₦airaland Forum

Pray rather for the advancement of the kingdom of God to all the ends of the earth, for you shall be rewarded at the end.

Nigeria can be defined as a society where things are left undone or incompletely. Moreover, it's a place where mediocrity in leadership reigns supreme.

Ugly

By Bunmi Sofola

Is it possible for a spinster to be truly happy or fulfilled without a man or children in her life? About a year ago, Kate Bolick published a controversial book which argues that modem singletons are actually content with their lot. But is the author of Spinster: Making A Life Of One’s Own deluded? Or is she on to something? Taiwo, 52 this year,.bought and read the book almost immediately copies appeared on the bookshelves and told me .sadly, that she wasn’t all that ecstatic about being single in spite of her wealth.

According to her, “A few weeks ago, I found myself in the middle of a room and my eyes pricked with tears. Mustering all my strength not to well up, I felt a gaping sense of loss. I was not at the funeral of a loved one, but at my friend’s son’s tenth birthday party, and I was the only woman there without an army of squabbling brats and a man to call my own. Most of my friends were there – a medley of middle-aged couples settled around the kitchen table, content and relaxed as they swapped jokes about truculent teenagers and the grind of JAMB.

“Amid the hubbub, I was shouting into my mobile, organising my weekend outings ahead. I laughed and joked about another date, but my laughter was empty, merely a mechanism to cover up the loneliness I felt. After all, I was 52, and quite honestly, I’d much rather be spending a cosy night with a husband and children than running around like the teenager I so obviously am not.”

Yet, according to the U.S. author, Taiwo should be out and proud, enjoying her exciting single lifestyle. Her book, part memoir and part eulogy to the state of spinsterhood, challenges the idea that women who don’t marry are somehow sad and pathetic. Being single, she says shouldn’t be seen as a default position for modem bachelorettes, but a life choice, a conscious decision to exist independently and self-sufficiently.

Single cart“I used to think like Bolick,” confessed Taiwo. “I even gave a talk or two to professional bodies on living an unconventional life that was unfettered and free. But who was 1 kidding? Myself, of course. Because the idea of being able to have a happy, fulfilled life on your own is a myth.

I can’t tell you how many times I have come home to a cold house and an empty bed and felt utterly dejected and scared. True, I may be able to eat in bed, watch daytime soaps and drink wine when I felt like – the usual arguments trotted out by Bolick; but as pleasurable as all this may be, I know I’d enjoy it far more if I shared it with someone I loved. Which is

why Bolick’s premise that life can be lived more fully on your own – she even writes of finding herself yearning, when with a man, for the extravagant pleasures of simply being alone – seems to me like a slow burning recipe for unhappiness.

“Has she ever wondered what will happen when old age catches up with her? The fact is, she’s still in her early 40s, stunning with a figure to die for. Wait till her lips are puckered and the cheeks sunken. I often wake up in the night, terrified no man will ever want me again. Because – and here’s the crux – Bolick’s feminist mantra of `If bachelorhood can be

celebrated, why not spinsterhood’ is simply naive. I’m sorry, but as cruel as it is, being single is different for women. It’s unfair, even disgustingly so, but it is also true.

“Only last weekend, I was at my social club chatting to a group of men in their early 60s. They listened to me attentively, until a svelte thirty- something wafted in. One even managed to arrange a date with her. And it’s not only dating disappointments we mid-life singletons have to contend with. I also wonder, with no children of my own and growing health niggles, who will look after me as I age? And as if that wasn’t enough, there is the problem of ageing parents. Six years ago, my mother was diagnosed with vascular dementia. My sisters, with their many child- centric responsibilities, left the bulk of caring duties to me. As my father pointed out, it wasn’t as if I had any family commitments. And he was right.

“When she passed away last year, it was my job to look after our devastated father. To make sure the house-help cooked him the right meals, sit and chat about the happy times. I don’t resent doing all that, and am happy to be useful. But to be honest, it is a bit like landing the booby prize. Never in a million years did I ever think that my life would end up like this. It is far from the foot-loose ‘living on your own terms’ that Bolick talks about.

“So I am sorry to contradict the author and her merry army of glad-to-be- single followers, because it may seem glamorous, glossy and daring now, but come a certain age, being on your own is simply and sadly lonely. No, we spinsters don’t need to be pitied or laughed at, but neither do we need to pretend to ourselves and the world we are having a ball, because we’re not!”

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/03/big-debate-can-single-happy/

Oboy na so you need love?

By Obi Nwakanma

Nigerians elected President Muhammadu Buhari on his promise to lead the charge to eliminate corruption in public life, and move to bring those who “looted” the national treasury to book. This is a herculean obligation for which the current administration must be supported and given both cooperation and the benefit of doubt by the public. I am a supporter of this particular goal of the administration, and I have no doubts at all that a majority of Nigerians want the books opened and proper sanction meted on those who may be found culpable.

