supporters or in front of a nation, great leaders consistently offer their vision of both what should be and how it should be achieved. A powerful vision is a precondition for leading a company, church or country at any point in time. It is a persuasive picture of where you want to go, how you want to get there and why anybody should follow. The most important source of leadership is vision.

The Need for Coaching
Coaching enables a leader to go farther and faster. A human resources director was once asked to give an advice on leadership especially on how to get the best out of people and he replied listen, listen and listen. Leaders who resist coaching always end up in a rut. Age and experience don’t necessarily make us better. Age and experience have a tendency to leave us in a rut doing the same thing, the same way with no one around to spur us toward change. Cognitive intelligence is a prerequisite for most leadership positions but what distinguishes those who move up to those positions is what someone once referred to as emotional intelligence. This is the ability to be self-aware and self-regulating, empathetic and compassionate and skilled at bringing out the best in people around you, you will hear what you need to know and inspire what they need to do. One of the worst things that can happen to a leader is isolation; when he stops hearing from his troops and becomes the last to know what is going on. That tends to happen if the followers believe that the leader knows it all.

The Need for Character
The decisions and actions that a leader makes and takes on an hourly, daily weekly, monthly and yearly basis are what inform his or her character. You can lead without character but you would not be a leader worth following. Character provides leaders with the moral authority necessary to bring together the people and resources needed to further an enterprise. To build character a leader must be able to imbibe good qualities such as kindness, dignity, fairness, and integrity. It is character that determines the leader’s legacy. In surveys by consulting firms on what values or personality traits or characteristics people admire most in company managers, top sales people and entrepreneurs; the category that consistently scored the highest mark was integrity and truthfulness. Most people in another survey place more trust in their religious leaders than in their political leaders for the same reason that religious leaders are perceived as being truthful, honest and having integrity. Someone once defined character as the will to do what’s right even when it’s hard. Leaders committed to maintaining their character will often say no to what many would perceive to be the opportunity of a lifetime. The willingness to say no is what sets the leader with character apart from the pack.

Mahatma Ghandi’s Leadership Principles
(1) Politics without principles will destroy people

(2) Pleasure without conscience will destroy people

(3) Wealth without work will destroy people

(4) Knowledge without character will destroy people

(5) Science without humanity will destroy people

(6) Business without morality will destroy people

(7) Worship without sacrifice will destroy people

Important Attributes of Leaders
(1) They believe nothing is impossible

(2) They believe there is no one way of solving any problem

(3) They never accept limitations

(4) They are not afraid to fail

(5) They are willing to try anything once

(6) They challenge their own successes

(7) They engage the unknown with faith and courage

'There is nothing cool about not being able to write and speak in good English'

2010-09-05T17:25:00.000+01:00

“Awww!!!dz ryt here z ma pwity gurl swag>>recognise i'm back!!!i've misd ma crib!!!”

“Dt wz a gr8 parry d oder nght.”

“Yestda, dat I thot wuld b niz nded bd”

“I m wit u 4eva. Hv a 9ice wk.!

The above are just some examples of text messages, Blackberry chats and Facebook posts I see and come across. The senders range anywhere between 18 years of age and 30 years of age. A standard SMS message allows you 160 characters. Blackberry chats are unlimited and Facebook Wall Posts allow you at least 400 words.

It is understandable when you are trying to pass across a message using 160 characters but what excuse does anyone have to start sending or posting incomprehensible messages on Facebook and during Blackberry chats.

The culture instituted by the introduction of the 160 character message limit has now become so ingrained in our teenagers and youths that a lot of them do not have the capacity to summarise, write and post intelligible messages even when they are not hindered by character limits.

At the last WAEC examinations results, 90% of the students could not pass the English Language. Considering the fact that all other subjects are administered and marked in English, why then are we complaining about mass examination failure. Even science subjects such as Chemistry, Biology, Geography and Agricultural Science have to be set and answered in the English Language.

One of the most difficult aspects of my job is going through application or cover letters and resumes. You see students who have spent four years in the University who cannot write an application letter nor put together a resume. The average busy Recruitment Manager spends less than a minute to go through a three page CV and make the decision of calling or not calling the applicant for an interview. These are not things you teach at the university level. These are things that students are expected to have grasped by the time they are finishing secondary school.

In this age of the Internet, where Google and Facebook are the top two most visited sites on the net, no one wants to read and write any longer. But the truth of the matter is that whether we are reading and writing using old fashioned paper or reading and writing using the computer, the iPad, the phone or the Internet, the rules of reading and writing remain the same.

Sometimes in January this year, an aspiring 20-something year old journalist asked me to visit his blog. The blog was badly designed and the articles were badly written and edited. No one, except if they are like you too would want to read your badly written notes on Facebook or your poorly written blog. No one would want to read your wall posts filled with spelling mistakes or grammatical error for that matter.

Mark Zuckerberg designed and developed Facebook in 2004 for people between 19 and 25 years of age. Today, the fastest growing demographic on Facebook are those between 35 and 45 years of age. Wow! What does that statistic tell me? It tells me that Facebook has gone beyond being just a social media to a professional and business tool. Used properly, you can attract the right networks and opportunities for your future but I can assure you, you will put people off if you cannot communicate properly, answer messages properly and chat properly.

English Language is our lingua franca, it’s a beautiful language, it’s the second most spoken language in the world and it continues to be a global means of communication. Comprehension, Grammar, Spelling, Essay Writing and Summary are some of the things taught at School Certificate English. These things are learnt not by reading notes or even sitting down listening to a teacher in class but by constant practice through reading and writing.

There is nothing cool about not being able to write and communicate in good English neither is there anything old fashioned about being able to write and speak good English.

The New Revamped Timeless Magazine

2010-08-05T14:58:00.000+01:00

The New Revamped Timeless Magazine

compelling content… innovative design

Out with a facelift, new look, feel & style; TIMELESS, Nigeria’s premier newsmagazine keeps you updated on the latest news, fashion, business and lifestyle issues.

The fascinating August Edition is a ‘must have’ for every individual and the family. Check out articles by the Editor in Chief, Ituah Ighodalo, inspiring life issues on women’s growth and generally lifestyle by Shola Okubote of Femme Lounge, Ayodeji Jeremiah on ‘Being a Wife and a Mother ain’t Easy’, Bill Gates on ‘Making Capitalism more Socially Responsible, A Kaleidoscope of South Africa 2010 and Tayo Olanrewaju of Delightsome Land School on Kids and Parenting.

Also Bisi Adewale on ‘What Manner of Husband Are You,? IBM on a new perspective on the corporate workforce and ‘Fashion Mistakes Men should avoid’.

Look out for the outstanding new Timeless Magazine and enjoy a thrill of fulfillment as you read through.

Call 01-4358330 for further information, subscription and advertisement.

Being a wife and a mother ain’t easy!

2010-08-04T15:27:00.000+01:00

Maureen has just lost her husband, no he didn’t die; he just packed his bags and left. She was left alone to cater for four children, the oldest being thirteen, the youngest being six. Jim, her husband had been having financial and mental health problems and felt the best solution was to leave the city and head back to the village. Maureen disagreed with him on this point. What would they go and be doing in the village? It wasn’t as if he had a job waiting for him there. They were not farmers. They had lived all their lives in the city since they got married. All their children were born in the city and were still in school. How would they continue their schooling? Would they go and be living in the one room shack his family was going to provide for them in the village? They had no one they could depend on. He had been the backbone of the family providing for his parents and siblings. Eventually, one day after all the arguments and fighting, he packed his bags and just left. He never looked back. Thirteen years was gone just like that.

Maureen had been educated to secondary school level and had stopped. While the going was good, she had never thought of setting up a business for herself. She had not educated herself beyond the secondary school level and had not acquired more skills. She had been what is popularly known as a house wife – a wife that stays at home, looks after the husband and the children on a full time basis. When she had to do something, without her and the children becoming destitute, she wound up with a phone call business selling recharge cards and making calls for people but how much could she make from that on a daily basis to take care of herself and her four children. She had to pay house rent, buy foodstuff, buy books for the children, buy clothes for them and such other basic life needs. She still had to depend eventually on handouts from her own and her husband’s family.

Recently at a church in Lagos, I overhead a group of young women in their thirties discussing; they were all married with children. What however got my attention was that all of them without exception when asked what they were doing for a living described themselves as ‘full time’ housewives. If I may ask, what exactly does that mean? Are there part time wives and mothers out there? Being a wife and a mother is a full time job but does not necessarily translate into not having a trade or business or a job. Does it mean that a woman cannot be a good wife and mother and not have a career, trade, business or volunteer work she is involved in?

Being a wife and a mother ain’t easy! But that does not mean our women should not be meaningfully engaged in career or business pursuits in addition to taking care of their husbands and children. Even if your husband is the world’s richest man, does that mean you should not develop yourself mentally, financially and be engaged in something outside of the home front. I am not even talking about having an 8-5 job. Being involved in a trade or volunteer work is also part of it. This has got nothing to do with women’s liberation. It’s about common sense and empowering our wives and mothers. Some of our mothers and grandmothers were not as educated as the present generation but they were involved in trades, businesses and developed skills outside of the home front.

In Africa, women still do not have access to their husbands’ properties, finances and such. Unlike in developed countries, where the woman favoured by the legal system and is taken care of financially in the case of a divorce; our women here in Africa are at the mercies of a legal and cultural system that encourages profligate men. While men are encouraged to take care of their wives and children’s financial responsibilities; women are being encouraged to develop themselves for themselves, not because they want to take over the responsibilities in the home, not because they want to flaunt their wealth, not because they want to walk away from their responsibilities as a wife and mother. It’s just because its good for them to do so. And in the event that the husband or father or brother dies or just deserts a woman, such a woman will be in position to move on in life without becoming destitute or over dependent on others.

An Evening with Patricia

2010-07-23T10:10:00.000+01:00

VACANCY FOR SENIOR EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

2010-07-20T09:51:00.001+01:00

VACANCY FOR SENIOR EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

TIMELESS Media & Communications Training Workshop

2010-07-02T11:48:00.000+01:00

THMP holds Emerging Leaders Summit

2010-06-28T17:10:00.000+01:00

Ituah Ighodalo, John Dara, Omasan Buwa, Matilda Kerry, George Ashiru, Akintokunbo Adejumo, Patricia Omoqui and Theunis Van Rensburg speak on leadership principles, practices and potential

Pastor Ituah Ighodalo, Mr. John Dara, Dr. Matilda Kerry, Revd George Ashiru and Mr. Akintokunbo Adejunmo

Saturday June 26 witnessed the gathering of some of Nigeria’s top emerging leaders under the auspices of the Town Hall Meeting Project, a project convened by George Ashiru. The six hour program anchored and moderated by Ayodeji Jeremiah, (Editor TIMELESS) and Lilian Imoni, (Project Coordinator SIEF) featured video presentations by the Thought Dr. and internationally recognized speaker, life coach and writer Patricia Omoqui and the South African IT specialist, visionary and activist, Theunis Van Rensburg. Other speakers at the occasion were Editor-in-Chief of TIMELESS magazine, Pastor Ituah Ighodalo; the convener, Revd George Ashiru; presidential candidate of the National Transformation Party, Mr. John Dara; former Most Beautiful Girl in Nigeria (1987) and now Executive Assistant to the Delta State Governor, Ms. Omasan Buwa; another former Most Beautiful Girl in Nigeria (2000) Dr. Matilda Kerry; and founder and Global Coordinator of Champions For Nigeria, Mr. Akintokunbo Adejumo.

A cross section of participants at the summit

The discussions centred on topics like Transforming Nigerian Politics; Is Nigeria a Country or a Nation; Why I am in Politics; The Kind of Leader Nigeria Needs; Activating Our Visions; Nigeria: Past, Present and Future amongst others.

Lilian Imoni and Ayodeji Jeremiah

THMP is a cause dedicated to the collation of the views, ideas, ideals, values and mission concerning the Nigerian nation with the primary goal of having a popularly influenced blueprint in 10 areas of much needed reform in community, state and national existence. THMP, which is also involved in community action, good governance and citizenship initiatives, is completely apolitical and secular in its scope and nature. The members and coordinators are volunteers and patriots who are dedicated to the well being of the Governance and people of Nigeria.

A cross section of participants at the summit

The group held the summit as part of its objectives in raising and empowering a new generation of leaders, and as part of its mission in providing forums where Nigerians can tackle various issues of national importance through brainstorming.

Mrs. Eniola Afolabi and Revd George Ashiru

Here is a summary of major points at the discourse:

1. Not all leaders are born, a lot are made. Even those born into leadership have to be taught leadership traits and principles.

2. Leadership should be taught from childhood and the teenage years. Organisations such as the Boys Scout should be reinvigorated across the country.

3. Leadership is all about fixing problems and not about looting or abandoning ship when things go wrong.

4. Future leaders have to be mentored.

5. Mentors have to see the potential in others, set achievable goals for their protégés, accept their protégés and show genuine love, care and concern and celebrate their successes.

6. Nigerians have to get actively involved in the political and electoral process rather than just complaining all the time. ‘We have to walk our talk.’

7. Nations move forward because citizens have confidence in their leaders. This is called social mobilization. It is time Nigerians start having leaders that they can have confidence in.

8. Drastic and sacrificial solutions are needed to change Nigeria. Nigerians must be ready to make such sacrifices.

9. We need visionary leaders that can address the faulty foundations on which our country was built.

10. We need good people as leaders who can talk to the people, be accountable to the people, selfless and passionate leaders who are intelligent and can think, and who are ready to work tirelessly hard for Nigeria.

11. Values such as hard work, truth, honesty, intelligence and integrity need to be brought back and celebrated in our country.

12. Nigeria is a great country with all the necessary human and mineral resources. What is therefore lacking are good people who are available but unwilling to offer themselves for leadership positions because of the complexities of the system. We need to look for such people.

13. It is time that religious organisations, schools and families start teaching people how to be good people in the society.

14. Leaders are planners. Aspiring leaders must start building skills that will enable them prepare adequately for future leadership positions.

15. We need discipline to build a great country and such discipline must start from our individual lives, homes and churches or mosques. Discipline by legislation as witnessed during the Buhari/Idiagbon regime should be eschewed by all Nigerians.

16. Rebuilding Nigeria is the collective responsibility of all Nigerians.

Project 1960: Do you know any Nigerian born in October 1960?

2010-06-21T11:32:00.000+01:00

Project 1960 is research aimed at discovering, studying and documenting the lives of 50 Nigerians born in October 1960. The stories of these people will be used to tell the story of Nigeria, its culture and traditional beliefs, its politics, its good qualities and its challenges and also carry out an appraisal of the country as a nation.

The project will tell the story of our dear country from another perspective and also serve as a valuable material to all Nigerians, Africans and the world at large who want to study Nigeria and its people in a unique way. It will also serve in profiling solutions to our overwhelming problems as a nation while bringing hope to the younger generation.

The project will involve interviews with 50 Nigerians born in October 1960, which will then be compiled in a book form. The book will also feature a detailed introduction on the pre and post independence history of the nation.

Are you a Nigerian, born October 1960? If your answer is yes, then please send the following details below to the email address provided and get ready to be part of the Project 1960. Following the receipt of your details, we will contact you to set up an interview.

Details Needed
Name
Date of Birth
Place of Birth
Gender
Country of Residence
Phone Number
Email Address

RCCG Apapa Family holds Third Annual Excel Conference

2010-06-07T12:51:00.001+01:00

... endows N45 million Professorial Chair in Mathematics at University of Ibadan

... E. A. Adeboye, Myles Munroe, Rotimi Amaechi, Agu Irukwu speak on Leading Change

Pastor Adeboye being welcome on his arrival at TBS, venue of the programme

The third in the series of the annual Excel conference of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Apapa Family group of churches took place on Saturday, June 5, 2010 and Sunday, June 6, 2010 with the theme ‘Leading Change.’ The programme started with the Leadership Summit and Dinner held at the New Banquet Hall of Eko Hotels, Victoria Island, Lagos on Saturday June 5 at 5.00pm while the Celebration Service held on Sunday June 6 at 7.00 am at the Tafawa Balewa Square, Lagos with Pastor E.A. Adeboye, General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God ministering. Other speakers at the two day conference were Rt. Hon. Rotimi Amaechi, Executive Governor of Rivers State; Dr. Myles Munroe of the Bahamas Faith Ministries International and Pastor Agu Irukwu, Senior Pastor of RCCG Jesus House in London.

Pastor Bret Johnson with Professor Joe Irukwu

Guests at the Leadership Summit and Dinner included Princess Sarah Sosan, Deputy Governor of Lagos State; Professor Anya Anya; Elder S.M. and Chief Mrs. Toyin Olakunrin; Pastor Ben Akabueze, Lagos State Commissioner for Budget and Planning; Dr. And Mrs. Okey Onuzo; Mr. Ranti Akerele, Honourable Commissioner for Information in Ondo State; Chief Mrs. Elizabeth Adegbite, ICAN President; Mr. Marvel Akpoyibo, Lagos State Police Commissioner; Pastor Brett Johnson of the Institute for Innovation, Integration and Impact; Professor Joe Irukwu, elder statesman and former chairman of Ohaneze Ndigbo; Mr. Atedo Peterside, chairman IBTC Stanbic; Mrs. Bola Adesola, Executive Director, First Bank; Mr. Donald Duke, former Executive Governor of Cross Rivers State and Mr. Chike and Mrs. Funke Ogeah, former MD of SAHCOL.

Rt. Hon Rotimi Amaechi, Pastor Idowu Iluyomade and Princess Sarah Sosan

Pastors of the Redemmed Christian Church of God present at the occasion were Pastor Bimpe Mfon, matriarch of the Apapa Family; Pastor Idowu Iluyomade, host and head of the Apapa Family; Pastor Deola Mensah, head of RCCG Lagos Province 5; Pastor Remi Morgan, head of RCCG Lagos Province 24; Pastor Sola Balogun, head of RCCG Lagos Province 15; Pastor Jide Ojurongbe, head of RCCG Oyo Province 4; Pastor Ghandi Olaoye, Senior Pastor of RCCG Jesus Centre, Washington DC; Pastor Ayo Adesola; Pastor Tokunbo Adesanya and Pastor Femi Atoyebi, head of Lagos Province 2 amongst others.

Dr. Myles Munroe, Pastor Ghandi Olaoye and Governor Rotimi Amaechi

Pastor Idowu Iluyomade in his welcome address enumerated the various social responsibility projects of the family saying the mandate of the family marks its members out as people and leaders of change and distinction. Amongst the various social responsibility projects include the endowment of a Professorial Chair in Mathematics at the University of Lags for the sum of N50 million naira last year and the endowment of another N45 million Professorial Chair in Mathematics at the University of Ibadan, which was presented at this year’s conference. On hand to receive the cheque were Professor Adigun Agbaje, Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academics); Professor K.O. Adebowale, Dean of the Faculty of Science and Dr. E.O. Ayoola, HOD of the Department of Mathematics, all of the University of Ibadan. Pastor Iluyomade speaking on the theme of this year’s conference said what drives change is leadership and leaders have to take ownership of initiatives that will bring change and galvanise the political and social system.

Pastor Adeboye presenting a N48 million cheque to officials of the University of Ibadan

Mrs. Sosan in her address asked for God’s blessings upon the RCCG Apapa Family acknowledging the great strides the family has made in Nigeria. She said the work of the family helps the state government in solving most of the problems of the state and in alleviating poverty. Dr. Munroe commended the governors of Lagos and Rivers state for their leadership noting the great works both are doing in their respective states. Governor Rotimi Amaechi asked Nigerians to get actively involved in the electoral process and ensure that everyone’s votes count in the forthcoming elections. He said this is the only way to make leaders accountable to the people.

Pastor Ituah Ighodalo, Master of Ceremony and Chairman, Planning Committee

Dr. Munroe in his delivery spoke on the Cost of Change. Leadership, he said can change the mindset and mentality of the followers. Leadership can create action where there was hesitation, courage where there was cowardice, optimism where there was cynicism, and strength where there was weakness. A leader can create a spirit of hope where there was despair. Leadership he said determines the mentality, the destiny, the attitude, and the commitment of the followers. “An army of sheep led by a lion will always defeat an army of lions led by a sheep. Nothing changes without effective, sensitive and spiritually based leadership. Leadership is the cause of all our problems and also the solution to all our problems. You can only lead people to the degree of the future that you have gone yourself. The act of leadership is taking people from where they are to where they have never been before. The result of true leadership is discomfort and change. The most important source of leadership is vision.” He concluded by saying leadership never ends, only leaders end. He also advised present leaders to focus on developing future leaders saying “we must not just focus on change immediately but focus on those who will bring about change in the future.” He commended the family for the setting up of 22 new youth churches within the last one year.

Pastor Agu Irukwu and Pastor Ghandi Olaoye

Pastor Agu Irukwu in his presentation said the Church is the most important institution with respect to change. He gave examples of countries where major dramatic changes have come about saying the church was in the forefront of such changes. Using Matthew 5:13 as his scripture, he said the change that came about in countries like the United States, Great Britain, and South Korea was brought about largely by the role of the Church. He encouraged the Apapa Family to be in the forefront of change in Nigeria noting that the family was a church birthed in change.

Pastor Bimpe Mfon with Elder and Chief Mrs. Olakunrin

The TIMELESS TIPS (Training in Professional & Soft Skills) Workshop

2010-05-27T15:51:00.000+01:00

TIMELESS

Presents

The TIMELESS TIPS (Training in Professional & Soft Skills) Workshop

The workshop is designed to provide basic guidelines and soft skills for people seeking employment, those just getting started in the job market, those changing jobs and those returning to the job market after an absence. It will highlight:

• Cover letter blunders to avoid

• How to write and design a professional looking resume

• How to wow your interviewers in a job interview

• Building a positive image and presenting a professional appearance

• Developing your interpersonal skills

• Developing your personal effectiveness

• Characteristics of high achievers

The workshop will be facilitated by Ayodeji Jeremiah (Editor, Timeless Media Group/Consultant SOGA & INFOVIRTUOSO) and costs a highly subsidised fee of N2, 500.00 per participant.

Dates: Thursday June 24, Friday June 25 and Saturday June 26 (Three Separate Sessions)

Time: 1pm – 5pm (Thursday & Friday), 11am – 3pm (Saturday)

Venue: Plot 144, Gbagada Expressway, Beside ISN House, Just Before TREM HQ,
Anthony Oke Bus Stop, Gbagada-Oworonshoki Expressway, Lagos

Interested participants should register by sending their names, phone numbers and email addresses to timelesscourage@yahoo.co.uk. Payments will be made after registration

Ayodeji Jeremiah is a writer, editor, trainer and media & communications consultant. He holds a first degree in Biology from the University of Lagos and a Graduate Diploma in Computer Science. He has over 12 years multi-disciplinary working experience in the Public Relations, Teaching, Information Technology, Media, Administration and Publishing sectors. He is presently the Managing Consultant of INFOVIRTUOSO Media and Communications Consultancy, a Training Consultant with SOGA Verdure Consults and the Group Editor of the TIMELESS Media Group, which publishes TIMELESS Newspaper and the Christian News. He is the author of several books and has over a hundred published articles to his credit. He is also involved in the transcription and editing of Pastors’ and Ministers’ messages, most of which have been published into books. Some of his writings can be found on www.faithwriters.com, www.timelesscourage.blogspot.com, and www.ayodejijeremiah.wordpress.com. He is a speaker at seminars, workshops and summits and a programme planner and event manager for news conferences, exhibitions, summits, awards programmes, competitions, and lectures.