There is only one condition: that the process be within the bounds of the rule of law. Otherwise it will be seen as a witch hunt. Recent chatter in fact indicate that the current administration is exploring moves to investigate or probe the last president, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan. And I say, why not? Probe him! Anyone who holds public office must be prepared to submit to scrutiny, and to account for their deeds in service to the nation. There is nothing wrong in investigating a former president, and if there is material evidence found that the former president engaged in illegal activity, and misused his powers as president, he must be made to appear before the law courts and the heavens should not fall. There are two grounds on which to probe the former president: one is, to closely examine and ascertain any possible involvement in corrupt enrichment through the authorization of contracts to interests connected directly or by proxy to him; the nature of those contracts and the level of due diligence done in authorizing the power to execute, and any possibility of backhandedness in the form of baksheesh or kickback paid either directly to him or his proxies in furtherance of his personal interests while serving as president.

What does the ex-president own, and how did he acquire these within the period he served as president; and how does his personal worth tally with his declared interests and worth submitted on the assumption of office to the Code of Conduct Bureau? The second area for which the president should be investigated is certainly in the handling of the national accounts as determined by the laws of the federation, and within the bounds of federalism. Did the ex-president break the laws? And if he did, did he hide any material evidence from the National Assembly, which made it impossible for the Assembly to provide as a result, institutional oversight that should have reined-in the president? If he did not hide evidence from the National Assembly, and the National Assembly did not act, to forestall any illegalities on behalf of the nation, what agency of government failed to prevent the execution of any possible illegality by the president?

The probe and trial of Goodluck Jonathan would be good for Nigeria in a number of ways: it will test the very principle of immunity under whose coverage a lot of people have committed atrocities in the name of the nation. A central question that has often exercised the minds of Nigerians is whether anyone who has served as president can be brought, at the end of tenure, to answer to charges for conduct in office covered under the immunity clause. For instance, President Buhari himself refused to appear before the late Justice Chukwudifu Oputa, when he was summoned, during the sitting of the Human Rights Violation and Investigations Commission, also known as the Truth Commission. They did not arrest Buhari for his contempt of the judge.

There were questions about whether the immunity granted to his person while in office extends to that process, and whether indeed he could be questioned and countermanded for acts carried out in his official capacity as president, with very wide immunity powers.

Former president Jonathan will certainly contemplate his own response, particularly within the questions of the immunity granted his person, in the disclosure of certain routine decisions covered by his immunity and the officials secrets Act.

It might require the courts to suspend those rights, and it might be a great day for ordinary Nigerians, who have argued for limited immunity for the office of the president rather than the kind of sweeping immunity which presidents currently enjoy. Probing Jonathan will certainly be a great first step, trying him for misconduct will be a great step forward, were the government’s investigation to find serious evidence linking the former president to personal corruption.

Across the pond, Brazil is going through the same question. Nigeria and Brazil have very many things in common. Aside from being the second largest nation after Nigeria, with the largest population of black people in the world, Brazil has also suffered through many military coups and democratic transitions. The crash in global oil price has also hobbled Brazil’s economy, and there is wide discontent among the public. Current president, Ms. Dilma Rouseff, is facing impeachment for manipulating budget figures to boost accounts of public spending to aid her re-election in 2014. Sounds familiar? Well, yes, it is called “budget padding” and the Brazilians are not joking. But more relevantly, her predecessor, Brazil’s former President, the charismatic, populist, Luis Inacio Lula Da Silva is facing a federal probe over questions of money laundering and alleged kickback received following the Petrobras scandal.

Petrobras is Nigeria’s equivalent of the NNPC. It too is mired in its own scandals. But the proportion of that scandal, compared with what has gone on with Nigeria’s NNPC will be considered rather mild. Yet former President Lula is being investigated for his role in the scandal while in office; brought to the police station in Sao Paolo and questioned vigorously by state prosecutors. It doesn’t matter that he was a former president.

It doesn’t matter that his party is in power, and that the current President wants to protect him. The process is independent, scrupulous, and outside of the power of the president to contain, intervene, or even initiate. And why is “a whole former President Lula” being investigated by “ordinary Public prosecutors”? Because he is suspected to have received bribes with which he bought a beachfront apartment in the city of Guraja. And Nigerians will ask, “just a beachfront apartment?” Well, yes, just a beachfront apartment. The beauty, and the particular difference between societies that wish to survive, and in which the citizens are respected by their public servants, and who respect themselves is that no one is above the law. There is neither Kabiyesi nor peasant in these matters.