Unleashing Your Brain Power

2010-05-14T10:16:00.000+01:00

A seminar delivered by Ayodeji Jeremiah

The human brain is the centre of the human nervous system and is a highly complex organ. It is responsible for self-control, planning, reasoning, abstract thought, and vision. It monitors and regulates the body's actions and reactions. It continuously receives sensory information, and rapidly analyses such data and then responds, controlling bodily actions and functions. It controls breathing, heart rate, and other autonomic processes and is the centre of higher-order thinking, learning, and memory. It is also responsible for the body's balance, posture, and the coordination of movement. Despite the fact that it is protected by the cranium, it is highly susceptible to injury which can lead to anything from amnesia to dementia to Parkinson’s disease. The human brain is three times as large as that of other animals with the same body weight.

You've probably heard it before that the brain is a muscle that can be strengthened. It's an assumption that has spawned a multimillion-dollar computer-game industry of electronic brainteasers and memory games. Recent research as revealed by Nature Journal has confirmed what a lot of people, scientists and lay people alike have long suspected: that engaging in a particular mental task continually helps you improve on that task (practice makes perfect) but that improvement does not carry over to cognitive function in general.

Brain power basically refers to more effective thinking, better memory, more creative problem-solving, thinking faster, improved memory, comprehending information better and unleashing your brain's full potential, which is the topic of our discussion. If brain power refers to intelligence as inferred from preceding statements, then different people must have different kinds of brain power. Intelligence is generally divided into:

1. Linguistic Intelligence: People who are smart in this area can argue, persuade, entertain or instruct effectively using the spoken word. They often love puns, word games and trivia, read voraciously and write clearly.

2. Logical Intelligence: People with talent in this area have the ability to reason, create hypotheses, think in terms of cause and effect, and find conceptual or numerical patterns in the things around them.

3. Spatial Intelligence: People with spatial ability can perceive, transform and re-create different aspects of the visual spatial world. They are sensitive to visual details, can visualise vividly, orient themselves in three-dimensional space and often draw or sketch ideas.

4. Musical Intelligence: People with this intelligence have a good ear, can keep time, sing in tune, and listen to music with discernment.

5. Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence: People with gifts in this area are good at controlling their body movements, handling objects skilfully and performing other physical activities.

6. Interpersonal intelligence: Those who have this intelligence are able to perceive and be responsive to the moods, temperaments, intentions and desires of others.

7. Intrapersonal intelligence: People gifted in this area are introspective, good at assessing their own feelings and capable of deep spiritual or intellectual thought.

Of course no one person is limited to one type and the ideal is for us all to have all the different types of intelligence combined, which is not usually the case. It is however up to each and every one of us to make deliberate effort to develop skills and talent in those areas of intelligence we will like to excel in.

Talent therefore is not something we acquire but something we develop. Humans however generally believe that people without a particular natural talent for some activity will never be competitive with those who possess that talent, meaning an inborn ability to do that activity so we engage in something new and, finding that it doesn’t come naturally to us, conclude that we have no talent for it, and so we never pursue it.

In my article, Redefining Success, which reviews two books talking about the issues of success and achievements, (Talent is Overrated by Fortune Senior Editor at Large, Geoff Colvin and Outliers by New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell,) it is argued that successful people are those who have made the most of a series of gifts that have been given to them by their culture or their history or their generation and success is not just about our personality, our intelligence, and all of our innate characteristics. Gladwell advocates what he calls the 10,000-Hour Rule as the most obvious key to success (Colvin also advocates same calling his own, Deliberate Practice.) Studies suggest that the key to success in any field has nothing to do with talent. It's simply practice, 10,000 hours of it. The 10,000-hours rule says that if you look at any kind of cognitively complex field, from playing chess to being a neurosurgeon, we see this incredibly consistent pattern that you cannot be good at what you do unless you practice for 10,000 hours, which is roughly ten years, if you think about four hours a day or 20 hours on a five day week.

What then can we do to significantly improve our brain power and utilise our brain’s full potential?

(1) Be a lifelong learner.

(2) Be slow to speak and quick to hear

(3) Be self aware

(4) Be self motivated

(5) Surround yourself with smart(er) people

(6) Develop an interest in a variety of different things

(7) Keep a journal, diary or booklet

(8) Don’t allow your environment to limit you

(9) Learn to relax and not be too busy

(10) Have and show initiative

10 Surefire Ways To Drive Away Paying Customers

2010-04-30T11:51:00.000+01:00

Zayah Uche

Even though the stated objectives of most businesses is to maximize profits by providing the best possible service or products to its customers, I have come to expect to be treated shoddily and possibly insulted whenever I intend to do business with most Nigerian organizations. And I do not think I am alone in this feeling. Somehow most people have come to expect bad service in most places which is why we are pleasantly surprised whenever we do get good service. Since I believe that customers do not just leave but are driven away, I have listed a few easy ways by which businesses can drive away their customers.

Blame it on the rain, the wrapping, or the Government: When customers return something they bought from you with a complaint; peer at them from underneath your browser for a couple of seconds without saying a word, examine the article thoroughly, then ask them in your best imitation of a headmaster's voice 'are you sure you bought this here? Did your dog chew on it, because these here look like dog teeth marks? Whatever you do, never accept the blame, and for good measure tell the customer that you are out of stock on that particular item and will replace it as soon as you restock. Never mind that the shelf behind you is packed with the stuff and the customer can see it.

Offer phantom freebies and promotions: Attach unrealistic conditions to your promotions. If you have one of those 'buy one get one free' offers, be sure that you are always out of stock. When customers come in, just put on your best smile, throw your hands up in mock exasperation and say 'sorry, that lady just walked out with the last one,' just be sure to always add to your promo adverts this qualification WHILE STOCKS LAST! You may also decide to give away stuff unconditionally for a couple of days, but make sure that the giveaways are really cheap and inferior stuff or totally out of fashion. Your customers will gladly reject them.

Treat your customers like they do not know what they want: If you do not have the exact thing a customer wants, offer her something else that is not even close to what she wants in either quality or value. If they decline, try to convince that the one they really want is no good which is why you never stock it. If this fails, give them a seat in your office and tell them to wait while you go find it. Then keep them waiting for ten minutes and when you finally return bring with you something similar to what they originally rejected and tell them it is the only stuff available in the market.

Take sides with your staff against your customers: If you happen to walk in on an argument between your staff and a customer, take sides with your staff. After all, customers come and go, but staff...that is a pain you have to live with. If a customer comes to you complaining about how they were treated by your staff, lean back in your easy chair, yawn, then give them the lowdown on all your problems. Make them understand that their minuscule complaint is the least of your troubles. They will never come complaining to you, ever!

Tell them to leave because you are about to go home: You know how on some days just as you are about to close shop, customers just seem to come rushing out from wherever they have been and keep you thirty minutes longer than you planned to stay. Well you no longer have to endure those inconsiderate 'so and so's,' just wear your best frown and tell them firmly “sorry you cannot stay, and I do not care if your baby has run out of diapers.” If they persist, let them in politely, then lock them in and go on happily to your home. Everybody gets what they want, problem solved.

Cheat them on price: The average person is very trusting and gullible, so when you first open shop, sell your goods at the most competitive prices in the neighborhood. When customers become comfortable with you, begin to inch your prices upwards without improving on quality or service. At the same time become even more aggressive in advertising your shop as the lowest-price-highest-value destination in town. Do not worry about their finding out, people are creatures of habit, once they start buying from you they will not think about your prices, they will just follow their instincts.

Offer the best products at the lowest prices and never let them forget it: Ensure that your shop is always stocked with the best range of products in any product class. Moreover, sell these products at the very best prices. Best value at the lowest prices, an unbeatable combination. But here is the best part, be a total jerk the total time! Let your customers never forget that you are doing them a favour, or that you are special...a gift of God to them. Make them wait, be abrupt when you speak with them and remind them that they can always go someplace else if they do not like your shop. Of course, you know they will not, after-all, you are the special one!

Be extremely business like with your customers: Do not treat them like friends. You know how some customers can begin to get familiar with a business owner, even stopping to say hello when they are not buying. Deal with the problem by never complimenting customers or smiling at them and if you happen to run into one of your customers in town, keep a straight face and be sure not to say 'hello’. This is guaranteed to stop even the most rabidly friendly customers. If it does not work, be mean to their children or their dog, that should get them.

Employ royalty as sales people and cashiers: Permit your staff to suck on lollipops or chew gum while speaking with your customers, they could even pop gum at the customer. If you have a television in the office, put it in a place where staff can get the best view, then let them control the television remote. Also let your staff get into fights and arguments between themselves and keep the customers waiting or better still let the customer get caught in the cross-fire. Your staff is your greatest asset, treat them like royalty.

Never answer the phones or attend to complaints: Have a big scarlet complaints box at your service points and encourage customers to leave any complaints they have in the box. Go even further and provide cards or forms to help customers inform you on the type of service they got but never attend to the complaints. If customers see a complaints box they are less likely to call and bother you with their insignificant grievances. Additionally, just to make your business appear trendy and up to speed, build a website complete with contacts details and all, but never answer that phone, in fact make sure the numbers on the website where delisted ages ago.

Speak Up, Speak Out Public Speaking Seminar by TIMELESS and Engage Skills

2010-04-26T13:21:00.000+01:00

Unleashing Your Brain Power Seminar

2010-04-16T17:00:00.002+01:00

The Origins of Football

2010-04-08T13:18:00.000+01:00

A Global Game:
Trying to pinpoint the exact starting point for what is now the world’s most popular sports is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. England may have been the home of football, but the first instances of foot meeting ball may well have taken place thousands of miles away; and as time moved on, the formative game was being adopted and invented in various guises all across the globe. Nobody took football to the world; the world discovered it in dozens of locations over thousands of years

The China Link:
Traditionalists often talk of the early game being played out with hollow pigs’ bladders which could burst at any moment. Certainly there is some truth in this assumption – today, we believe the earliest incarnation of football to have been played with animal skins in ancient China around 2500 BC. The ‘ball’ was kicked between poles some thirty feet high, and may have served a military purpose; soldiers were trained using the rough-and-tumble of game play and matches were held to mark important dates in the calendar.

A Game of Peace:
By AD 50, the Chinese had named the game ‘tsu chu’ and early records compare the round ball and square goal to Yin and Yang, the ancient symbols of harmony an interesting contrast to the distinctly inharmonious scenes that followed as the game developed. Historians have also suggested that ancient Egyptian fertility rites may have been linked, in some was, to a form of football; however a more plausible stage of development was a Mexican game in AD 600 which involved forcing a ball through a hole in the wall of a specially designed court. Certainly, the Mexicans came up with the first synthetic footballs.

Gang Warfare:
By the time the game was developing in England, it had taken a strangely comic – and occasionally tragic – turn for the worse. The earliest stories of football date from around AD 1100 and involved a crude chasing of a ball through city streets by gangs of youngsters egged on by their parents. There was little organization either in terms of fixtures or rules, yet the foundations for the development of the game in its host country had laid.

Breaking The Rules:
Throughout the next 700 years or so, football became a source of inspiration for the masses and of great consternation to the authorities. Edward II was the first monarch to call for curbs on the ‘uproar’ the game caused – and it seems he may well have had a point. What began as a game of chasing soon developed into near warfare, with scores of players forming sides and causing havoc in urban areas as they rampaged through pitches hundreds of yards long. There were reports of serious injuries and even deaths, as well as complaints from more sedate residents alarmed by the disruption football caused.

Country Troubles:
In rural areas the problem was exacerbated by the vast amounts of space afforded to the game. Whole villages would come out to chase the makeshift ball and the absence or rules meant kicking, punching and crushing were all acceptable. The traditional Shrove Tuesday clashes were particularly troublesome. Successions of English rulers and lawmakers issued edicts attempting to crack down on the game, but it proved near impossible to stop. At the same time, the American Indians had developed a beach version of the game – in which players would disguise themselves in masks to evade blame for dangerous challenges – and the Inuits had begun playing on ice, shooting balls stuffed with grass through goals placed miles apart. Football was taking off in many different ways all over the world.

Saved By The Schools:
Somewhat ironically, it was the public schools who gave the whole affair some order. Oxford and Cambridge had accepted football as a competitive sport as early as the seventeenth century, and Eton, Harrow, Shrewsbury and Rugby quickly followed suit. The implementation of rules worked both ways: with Victorian values gradually disappearing, the schools saw the sport as a vital way to in still discipline, while also disassociating the young gentlemen who played it from the lower classes and their street games. Many still considered football too ‘vulgar’ a game for the upper classes, but by the 1899s it was common practice in public school life. As a result, the people’s game began to take shape in the last bastions of the aristocracy.

25 Selected World's Greatest Footballers to be featured in Special Limited Edition of TIMELESS coming out in June. Advert and Sponsorship Considerations Available.

TIMELESS celebrates World's Greatest Footballers

2010-03-19T12:27:00.000+01:00

ADVERT PLACEMENTS/SPONSORSHIP IN TIMELESS COLLECTOR’S ITEM SERIES VOLUME 2

Our company, TIMELESS COURAGE PUBLISHING LIMITED, is publishing a Special Limited Edition of its flagship publication, TIMELESS Newspaper for the month of June 2010.

This Special Limited Edition will focus on the lives of the greatest footballers in the last 100 years with accompanying biographies and photographs. It will be titled, “Uncommon Lives of Uncommon Footballers with Uncommon Careers" and will have an accompanying rider, “The Most Extraordinary Footballers of the 20th Century."

It promises to be an inspiring, creative and collector’s edition of TIMELESS. The few limited copies that will be printed (2000 copies) will be distributed to select subscribers, including company chief executives, corporate chieftains, selected government officials and past speakers & discussants at our annual anniversary lectures and in selected airlines, hotels and companies.

This is an excellent opportunity for you to advertise your company’s goods and services. Only full page colour adverts will be available and will cost N250, 000. All prospective advertisers have till Friday April 30, 2010 to indicate their interests, confirm payments and send in their artworks.

This is also an opportunity for freelance advert agents, advert agencies and marketing communications companies to help get their clients involved in this project. We are paying attractive commission payments to such agents and companies.

We look forward your prompt and positive response. Thank you and God bless you.

Ayodeji Jeremiah

Editor

01-4358330, 08026861642

Akinyemi, Abati push for adoption of Uwais Report

2010-03-12T14:27:00.000+01:00

Former External Affairs Minister and Member, Presidential Electoral Reform Committee and Chairman, Presidential Think Tank, Professor Bolaji Akinyemi said recently that the adoption of the Justice Mohammed Uwais committee report on electoral reform by the National Assembly will be one of the best things to happen to the Nigerian polity.

He was speaking at the Sixth TIMELESS Newspaper Nigeria Lecture Series where he was the guest speaker. He said the committee made 83 recommendations of which 10 were rejected by the Federal Government. “This relativity does not give a true reflection of the damage done to the Report. The rejected recommendations amount to a decapitation of the Report. A human body without a head cannot be said to have lost just one part of the body. Without a head, that body is dead,” he said.

Other speakers at the occasion were Dr. Reuben Abati, Chairman, Editorial Board of the Guardian Newspapers, Honourable Femi Gbajabiamila of the Federal House of Representatives, Mr. Ade Ipaye, representative of the Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola and Alhaji Kunle Ajanaku, representative of Princess Sarah Sosan, the Lagos State Deputy Governor.

Dr. Abati in his presentation said the best news he has heard so far recently is the sending of the Uwais report in its unedited format to the National Assembly for deliberation and approval. He added that in addition to the reform of the electoral system, efforts must be made on the part of all Nigerians to ensure the moral integrity of all citizens, saying a system where all citizens see political office as an opportunity to spread the National Cake puts undue pressure on holders of such offices.

Pastor Ituah Ighodalo, publisher of the newspaper in his welcome address said the topic of the lecture; The Imperative of Electoral Reform was informed by our experiences as a nation in trying to forge ahead with our democratic experiment. He said despite our fifty years of nationhood, the nation remains plagued with our failure to successfully conduct free and fair elections. “As the 2011 elections approach, we believe in TIMELESS that the issue of electoral reform has to be addressed by the government, the media and the public and practical solutions come up with. There is an urgent need to reform the electoral process in Nigeria and restore faith in the electoral process. Given Nigeria’s diversity, it is obvious that democracy is the sole political choice for its survival, and the best system for managing the nation’s current challenges is by fostering better governance, and ensuring popular welfare. This can be achieved through an efficient electoral system. The fact remains that the current electoral system is faulty and requires reforms.”

Every year, the TIMELESS media group celebrates its existence through The TIMELESS Nigeria Lecture Series, which serves as the organisation’s own way of contributing to national issues and as its own service to the nation. Other guests at the occasion which held at the Agip Hall, MUSON Centre, Onikan, Lagos were Professor Joe Irukwu, a respected statesman and former chairman of the Ohaneze Ndi-Igbo, Chief Bode Alalade, Mrs. Bimpe Bamgbose Martins, representative of the Lagos state First Lady, Mrs. Abimbola Fashola, Revd. George Ashiru, Co-ordinator of the Town Hall Meetings Project, Mr. Adetokunbo Adejumo, Global Co-ordinator of the Champions for Nigeria Group and Mr. Chike Ogeah, former Managing Director of SAHCOL

Timeless Newspaper Holds Sixth Nigeria Lecture Series

2010-03-01T15:21:00.000+01:00

PRESS RELEASE

In what promises to be another platform for elevated intellectual discourse, the sixth in the series of the TIMELESS NIGERIA LECTURE SERIES organised by TIMELESS NEWSPAPER will hold on Thursday, March 11, 2010 at the Agip Hall, Muson Centre, Onikan, Lagos at 1.00pm. Every year, TIMELESS celebrates its existence through The TIMELESS Nigeria Lecture Series. The series of annual lectures/national discourse also serves as the organisation’s own way of contributing to national issues and as its own service to the nation.

The first in the series of lectures took place in June 2004 when the media house celebrated its first anniversary with a lecture titled “True Federalism in Nigeria”, delivered by erudite constitutional scholar and professor of law, Itse Sagay. Supporting him as a discussant was Professor Jide Oshuntokun, a professor of History. The occasion was chaired by Professor Joe Irukwu, a respected statesman and former chairman of the Ohaneze Ndi-Igbo. This was followed in June 2005 with another successful lecture with the theme, “Resource Control in Nigeria”, delivered by Professor Mike Ikhariale, a respected constitutional lawyer with Professor Adele Jinadu, a respected political scientist of the Centre for Advanced Social Science acting as a discussant. The occasion was chaired by Dr. Gamaliel Onosode, former chairman of Dunlop and a respected statesman. The third annual lecture of the company took place in August 2006 with the theme “Nigeria: The Future?” delivered by Senator Udoma Udoma, former chief whip of the Nigerian Senate. Honourable Usman Bugaje, formerly of the Federal House of Representatives, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, former Lagos state Attorney General and Professor Pat Utomi of the Lagos Business School were the discussants. The occasion was chaired by Chief Emeka Anyaoku, former Commonwealth Secretary-General.

In 2007, the company had its fourth anniversary lecture, which was rechristened, The TIMELESS Nigeria Lecture Series, with the theme, “Nigeria: What Next?” Chairman of the occasion was Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, immediate past Executive Governor of Lagos State. Speaker at the occasion was Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, former Minister in the Presidency and of The Federal Capital Territory. The discussant was in the person of Mrs. Diezani Allison Madueke, former Minister of Transport and now of Solid Minerals. The fifth annual lecture held in September 2008 had the theme, “Transforming the Nigerian Economy” and was delivered by Mr. Donald Duke, immediate past Executive Governor of Cross Rivers State. All the lectures attracted personalities from different strata of the Nigerian society; were well covered by the national media and stimulated interest and discourse on important national issues dominating Nigeria’s national life.

The topic of this year’s lecture is The Imperative of Electoral Reform and is billed to be delivered by Professor Bolaji Akinyemi, former External Affairs Ministry and Member, Presidential Electoral Reform Committee and Chairman, Presidential Think Tank. Supporting him as discussants are Prince Chibudom Nwuche, Former Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives and Dr. Reuben Abati, Chairman, Editorial Board of the Guardian Newspapers. Special Guest of Honour is His Excellency, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, Executive Governor of Lagos State. The event will attract the cream of the Nigerian society, members of the diplomatic corps, the media and is open to the general public.

INVITATION TO 6TH TIMELESS NIGERIA LECTURE SERIES

2010-02-05T12:16:00.002+01:00

It is with great pleasure that I write to invite you to the sixth in the series of our annual Nigeria lecture series details of, which are provided below. Every year we celebrate our existence through The TIMELESS Nigeria Lecture Series. The series of annual lectures/national discourse also serves as our own way of contributing to national issues and as our own service to the nation.

SIXTH NIGERIA LECTURE SERIES DETAILS:

Date: Thursday March 11, 2010

Time: 1.00 p.m.

Topic: The Imperative of Electoral Reform in Nigeria

Venue: AGIP Hall, MUSON Centre Onikan, Lagos

Speaker: Professor Bolaji Akinyemi

Discussants: Prince Chibudom Nwuche, Dr. Reuben Abati

It is hoped that this one day forum, a corollary to our five earlier successful lectures will illuminate our perspective as a nation of consequence especially as we seek to consolidate on the achievements of the past eleven years of democratic dispensation, correct the mistakes of the past and meet the challenges of the future. It promises to be a wonderful event.

All our past lectures attracted personalities from different strata of the Nigerian society, were well covered by the national media and stimulated interest and discourse on important national issues dominating our national life. It promises to be an interesting event. We hope that you will give our invitation a favourable consideration and look forward to seeing you on that day. Thank you and God bless you.

Yours faithfully,

Ituah Ighodalo

Editor-in-Chief/CEO

Beyond ‘Mutallab

2010-01-22T12:48:00.000+01:00

TIMELESS EDITORIAL

The nearly successful terrorist plot by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old Nigerian who has pleaded not guilty to a six-count indictment for trying to blow up a US-bound Northwest Airlines flight out of Amsterdam last Christmas Day with explosives he had smuggled aboard, undetected in his underwear (he was on the verge of injecting chemicals into the package), proves that blind spots abound all over. More importantly, they need to be acknowledged and addressed.

This is a clarion call for across-the-board sharing of bits and pieces of information as equals between Western and other security agencies.