A government prosecutor does his work, secure in his rights and tenure to do so; knowing also that any misuse of his office for personal and vindictive pursuits, will also earn him serious sanctions. The permission to probe does not come from the president. It comes from the constitution, and that is the difference with Nigeria. Nigerian presidents are given the power of gods.It must be a transparent process. It must also go further than Jonathan. We must investigate Obasanjo, Abdulsalam, Babangida, and even Buhari himself.

The scandalous miasma in the NNPC did not begin with Jonathan. Nigerian investigators must be granted the power to examine all books back to 1975, at least, and bring all to probe, and before justice. It is a good thing to probe and try Jonathan. It should open the floodgate, and permit the recovery of Nigeria’s looted patrimony. The revelations of the goings on in the Jonathan administration is shocking and horrendous. But I wager, that there is worse, and we need to bring it all to light. So, yes, let us probe Jonathan.
http://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/03/probe-jonathan/

Very true

Highly informative. Well done dear OP

I found my wife on NL.

Topestbilly:
I just check well na 2 oo.... where u don get 13 b4? U just dey count go... lol

Lol, I follow the parade till the end before I jam rock oooo. I gat to reverse and look the pix wella.

Nairaland is a blog site controlled by a powerful set of elites called MODs that have the supreme powers of dictators to ban, alienate, or ostracize her duely registered members who have flouted the rules boldly stated on the blog site.

Topestbilly:
na 13 u say b4.

Lol, optical illusion things.

Deal or No deal? Over to you Mr West. What say you?

Today is Sunday, repent even if it's for only today. Keep the Sabbath day holy.

2

Hmmm
She looks a bit older and less innocent as compared to the guy.

This present APC administration is no different from the past PDP government. The same way of doing things secretly still exist. Due process is never followed. There is no respect for the rule of law.

The Central Bank of Nigeria who is at the centre of a recruitment scandal which was exposed online, has said it opted for a secret process of hiring new staff because the bank was doing 'targeted recruitment'.

It was reported some weeks ago that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor, Godwin Emefiele, handed out jobs of the apex bank to the children of those highly connected in order to save his own.

The apex bank's recruitment scandal which was exposed sees the CBN governor, allegedly employ at least 91 people tied to influential or highly placed Nigerians in a hiring process that was highly secretive.

The list of beneficiaries of the CBN’s job largesse include a daughter of former Vice President, Abubakar Atiku, a son of Mamman Daura, a nephew of President Muhammadu Buhari and one of the closest members of the president’s inner circle, a son of the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, a daughter of former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Ghali Na’aba, also daughter of the Inspector General of Police, Solomon Arase, a son of the Minister of Internal Affairs, Abdurahman Danbazzau and at least 86 others.

As the news went viral and generated media reactions, the Central Bank of Nigeria, disclosed that it opted for a secret process of hiring new staff in the past two years because the bank was doing 'targeted recruitment'.

The CBN’s acting Director of Corporate Communications, Isaac Okorafor, said in an interview that the bank did nothing illegal or wrong in hiring without advertising.

"In the last two years, we have had cause to recruit specialists, and what the law says is that if we are going for that kind of recruitment we should apply for waiver, so that we can do targeted recruitment," Mr. Okoroafor said, adding that the bank obtained waiver from the Federal Character Commission.

"The other issue is that there are states that are not well represented (in the CBN), and in this case we focus on those states to recruit people of certain classes that we used to cover the shortfall in those states," he said.

Mr. Okoroafor however said he was not ready to confirm or deny the names on the list. "Is there any qualified Nigerian who does not have the right to work in the CBN?," he asked.

Source: Tori.ng

Naija go hear whine on top Donald Trump hand oooo.

APC don lose

This wahala raging between prettythicksme vs smellymouth nor be here oooo. Take it easy

Correct nigga, naija oloshos need such men in their lives.

Hahahahaha
LWKMO
Microfinance bank indeed

Look at the famous statement by PMB before the general elections, '' WHO IS SUBSIDIZING WHO? ''

Banned
Thread closed or post hidden
Lalasticlala
mynd44
seun

prettythicksme:
FuvK MY EX'S! why should i fuvk an ex op? i dey mad nii

lol
Hahahahaha
Your ex must have really dealt with you oooo. See heated hatred oooo.

Nice post. It works sometimes

It's for multiple purposes,
-to give a firm grip to the jack when you are trying to elevate the side of the car with a flat tyre.
-it can serve as a surface to lie upon when u want to view underneath the car.

I will gladly wait till the price comes down to N30,000

Close this thread joor

Oh boy, na LONG LASTING INSECTICIDE TREATED net we for dey wear 24/7 oooo.

Buhari is a changed man. His Innocent intentions are being corrupted by the devils in Aso Rock. A look at his padded budget will tell you all you need to know about Buhari.