Nigeria has remained clueless with its Nigerian Intelligence Agency, NIA; it is doubtful if it is adequately staffed and funded--and not another hostage to ‘federal character’. It speaks volumes that many in the country are in the dark about its existence.

Given alleged Koranic incentives for carrying out such dastardly acts being propagated by disgruntled elements waging a ‘Grudge War’ against the rest of us (their ‘Jihad’ constitutes a ‘sixth pillar’ of faith), it has become imperative to as a matter of urgency step up monitoring of Islamic schools (madrassahs) across the country. Preachers with decidedly anti-Western and Christian biases (‘Mutallab’s Christmas Day timing was deliberate) and militant tones should be put on a watch-list.

Further, northern Nigeria’s cannon fodder al-majiris, fallout of the region’s festering sociological malaise fueled by grinding poverty and perpetuated ignorance, now a vicious cycle, is a keg of gunpowder for coming conflagrations. It is a knife in Nigeria’s underbelly. A watch-list of fiery clerics who provide instruction for them has become indispensable.

Indeed, what stops Nigerian-based Islamist extremist elements from blowing up Western interests in Nigeria? Such groups already seem well-entrenched in Nigeria, like the Boko Haram which always seems to catch the authorities pants down.

‘Mutallab could have been arrested in Nigeria and his plot nipped in the bud (without the psychological trauma of his attempt now inflicted on hundreds) if the NIA had figured out his intent; his guards would have been down.

Finger-pointing will not help; all are indicted. US National Intelligence Directorate and their National Counterterrorism Center must reach out to other national agencies to share experiences and competencies. The world is still wondering what the all-knowing Americans did with the information the would-be bomber’s father volunteered them on his son’s Islamist radicalisation, from romping in such red-flag locales like Yemen, frolicking with al-Qaeda. Why did the American downplay that calibre of information?

Why ‘Mutallab wasn’t put on a watch-list, beyond a humongous terrorist database maze of 550,000 other names as a result, is beyond us. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had a travel visa granted since June 2008, valid through June 2010.

The following brazenly bully assertion by US President Barack Obama’s adviser on counter-terrorism, John Brennan is simply unacceptable: “There was no smoking gun. There was no piece of intelligence that said this guy is a terrorist and is going to get on a plane....None whatsoever.”

Meanwhile his admittance that several “bits and pieces” of intelligence had been gathered in the run-up to the failed Christmas Day bombing shows clearly that human and systemic failure on their part was responsible for not putting together the pieces as part of a larger puzzle. In his own words: “It was a failure to integrate the bits and pieces of information.” And that is what it’s always about.

Now the world must watch out for name changes and identity alterations, like the scenario in adventure novelist Clive Cussler’s plane hijack story; the hijacker impostor pilot had only a knapsack on his person at check-in. It is outrageous that the US authorities lowered the threshold for getting potential terrorists onto no-fly lists, for getting on a plane at all.

Luckily for us, the present cannon fodder stopped from igniting may have been a blundering operative; the next in tow will not tout a spurious reason for visit as ‘a religious seminar’ (another red flag, sans profiling). Next could be a bespectacled ‘Dogara Gambo’, clutching a copy of his self-published book, billed to address a literary conference in the US.

That UF Abdulmutallab boarded his flight in Amsterdam to frigid Detroit with no coat has been admitted as the final warning sign that went unnoticed. He also showed up at the Amsterdam airport without any luggage--another sign that should have prompted more scrutiny.

There had been critical warning signs since way back in mid-October. A US National Security Agency wiretap picked up discussion out of Yemen that referred to a Nigerian being trained for a special mission.

The misspelling of Abdulmutallab’s name at the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria that initially made the State Department believe he did not have a U.S. visa and therefore was “less of an immediate concern” is a lame duck excuse. “A system shouldn’t get stymied by a single misspelling,” as a US official has admitted. “If you mistype something in Google, Google comes back and says maybe you want to look at this other spelling.”

We cannot afford to put our faith in technology to stop the terrorists from getting on planes and trains, among other terrorist attractions. The glaring need is to understand that it is a human intervention situation. More time need to be spent on putting boots on the ground, along with people behind the lines, who understand what’s going on and can get into the mind of the enemy to read what he (or she) is intent on doing.

As a final gate-keeping measure, airlines should be required to provide passenger lists, or manifests, to relevant agencies 24 hours in advance for the action of behavioural experts, like situational psychologists, to spot potential terrorists before they get onboard. Inherent in all these is a price we all must be willing to pay to guarantee safety with our freedom of movement across borders.

Only humble ‘collabo intel’ will preempt other wannabe bombers sure to follow with greater assurance of success in the footsteps of the botched Christmas Day bomber.

Remembering the Man who had a Dream

2010-01-17T14:20:00.001+01:00

Ayodeji Jeremiah

The third Monday in January of every year is a national holiday in the United States in honour of the renowned and celebrated advocate of non-violent social change and foremost civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King whose birthday is on the 15th of Janaury. Dr. King would have been 80 last year had he been alive. Though King may be dead, his legacy has lived on.

The symbolic leader of American blacks, youngest Nobel Peace Prize laureate, keynote speaker at the March on Washington and prime mover of the Montgomery bus boycott was thrown into the spotlight at the young age of twenty-six when as a member of the executive committee of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People), he accepted the leadership of the first great Negro non-violent demonstration of contemporary times in the United States. The NAACP was the leading organisation of its kind then in the U.S. Though any number of historic moments can be used to identify Dr. King, his policy of non-violent protest borrowed from Mahatma Gandhi of India was the dominant force in the civil rights movement during its decade of greatest achievement from 1957 to 1968.

Martin Luther King was born at noon on Tuesday, January 15, 1929 at the family home in Atlanta Georgia to the Reverend Martin Luther King Sr. pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church and Alberta King (nee Williams), a former schoolteacher. He was one of three children (being the first son and the second child) and was initially christened Michael and later renamed Martin when he was about 6 years old. Martin Luther attended segregated public schools in Georgia including the Yonge Street Elementary School, the David T. Howard Elementary School, the Atlanta University Laboratory School and the Booker T. Washington High School. Due to his high scores at the college entrance examinations and having skipped both the ninth and twelfth grades, Dr. King advanced to Morehouse College (a distinguished historically Black institution in Atlanta from which both his father and grandfather had graduated) at the age of fifteen without formal graduation from Booker T. Washington. He graduated in 1948 with a B.A. degree in Sociology. He then proceeded that same year to Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania where he was awarded the Bachelor of Divinity degree in 1951. While at Crozer, he was elected president of a predominantly white class, won the Pearl Plafker award for the most outstanding student and received the J. Lewis Crozer fellowship for graduate study which he used to enrol at Boston University for doctoral studies. He was awarded a Doctorate of Philosophy in Systematic Theology in 1955, two years after completing his residency.

He married the former Coretta Scott in 1953 and four children (two sons and two daughters) were born to them. King accepted the pastorate of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama in 1954 and here he made his first mark on the civil rights movement by mobilising the black community during the 382-day boycott of the city’s bus lines. He was the president of the Montgomery Improvement Association, the organisation responsible for the co-ordination of the bus boycott. On December 21, 1956 the U.S. Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the laws requiring segregation on buses. During the period of the boycott, King was arrested, his home was bombed and he was subjected to personal abuse. He however emerged during this period as an African-American leader of the first rank. In 1957, King summoned a number of black leaders and laid the foundation for the organisation now known as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organisation formed to provide new leadership for the now burgeoning civil rights movement. He was elected its president, a position he held until his death. From 1960 until his death in 1968, King was co-pastor with his father at Ebenezer Baptist Church where his grandfather had also been pastor from 1914 to 1931. In 1963, he led a massive protest in Birmingham, Alabama for fair hiring practices and the desegregation of department-store facilities during which he was arrested. It was during this period that he wrote what has become one of the most important American documents, “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”, a manifesto of the African-American revolution. Later that year in August, he led the 250,000 man March on Washington to whom he delivered one of the most passionate and most popular addresses of his career; the “I Have a Dream.” speech.

Time Magazine designated him as its Person of the Year for 1963 (he had earlier been named one of the most outstanding personalities of the year in 1957 by TIME). In 1964, he was named recipient of the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize at the age of thirty-five. He was the youngest man to have received the Nobel Peace Prize. His prize money of $54,123 was turned over for the furtherance of the civil rights movement. On his return from Norway to accept the award, King led a voter-registration campaign in Selma, Alabama that ended in the Selma-to-Montgomery March, which resulted in the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In Chicago, he launched programs to rehabilitate the slums and provide housing. King was in the middle of plans to organise massive non-violent demonstrations in major cities and a march of the poor on Washington to sensitise Congress on the need to deal with the problem of poor, downtrodden and desperate Americans when he was interrupted to lend his support to the Memphis sanitation men’s strike. He wanted to discourage violence and focus the national attention on the plight of the poor unorganised workers of the city who were bargaining for basic union representation and long overdue raises. It was here he delivered his final speech, which ranks among his most famous utterances, “I have Been to the Mountaintop”.

Death came for King on April 4, 1968 on the balcony of the black owned Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee. He was shot in the neck by a rifle bullet while standing outside with Jesse Jackson and Ralph Abernathy by a gunman named James Earl Ray. His death caused a wave of violence in major cities across the U.S. James Earl Ray was arrested in London, England on June 8, 1968 and returned to Memphis to stand trial where he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to ninety-nine years imprisonment. King’s funeral was held on April 9, 1968 at Ebenezer Baptist Church and on the campus of Morehouse College. The President of the United States declared a day of mourning and flags were flown at half-staff. The Lorraine Hotel where he was shot is now the National Civil Rights Museum. His birthday, January 15, which is a national holiday, is celebrated each year with educational programs, artistic displays and concerts throughout the U.S. His widow organised the Martin Luther King Jr. Centre for Non-Violent Social Change, which today stands next to his beloved Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. will be remembered for his vital personality, his inspirational lectures, speeches and remarks, his courageous and selfless devotion to a cause he believed in and died for, his charismatic leadership that inspired others, his dreams for a new cast of life and his philosophy of non-violent direct action. During his thirteen years of crusading for civil rights acclamation, he also wrote five books and numerous articles, travelled over six million miles, and spoke over two thousand five hundred times. He was awarded over twenty honorary doctorate degrees from numerous colleges and universities in the U.S. and several foreign countries. Hr received several hundred awards including the John F. Kennedy Award from the Catholic Interracial Council of Chicago (1964), the Marcus Garvey Prize for Human Rights, presented by the Jamaican Government and the Rosa L. Parks Award presented by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference both of which were awarded posthumously in 1968.

Youths Take Charge at the 1st National Youth Media Summit

2010-01-14T14:07:00.000+01:00

Omotayo Obe and Taiye Tunkarimu

In recent times, the closures of some newspaper houses have been the news especially across the United States and Europe. A lot of young people are now moving online to get information and current news rather from newspapers. Ambassador Stephen Oguntoyinbo, CEO of The Talk Village International had the craving for the need to put together a forum where it would bring to the notice of young people the role of the media in national development and rebranding the images of Nigerians in Diaspora by young people themselves.

This yearning gave rise to the 1st ever National Youth Media Summit, which took place recently at the British Council Multi-Media Suite, Ikoyi, Lagos for two days. The gathering was mostly attended by young people and facilitated by the young people themselves. Many issues were raised and discussed as to the role of the media in the nation’s development and the inactive role played by young people especially while using the Internet giving its potential as a news outlet. A lot of emphases were placed on social networks such as Facebook, You Tube, Twitter et al and the Internet generally, which can be used as effective tools in disseminating information especially about Nigeria to the whole world.

While making his presentation, the Editor of TIMELESS Newspaper, Ayodeji Jeremiah spoke on the era of the new media and the need for a convergence between the old and the new media in other to make the best use of both worlds even as the World is changing to a global village. He emphasised the need for a synergy between the old and the new media while stating that democracy is still the strongest and best form of governance in modern society. The media, he said remains one of the strongest institutions that allow democracy thrive in any society.

Mr. Ayodeji said as a journalist, it is important not to be restricted to one media format but be an all rounder in the different formats. Given the power of Facebook, Twitter, MySpace as not just social networks but also powerful tools for news dissemination and information; the challenge for print newspapers is to address how to use the new media even as many young people don’t have the time to flip through the pages of different newspapers for news when in a matter of minutes, they can have detailed information on news happening just by going online.

On how the traditional media can meet the challenges of the new media, he said print newspapers need to focus more on analysis than reporting. They must also focus more on young people who love to read about themselves. The need for better design, more graphics, more headlines, more pictures and less text should be embraced. Newspapers, he said must have a clear ideology and carve a niche for themselves.

In his closing remarks, Mr. Ayodeji advised youths to develop themselves and try and get at least the minimum educational degree. He also urged them to be knowledgeable about everything and most especially their subject areas. In his words “know your stuff, know your environment”.

According to Dr. Tunde Adegbola, The CEO of African Technology Initiative, a company set up to make computers useful in African languages, the media he said is information and communication and the way we do it is the most important factor of our humanity because the objective of humans is to communicate. The media is full of opportunities and information revolution is a youth thing. This is the age of advantages and privileges that never came in the 60s or 80s. Nigeria, he said is the only country without a Community Development Broadcast Initiative (Community Radio and the likes) in the ECOWAS region. He therefore admonished the youths to stand up and be counted because the capacity to inform and transfer information lies in the hands of young people and if we don’t act now we will be oppressed and told who we are and whatever we are told becomes a reality because we haven’t taken advantage of who we are and what we have. Dr. Tunde ended his presentation by defining Globalisation as when Nokia sells more cameras than the likes of Kodak, Sony, Canon et al put together.

Mr. Lekan Otufodunrin, the Sunday Editor of The Nation Newspaper and founder of Journalist for Christ spoke on Communication, Policy and Journalism Practice: the Role of the Youth. He started off his presentation by defining success as “seeing into the future before it becomes very obvious”. For many young people it is about being successful in whatever career they have chosen for themselves but to succeed in the field of journalism he stressed that it is important to be knowledgeable about happenings in the society especially the running of government and their policies because one cannot argue about what he/she does not know. Proper qualifications is also very important as a media practitioner and in seeking employment, it is crucial that one seeks for it in the mainstream media and come up with new concepts to improve on the quality of contributions on the Internet and ideas that will champion the coverage of new issues and topics that matters like climate change and globalisation.

Nike Fagade, CEO, Positive Development Foundation emphasised the need for young people to read widely, promote and say good things of themselves and their country everywhere they go within and outside the country. She encouraged youths not just to go online and check mails or chat on Facebook writing status such as “I just prepared beans and dodo” or “am chilling in a buka (a local canteen)” but to flood the Internet daily anytime they get the opportunity to go online with positive information and news of young people changing and contributing positively to the growth and development of the society. She also pleaded with Nollywood film producers to stop espousing negativism in Nigerian movies. “Not that we don’t know that these things are happening but we have to erase the negative and bad image of Nigeria and start showing the world the good side of Nigeria.”

Dolapo Taiwo of Unotech who spoke on Web 2.0 said the future of Communication and Journalism lies on the Internet. He pushed for everyone to make good use of their blogs to disseminate information. He stressed that young people should use the Internet for more productive and positive money making ventures by building a brand for themselves and making lots of noise about such. The need for government to come up with new media policies was also emphasised.

During the group discussions, the participants came up with suggestions that for youth media to be extraordinary and different there is a need for young people to be consistent with their initiatives and develop their content to a world class standard. Innovation and creativity must be employed and loyalty to clients and customer cannot be disputed because this is a time for young people to explore and take charge of the world thereby creating an identity for themselves.

Stephen Oguntoyinbo, convener of the event and CEO of TalkVillage International said youths must integrate into the social media a means to creating or rather facilitating the desired change needed in Africa. He encouraged youths to tap into the social media because of the various advantages and its potential as a catalyst for change when used for advocacy. He went ahead to give a frame work of the advantages of the new media stating that it saves time and energy, it is globally accessible, economically sustainable and it serves as a strong tool for networking. He also advised Youths to be information seekers and sharers and to explore the new media effectively to boost their work.

Another panellist, Mr. Panny Daranijo told the audience that in using the new media, youths should ask and answer the following questions - Who Am I? ,What Are My Interests?, What exactly do I plan to achieve by this platform I am using?, What am I teaching?, What am I broadcasting to the World? He advised youths to use the Internet for positive changes. He also advised that the Internet should not just be used for teaching alone but also as an agent of change. He decried the trend among youths who use the Social media, especially Facebook to say irrelevant things and the sorts.

Mayowa Adeniran, CEO, E3 Media gave the audience different websites they can visit to blog, vlog and where they can get job opportunities and create a string web presence to boost their career profile. He listed sites such as www.africanews.com, www.bloglighting.com, www.payu2blog.com, www.betterbusinessblogg.com etc as sites where young people should visit to make their voices heard and create an impact. He advised youths to stand up and be heard and use the resources available to them to create the needed impact in the society.

Azeezat Sanni, Co-Presenter, Touch of Spice on Star FM encouraged youths to discover themselves, their interests and be very mindful of the power of words especially in the use of the new media in order not to fuel aggressions, hate or even libel.

The Conference also featured group work as follows:

Group A: Web 2.0 - Gateway For Boosting your Business Globally

Group B: Act Local; Think Global, Opportunities for Youths in Media

Group C: Engaging Youths in Community Radio

Each group was required to brainstorm and come out with practical, economical and pragmatic ways on how it can make impacts on its given topics.

GROUP A in its presentation gave insights on how youths or any business owner at all can take advantage of the Internet to market themselves. They suggested the use of the social media- Facebook, Twitter etc, Blogs, Vlogs (You Tube) etc in creating a web presence on their products and services. They also suggested how everyone present can teach others on how to use the computer without necessarily spending so much money.

Group B raised the possibility of using the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) with a view of raising awareness on the MDGs as an opportunity for youths in the media. The group’s focus was on developmental journalism. The group says through the use of social media, Web Radio, Blogs and the Print Media, the awareness of people in the society can be raised towards achieving at least 60-70% of the MDG goals by or before 2015. The group’s Facilitator and Editor of Timeless Newspaper, Mr. Ayodeji Jeremiah pledged the support of his newspaper to the cause.

Group C facilitated by Azzezat Sanni spoke on the need to promote community radio so that the voices of everyone can be heard. She also revealed that they plan to start advocating for community radio through her Touch of Spice radio programme; the group also intends to speak on issues that affect various people at the grass root level.

Other speakers at the two day event were Ms. Toyin Adesola (President, Sickle Cell Advocacy and Management Initiative, SAMI), Ifeoma Adibe (Founder, African Youth Empowerment and Change Initiative), Damola Taiwo (Unotech Media), Asim-Ita Emilia (Redstart/Future Awards), Ashaye Babatunde (E3 Media), and Anyaegbu Francis (Outbox Consulting).

In all, the two day summit made a call to all youths irrespective of gender, religion, tribe and class to take charge, be the change and make positive impact wherever they are especially in the policy making of their countries.

MEMORABLE QUOTES FROM THE SUMMIT

“Globalization is when Nokia sells more Cameras than Kodak and Canon.”

Dr. Tunde Adegbola (CEO Alt-i)

“Not everyone that writes is a Journalist; Journalism has its code of ethics.”

Mr.Lekan Otufodurin (Editor, The Nation on Sunday )

“The New Media, which I prefer to call Online Media, poses a challenge to the traditional media.”

Mr. Ayodeji Jeremiah (Editor, Timeless Newspaper)

“I suffered in this Lagos O!”

Asim-Ita Emmilia

“We should stop using the social media to tell people “I’m eating Burger”. It should be used to promote positive change.”

Mr.Lekan Otufodurin (Editor, The Nation on Sunday)

“If an angry person speaks, the anger is lessened and you know where he is going …In Nigeria, we have angry people whose mouths are tied.”

Dr. Tunde Adegbola, on the need for Community Radio.

“What the traditional media needs is news analysis not news reporting to survive.”

Mr. Ayodeji Jeremiah (Editor, Timeless)

“The question is how to get youths interested in making an impact, like when I told some youths about the Youth Summit, their reply was “Kini Big Deal?”

Peculiar, (Participant at the Summit)

“Don’t post what you don’t want your Grand-Mother or prospective employer to see on Facebook. In using the new media, the key word is ‘explore.’”

Stephen Oguntoyinbo.

“To succeed in using the new media, consistence is the key.”

Mayowa Adeniran, E3 Media

“Government should be pressurized to liberate the airwaves.”

Dr. Tunde Adegbola

Calling Agricultural Researchers: Win Funding to put Research into use

2010-01-13T12:26:00.000+01:00

PRESS RELEASE

11 January 2010

In the dragon’s den – win funding to put research into use

A new approach to boost agricultural production is coming to West Africa. In 2009, the Research into Use Best Bets initiative, funded by the UK Government, awarded start‐up grants worth US$2.5 million to four business ventures in East, Central and Southern Africa. Now West African researchers and entrepreneurs have their chance to compete for cash.

The first call for West African RIU Best Bet submissions came in early December 2009. Applicants have until January 29th 2010 to submit a concept note, outlining their plan for getting a piece of agricultural research into use. In the previous round, over 100 proposals were submitted, covering the production, processing and marketing of crops, livestock, fisheries and aquaculture.

Shortlisted applications will receive financial support to develop simple business plans. Applicants will then be invited to go into the ‘dragon’s den’, presenting their plan in person to an independent panel of experts from the African business, finance, research and development communities. The winners can expect to receive funding worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The initiative is driven by the sad fact that while agricultural research has made incredible advances in the last decade, much that has been achieved sits unused on the shelf. New and improved varieties of crops remain in research stations and appropriate technologies that could boost yields, food security and incomes have yet to reach the people who most need them – farmers.

But getting that technology from the shelf to the field can’t be done by researchers alone. One key lesson of recent years is that successfully and sustainably introducing new farming technologies depends on private sector involvement. Whether developing a piece of farm machinery or a new variety of rice, bringing that technology to the millions who need it only happens when there is profit to be made. Hence RIU Best Bet applications need to come from partnerships – researchers and business people working together to present a viable business plan, that will bring a proven technology to those who need it.

For more information, the following links will direct you to the Research into Use website ‐ http://bit.ly/RIUBestBetsWA
http://researchintouse.com/index.php?section=5&subsection=86

Word hath Charles wrought, among other ‘things from thought’

2010-01-12T16:06:00.000+01:00

Adeleke Adeyemi

“Programming is very complicated…but we can make it possible for domain experts [fussy computer users] to provide…information in their own terms [that] directly contributes to the production of the software [they need].” --Charles Simonyi

What’s the worth of the one who wrote (or, wrought) the software that made my writing of and your reading of this possible? It’s a mere US$1 billion, according to Forbes magazine. In my book that number, compared to the difference Charles Simonyi has made to human life and work, for you and me, is a mere token of our appreciation of the contribution to our lives of the father of WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get; the acronym is pronounced WIZ-e-wig) application software.

Charles Simonyi, former chief architect at Microsoft, is a computer software guru who as head of Microsoft’s application software group oversaw the creation of Microsoft’s inimitable and most successful applications: Word and Excel. Now head of his own company, Intentional Software, his aim is to develop and market the radical concept of ‘intentional programming’.

Mr. Simonyi is reckoned the most successful ‘pure’ programmer in the world. Richer ones like Bill Gates of Microsoft and Google’s Larry Page are so because they founded and manage techno-leviathan business ventures. Mr. Simonyi’s wealth accrued solely from writing codes. He devised the programming method that Microsoft’s software developers have used for the last quarter-century.

But Dr. Simonyi, 58, was important even before he joined Microsoft. He ranks among the fabled supergeeks who invented personal computing at Xerox PARC in the 1970s, where he wrote the first modern application, a word processor called Bravo. The word before “Word,” it displayed text on a computer screen as it would appear when printed on page. Indeed, WYSIWYG!

Simonyi was born in Budapest, Hungary to Károly Simonyi, a professor of electrical engineering at Technical University of Budapest. While in secondary school, he got work part-time as a night watchman at a computer laboratory with a large Soviet Ural II mainframe computer under its watch. Here it was that he became strongly attracted to computing and learned programming from one of the laboratory’s engineers.

By the time he left school he had learned to develop compilers, computer programs for translating high-level programming language into machine code. He sold one of them to a government department. In 1966, Simonyi went to work in Denmark for A/S Regnecentralen, from where he moved to the United States in 1968 to attend the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned his B.S. in Engineering Mathematics, specialising in Mathematics and Statistics, in 1972.

Next, Simonyi proceeded to Stanford University for graduate studies, where he was hired by Xerox PARC in its heyday. He worked alongside programming leading lights like Alan Kay and Robert Metcalfe. It was with another Xerox alumnus Butler Lampson that he developed Bravo. He received his Ph.D. in computer science from Stanford in 1977. His dissertation was on a software project management technique called “metaprogramming”. This is the theoretical framework for Simony’s whatever-you-can-do-I-can-do-it-meta approach to life and work.

At Metcalfe’s suggestion, in 1981, Simonyi applied—directly—to Bill Gates for a job. His coming would lead to the development of what became Microsoft’s most profitable products. At Microsoft, Simonyi introduced the techniques of object-oriented programming that he had learned at Xerox. A patriot to the core, he developed the Hungarian notation convention for naming variables that has been widely used inside Microsoft and is today one technique among many that helps programmers produce better code faster. Simonyi stayed on at Microsoft throughout its meteoric rise and became one of its highest-ranking developers, only to leave abruptly in 2002 to co-found a new company that markets concepts he had developed at Microsoft Research.

An active philanthropist, he endowed the Simonyi Professorship of the Public Understanding of Science chair at Oxford University in 1995. It was first held by now retired rave-making scientist, Richard Dawkins. He also endowed a Charles Simonyi Professor for Innovation in Teaching Chair at Stanford University. In January 2004, Simonyi created the USD $50 million Charles Simonyi Fund for Arts and Sciences through which he support arts, science, and education.

Simonyi received the Wharton Infosys Business Transformation Award in 2004 for his “innovative work in information technology that has impacted the industry greatly”. His hobbies range from classical music to outer space; he became, in 2007, the fifth space tourist ever.

Opening Address at 1st Youth Media Summit Organised by Talk Village International

2010-01-07T15:40:00.000+01:00

Ayodeji Jeremiah

The role of the media in nation building, and as one of the mainstays of modern civilisation cannot be overemphasised. Democracy, despite its faults or weaknesses remains the best tool of governance in modern society and the media, one of its main arms. The Media along with the Judiciary and an educated society are some of the institutions that enable democracy to thrive.

As has been demonstrated in recent times (The Iranian elections for example,) the role of the media as a watchdog, as a catalyst for change, as a tool for new ideas is becoming increasingly relevant especially as the lines becomes blurred between old and new media. Citizens can now fight their governments on Facebook and Twitter. (The Chinese government recently overturned the conviction of a traffic offender after protests online.) Blogs are beginning to replace columns in newspapers and bloggers are gaining increasing notoriety for influencing decision making across industries. (Example, fashion bloggers are now invited to sit with Anna Wintour, the legendary Vogue Editor at fashion shows.)

I want to emphasise that increasingly in recent times, there will be no such thing as being a print, online, or broadcast journalist. Those who will practise journalism now and in the years to come must broaden their horizons and engage themselves such that they can move seamlessly between one form and the other. I also want to say that so called citizen journalism will not erode the importance of old traditional journalism. Rather, it will enhance it. As long as humans remain humans, there will always be the need for informed news, analysis, opinion, discussions and professional journalists will continue to act as moderators setting the pace of the discussions.

Last year saw the closure of print newspapers in Europe and the US, even as readers move increasingly online for their news and advert revenues decline in face of the global economic crisis and with more advertisers moving online. As Internet penetration increases in Nigeria, it’s only a matter of time before this trend catches up with us here.

This raises some issues for print newspapers and what they must do to ensure continued survival:

• Print newspapers/magazines must now concern themselves more with news analysis rather than reporting the news. (E.g. Timeless, Newsweek, Time)

• Print newspapers/magazines must focus more on young people who love reading about themselves (how come Facebook and Twitter are so popular?)

• Print newspapers/magazines should start focusing on better design, more headlines, more graphics and less text (reflecting the gimmicks of online media)

• Rather than pandering to the whims of ‘the customer knows best’, newspapers must resist the lure of society journalism (like what’s happening on TV with reality television) and focus on what’s happening in society. Reports and articles must resonate with people and force them to react. Newspapers must set the agenda for the society, which demands that every newspaper must have an ideology

Our own belief is that there is no competition between old and new media. Print books, newspapers and magazines are not going to die anytime soon; (more so in Africa, where literacy levels and Internet penetration are still low.) The challenge rather is how print media can take advantage of the opportunities inherent in online media to increase revenue, increase subscription and stay relevant and engaged.

http://www.ayodejijeremiah.wordpress.com/; http://www.timelesscourage.blogspot.com/

The 1st National Youth Media Summit was held at the British Council on Thursday 7th of January and Friday 8th of January, 2010.

Malaria, the West and the Rest of Us

2010-01-05T10:21:00.000+01:00

Adeleke Adeyemi

With advances in the science of medicine rising by leaps and bounds, we are truly at a unique point in human history. Diseases and other medical issues that have run rampant now wait in line to be dealt the deathblow they rightly deserve. This is thanks to breathtaking breakthroughs in scientific research, carried on by a few dedicated people thinking outside geographical bounds, in the true tradition of the scientist and fellow intellectual entrepreneurs who have, over time, changed the course of our world, mostly for good.

As Science takes on the menace of malaria with a resolve that promises to yield a final solution, there is a take we must note on the state of research infrastructure and scientific undertakings on our shores. It is significant that the twin breakthroughs about to be celebrated by the world at large also serve to underscore the glaring entrenched dearth of research and scientific enterprise here.

This state of affairs, in the final analysis, simply means that our education, especially at the critical university level, has ceased to be universal and functional; the system is no longer amenable to problem-solving. Instead, it has become stuck in a rut of rote learning, one from which students (as much clueless as their handlers) simply strive to scamper off ‘certificated’, not necessarily the same state of affairs as ‘educated’.

Thankfully, there is now in place an initiative for bringing about a culture of relevant scientific inquiry into all things boggling in the land. It’s the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas NLNG-endowed Nigeria Prize for Science (there’s a second award for Literature). Regretfully, even this glimmer of hope for catalysing a badly needed revolution has had cause to blink in perturbation as the Prize has not been awarded half of the time since its inception. Undaunted, the organisers went on to put the unclaimed cumulative prize money - $20, 000 the first time; $ 30, 000 the second – into a fund for upgrading laboratory facilities in select institutions across the country.

Mercifully, the North (better known as the West) is still up and about on tackling this downside of the South. Whether for gain or fame, there is no gainsaying the fact that once again, well before we can hope to catch up on the act, the Northern hemisphere, with its well established culture of scientific research that exists largely for its own sake, is reaching down to our half of the world with sorely needed help: a line of attack to eradicate – completely – the scourge of malaria. Most common in tropical and subtropical regions, malaria is a universal curse that leaves in the trail of its strike 350 to 500 million (reported) new cases annually. According to UNICEF, an African child is lost to it every 30 seconds.

While preventative measures such as sleeping under a mosquito net, flitting sleeping quarters or the use of preventive medication, have proven to reduce the risk of coming down with malaria, it has however been difficult to discover a truly long-lasting solution to the spread of the disease.

Though not a new idea gene modification is what scientists believe will be the hero to millions of individuals who remain at risk of the debilitating disease. The science has been in use in plants to eliminate certain characteristics from strains of some species in order to help farmers end up with better crops. Now, the focus of the technology has shifted to one of Man’s giants that would not be so easily slain: the mosquito.

The idea is to create a genetically altered mosquito with a resistant gene that kills the parasite causing malaria (plasmodium, extant as many strains) without harming the mosquito. This bug would then be introduced into the population of mosquitoes carrying the malaria parasite. When the mosquito produces offspring, the resistant gene would be passed on to the new generation of mosquitoes, which would then pass it on to the next generation, and so on. Eventually, the parasites causing the disease would be weeded out of their vector organism – the mosquito – completely. The theory is robust.

Scientists at the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute in Baltimore, Maryland in the United States are toying with the idea of creating such a mosquito. It’s looking more and more a possibility. It remains one of the more promising ideas out there for bidding very good riddance to a really bad nonsense.

Meanwhile, while we keep our fingers crossed, waiting for this final solution, from farther up in the Northern hemisphere is an optical laser technique that will soon eliminate the need for slides, staining and microscopes, the standard laboratory set-up in testing people for the disease.

A research team led by Dr. Paul Wiseman of the Departments of Physics and Chemistry at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, has developed a radically new technique that uses lasers and non-linear optical effects to detect malaria infection in human blood. The researchers say the new technique holds the promise of simpler, faster and far less labour-intensive detection of the malaria parasite in blood samples. This rapid malaria detection breakthrough is set to glide out from the Northern Hemisphere, to take on the world of Plasmodium in the South, where the parasite holds patent sway. The resources and trained personnel required to accurately diagnose the disease are spread the thinnest in sub-Saharan Africa, where most of the fatalities remain concentrated.

Current detection techniques require trained technicians to stain slides, look for the parasite’s DNA signature under the microscope, and then manually count all the visible infected cells, a laborious process dependent on the skill and availability of trained analysts. In contrast, the proposed new technique relies on a known optical effect called third harmonic generation (THG), which causes hemozoin – a crystalline substance secreted by the parasite – to glow blue when irradiated by an infrared laser.

“People who are familiar with music know about acoustic harmonics,” explains Dr. Wiseman. “Everybody has a fundamental sound frequency and then multiples of that frequency. Non-linear optical effects are similar: if you shine an intense laser beam of a specific frequency on certain types of materials, you generate multiples of [their] frequency. Hemozoin has a huge, non-linear optical response for the third harmonic, which causes the blue glow.”

According to Mark Shainblum of the Media Relations Office at McGill, Dr. Wiseman and his colleagues hope to co-opt existing well-established technologies like fibre-optic communications lasers and fluorescent cell sorters into their groundbreaking technique to quickly move it out of the laboratory and into the field. “We’re imagining a self-contained unit that could be used in clinics in endemic countries,” says Dr. Wiseman. “The operator could inject the cell sample directly into the device, and then it would come up with a count of the total number of existing infected cells without manual intervention.”

Hopefully, relevant authorities in Africa and the other regions of the world where the disease is endemic will rise to lend moral support toward accelerating dividends from these researches to get home to the grassroots, thereby achieving the shortest possible lab-to-town transit. Malaria has maligned efforts at development in these places so much and for far too long; it shall not be spared any moment longer.

Plasmodium-free female mosquitoes can, like their male counterparts have done all along, simply make their music – in full acoustic harmonics – and whine themselves hoarse and out; that would be peace and no gripe for the human species. Shall we move on to clear the next stench on the block, please?

Did You Know?
‘Malaria’ is a Latin word. It was coined to describe the condition based on the thinking, then prevalent, that the disease was caused by inhaling or being exposed to bad (‘mal’) air (‘aria’).

Oral Roberts - A Tribute

2009-12-31T16:56:00.001+01:00

By Tayo Obe

Not a few people were saddened after it was publicly disclosed that popular Tele-Evangelist Granville Oral Roberts had died. He was 91 years old. Born in Oklahoman on January 24, 1918 , Oral was the fifth and youngest child of the Reverend Ellis Melvin Roberts and Claudia Priscilla Irwin.

After finishing high school, Roberts studied for two years each at Oklahoma Baptist University and Phillips University. In 1938, he married a preacher's daughter, Evelyn Lutman Fahnestock. Roberts became a traveling faith healer after ending his college studies without a degree. According to a TIME Magazine profile of 1972, Roberts originally made a name for himself with a large mobile tent "that sat 3,000 on metal folding chairs".

He pioneered televangelism when he began broadcasting his revivals by television in 1955 and attracted a vast viewership. In 1947, Roberts resigned his pastoral ministry with the Pentecostal Holiness Church to found Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association. He began conducting evangelistic and faith healing crusades, mainly in the U.S. He appeared as a guest speaker for hundreds of national and international meetings and conventions. Thousands of sick people would wait in line to stand before Oral Roberts so he could pray for them.

He founded Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1963, stating he was obeying a command from God. The university was chartered in 1963 and received its first students in 1965. Students were required to sign an honour code pledging not to drink, smoke, or engage in premarital sexual activities. In 1977 Roberts had a vision from Jesus who told him to build City of Faith Medical and Research Center, the hospital would be a success.

City of Faith Medical and Research Center in Oklahoma, opened in 1981. At the time, it was among the largest health facilities of its kind in the world and was intended to merge prayer and medicine in the healing process. The City of Faith operated for only eight years before closing in late 1989. The Orthopedic Hospital of Oklahoma still operates on its premises.

Roberts' fundraising was controversial. In January 1987, during a fundraising drive, Roberts announced to a television audience that unless he raised $8 million by that March, God would "call him home." Some were fearful that he was referring to suicide, given the impassioned pleas and tears that accompanied his statement. He raised $9.1 million.

His life was not without challenges, Roberts' daughter Rebecca Nash died in an airplane crash on February 11, 1977 with her husband, businessman Marshall Nash. Roberts' eldest son Ronald committed suicide in June 1982, five months after receiving a court order to undergo counselling at a drug treatment centre. But the other two Roberts children are still living — Son Richard, a well-known evangelist and former president of Oral Roberts University (ORU), and daughter Roberta Potts, an attorney. On May 4, 2005 Evelyn, Roberts' wife of 66 years, died in a Southern California hospital at the age of 88.

In addition, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis at 17 and sunk into such dire straits, coughing and spitting up blood, that survival was in question. When an intense prayer session became a prelude to healing, the world lost a basketball player (he used to be a Sport Fan) and gained an evangelist. Inspired by his recovery, Oral Roberts vowed to go out and spread the Gospel, which he did until he died at age 91.

Oral Roberts wrote more than 130 books, several personal commentaries on the Bible, and other inspirational material. One of his most substantive works is a 74-CD set titled Oral Roberts Reading the New Testament with His Personal Commentary that includes his life’s teachings on God’s Word. Perhaps best known is his book The Miracle of Seed Faith, which revolutionised the lives of millions of people who learned how to get their needs met through God’s eternal plan of giving and receiving.

Since his death, Christian leaders round the world have been paying tribute to a Man of God that stood out and did his best to fulfill his purpose. Evangelist Billy Graham, founder of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association said “Oral Roberts was a man of God and a great friend in ministry. I loved him as a brother. We had many quiet conversations over the years. I invited Oral to speak at one of our early international conferences on evangelism held in Berlin in the 1960s. … Just three weeks ago, I was privileged to talk to Oral over the telephone. During the short conversation, he said to me that he was near the end of his life's journey. I look forward to the day that I will see Oral and Evelyn Roberts again in heaven--our eternal home.”

In remembering his father, son Richard said, “He was a beloved husband, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. Oral Roberts was not only my earthly father; he was also my spiritual father and mentor. He was the greatest man of God I’ve ever known. An innovator and a modern-day apostle of the healing ministry, he was one of the first men of his generation to build a worldwide ministry, an accredited university, and a medical and research center. He had a passion to bring healing to the sick. He came along when many in Christendom did not believe in God’s power and goodness, yet his name became synonymous with miracles.”

For healing evangelist, Benny Hinn, he said that we should rejoice even as we grieve Dr. Roberts’ passing from this earth because he is in Heaven. According to him “we rejoice that he is now in heaven. What an amazing life! He was a giant in so many ways, and I was privileged to have him as a dear, dear friend for many years. Every time I was with him, I saw firsthand a heart consumed with the love of Jesus Christ…Only heaven will reveal how many hearts he has pointed toward heaven, how many homes have been revolutionised through his seed-faith teaching, and how many ears have heard his faith-filled phrase, "Expect a miracle!" God has used him to open doors that were once considered closed to the miracle-working power of the gospel, and wherever I travel, I have been ever thankful for the trail he blazed.’’

He then urged all his partners to be in prayer for his family during these days of bereavement, “and while we join his loved ones in mourning the loss of this great trailblazer of the faith, we also celebrate his reunion in heaven with his beloved wife, Evelyn, other family members, the hosts who accepted our Lord Jesus as Saviour, and most importantly, with the Lord Himself, whom our brother in Christ served so faithfully during his memorable lifetime!

Bishop T.D Jakes of The Potters’ House stated that through “his vision and commitment to Christian education, his legacy will continue in the hearts and minds of young believers. The world has lost a treasured gift from God embodied in the man Oral Roberts. Our sympathy goes out to his family and the many churches that were under his oversight.”

Also, Nigerian Pastor T.B. Joshua has joined those paying tribute to the life and legacy of the late American evangelist, Oral Roberts, describing him as one of ‘God’s Generals’. Dr. Oral Roberts died Tuesday December 15 in Newport Beach, California, of complications from pneumonia, with son, Richard, and daughter, Roberta, at his side after having spent the last 74 years spreading God’s word (60 of them under the Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association).

Living Above Yourself by Ituah Ighodalo Now Available

2009-12-26T16:01:00.000+01:00

Using the examples of Abraham and David from the Bible, this book takes a look at the foundation for and principles behind living a great life. Contrary to most peoples' expectations, living a great life is not about amassing wealth or achieving personal successes; rather it is about focusing on what we can give out of ourselves in this world.

The book reminds us that notwithstanding whatever riches we amass or successes we achieve, our lives when we die will be summarised in very brief sentences. Living a great life is about discovering our purpose here on earth and emptying ourselves of everything God has blessed us with.

Living a great life is a personal decision we make and not something that happens to us by accident. Why should we live great lives? How do we live great lives? What are the steps to living a great life? Why can't some people live great lives and what are the benefits of living a great life? Join Pastor Ituah on a journey of self discovery as he answers these questions and more

N500 per copy. Limited Copies Available. Minimum Order of 5 Copies = N2,500. Pay into Oceanic Bank Account Name: Timeless Courage Publishing Limited, Account No: 0351101005381 and send you name, address, phone no and teller no to timelesscourage@yahoo.co.uk and receive your orders within 48 hours. Offer valid within Lagos Only. Pls include postage for deliveries outside Lagos

Uganda's Anti-Gay Bill Draws Evangelical Opposition

2009-12-19T14:51:00.000+01:00

A Ugandan legislator who proposed the highly contested Anti-Homosexuality Bill insists the measure is being misconstrued. "There has been a distortion in the media that we are providing death for gays. That is not true," ruling party MP David Bahati said on BBC. "When a homosexual defiles a kid of less than 18 years old, we are providing a penalty for this."
The bill, which is currently being debated by a parliamentary committee, has drawn global attention from gay rights advocates and religious leaders alike, many of whom are condemning the legislation for promoting hatred and handing down severe penalties against homosexuals and their family, friends, and even pastors. Punishments range from a fine and a three-year imprisonment to life imprisonment and the death penalty.
Homosexuality is already illegal in Uganda and can be punished with life imprisonment. But the anti-homosexuality legislation was designed to "fill the gaps" in the provisions of existing laws and "strengthen the nation's capacity to deal with emerging internal and external threats to the traditional heterosexual family."
Bahati told BBC that homosexuality is neither a human right nor is it in-born. "It is a behaviour learned and it can be unlearned," he said on BBC. Some religious leaders in Uganda are backing the legislation, but many more within and outside the country are gravely concerned.
"Regardless of the diverse theological views of our religious traditions regarding the morality of homosexuality, in our churches, communities and families, we seek to embrace our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters as God's children worthy of respect and love," said a group of U.S. Catholic, evangelical and mainline Protestant leaders, in a statement.
Most recently, evangelical Pastor Rick Warren released a video to Ugandan pastors detailing his opposition to the bill and correcting media reports that state otherwise. As a pastor, he said it is not his role to interfere with the politics of other nations, he said it is his role to speak out on moral issues. Warren called the Anti-Homosexuality bill "unjust, extreme and un-Christian" toward homosexuals. "ALL life, no matter how humble or broken, whether unborn or dying, is precious to God," said Warren, who works with pastors in Uganda on the "Purpose Driven" campaign and P.E.A.C.E. Plan.
Passing the bill would have "a chilling effect" on the HIV/AIDS ministry of churches in Uganda, the southern California pastor added. With the proposed legislation threatening to penalise those who provide counselling to someone struggling with their sexuality and work with people infected with HIV/AIDS and who do not report the homosexual within 24 hours of knowledge, fewer people who are HIV positive will seek care from the churches out of fear of being reported.
"You and I know that the churches of Uganda are the truly caring communities where people receive hope and help, not condemnation," the megachurch pastor said in his video message. While affirming that marriage is intended to be between one man and one woman and that all sex outside of marriage is not what God intends, Warren also stressed, "Jesus also taught us that the greatest commandment is to love our neighbours as ourselves. Since God created all, and Jesus suffered and died for all, then we are to treat all with respect.
"The Great Commandment has been the centrepiece of my life and ministry for over 35 years." According to Bloomberg, a refined version of the bill is expected to be presented to Parliament in two weeks. Dr. James Nsaba Buturo, minister of Uganda for Ethics and Integrity, told Bloomberg that the draft bill will drop the death penalty and life imprisonment for gays.
Before the changes, which have not yet been made, the measure stated that persons who commit the offense of "aggravated homosexuality" – where the offense is committed against those below the age of 18 and where the offender is living with HIV – shall be liable on conviction to suffer death and to imprisonment for life. Another provision nullifies international treaties, protocols, and declarations that are "contradictory to the spirit and provisions enshrined in this act."

PRESCHOOLER QUIZ

2009-12-17T12:25:00.001+01:00