₦airaland Forum

The Holy Bible is not contradictory. All these visible appearances of God were the manifestations of Jesus Christ who is also God! Remember, God the Father cannot be seen. We can only come to Him through His Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ, Amen.

Nna, you gotta know how to cook, or no marriage. Forget the American lingo here.

And what happens when that trust is broken?

Another proof of the Trinity.

http://www.geoffrobinson.net/jewishtopics/angel.html

Exodus 23:20-22 (English Standard Version)
English Standard Version (ESV)
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.



Conquest of Canaan Promised

20(A) "Behold, I send an angel before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared. 21Pay careful attention to him and obey his voice;(B) do not rebel against him,(C) for he will not pardon your transgression, for my name is in him.
22"But if you carefully obey his voice and do all that I say, then(D) I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus%2023:20-22;&version=47;

This is another proof that the Angel of the Lord is Jesus Christ

http://www.geoffrobinson.net/jewishtopics/angel.html

Conquest of Canaan Promised

20(A) "Behold, I send an angel before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared. 21Pay careful attention to him and obey his voice;(B) do not rebel against him,(C) for he will not pardon your transgression, for my name is in him. 22"But if you carefully obey his voice and do all that I say, then(D) I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries.

http://www.geoffrobinson.net/jewishtopics/angel.html

Have you been in touch with any of your mates? Three of my classmates at Staff school are on facebook. You know say facebook also get FGC, IK group?

I repeat, Not all step moms are bad!. In some rare instances, there are some who have the future of their step child on the same basis as their own child.

My2cents, you are welcome. Still around. Nna, it is really fun reuniting with those people. Now, I have to question why I hold so much attachment to Unical staff school, despite the passage of decades. Now, when I think about it, it's like the memories of those days has overshadowed those of secondary school (it was fun no doubt) and college (still fun). Chei, I remembered kids riding their bikes at the neatly manicured lawns of the staff quarters at Unical Staff school. I remember crossing over the mini highway to the canteen to buy snacks. Those places were posh. Abeg, afo ake dung ke uke ke Calabar?

Shey, I tell you say my cousins been live for housing estate. Times have changed, people have moved on, but sometimes the memories lingers.

Here is the link

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2795181350

Mine, Unical staff school is also there, and I tell you, it's so fun reminiscing with some of my former mates on the board. Honestly, it brings back floods of memories living in Nigeria.

Jesus Christ once declared in the Holy Bible that "Before Abraham was, I AM". At the burning bush when the Angel of the Lord appeared to Moses, God told him, "I Am Who I AM. He, Jesus Christ has always been with the Father, so that being said, Jesus Christ is GOD!

Thanks@my2cents. Hey, do you know your alma mater, Aunty Margaret is on facebook?

Granted, this man fought for civil rights, and paid dearly for it. Forty years later, the same message, "I have a dream", gets replayed over and over again on Television. Just recently, CNN aired a documentary of his 40th anniversary. And I have to question the motives of this outpouring of praises heaped on this man. I mean, it's like every Tom, Dick and Harry claim to espouse the idealogy of MLK, perhaps to be 'politically correct'. (read this arguement)
https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-108785.0.html

I would have to think so, because, Clinton, who was invited to one of the MLK's events was caught sleeping. One guy defended him, and admitted that he would also doze off, if he had to listen to the same rehashed speech. That's when I questioned the motives of Clinton because, to perhaps appear politically correct, he ended up embarrasing himself by sleeping
While his ideas are admirable and led to a transformation in the society to offer equal opportunity to minorities, perhaps, we could take a step back, and ask ourselves if the society's veneration and adulation of MLK is an overkill, an idolatry?

I think it is an overkill, but if I were a white man who uttered the statement, you bet, I would be labelled a 'racist'.

Ete, and you wonder how our female ancestors went through when C-section was unheard of

Only Jesus Christ is the Way to God, Amen.

Debosky, I totally agree with the points you raised on the board, and somehow, I am kind of caught in the middle between the motives of Procter and Gamble on if their decision is purely humanitarian or driven by corporate profits. The same tactics are adopted by some companies too in the USA. Like during the Breast cancer awareness period, you would hear of companies like Avon (I think) and at least several others getting involved and promising to donate some proceeds from the sales of their product into breast cancer research. (Read the criticism here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_ribbon#Critical_movements). One of the corporate executives of Estee Lauder, Evelyn Lauder is a breast cancer survivor.

Other companies have delved into worthy causes, like raising awareness of domestic violence in the community, and sometimes, an appeal is made, usually by patronizing their products because, it will be used to fund such programs. Now, what are the motives? A move characterized by genuine PR or a false move motivated to drum up profits for the companies. Well, as the adage says, "Half a loaf is better than none". And the girls lacking sanitary pads in African will most likely agree with me.

Thought provoking question though@debosky.

Jesus Christ is my ROLE MODEL.

May God's Name be Glorified and Sanctified for His Great Love and Gift, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, who died to offer us eternal Salvation. Praises be unto His Holy Name in the Highest!!!, Amen!


@Image, God bless you for your lucid and insightful explanation of the Greatest story in History.

HOUSTON — A Texas oilman who's accused of defrauding the Nigerian government by illegally pumping and exporting 10 million barrels of oil is a major fundraiser for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.

Kase Lawal of Houston is at least the fourth person accused or convicted of criminal wrongdoing to help finance Clinton's political ambitions since 2000 and the second in her quest for the White House. The list also includes Chinese and Pakistani fugitives and a former Miami lawyer who was convicted of defrauding Cuba.

There's no indication that Clinton's campaign was aware of Lawal's legal problems when it accepted his help in raising more than $100,000, but a McClatchy investigation in the US. and Nigeria suggests that her campaign did little to scrutinize the background of one of its top fundraisers.

Jay Carson, a campaign spokesman, brushed off such criticism.

"While no vetting process is perfect, our vetting department does extensive vetting in order to catch any issues with donors," he said. "And to our knowledge, Mr. Lawal is an upstanding member of his community in Houston."

However, a simple Google search by McClatchy produced reports of serious allegations about some of Lawal's business dealings in Nigeria and South Africa.

Clinton's campaign lists Lawal among about 250 "Hillraisers" who pledged to collect at least $100,000 in donations. Clinton attended a fundraising luncheon at Lawal's home in Houston last Aug. 11 that generated more than $100,000, and she spoke to about 250 guests gathered around Lawal's indoor swimming pool, including two former Houston mayors and Shell Oil President John Hofmeister.

Lawal, 53, who holds dual US.-Nigerian citizenship and whose energy company has become one of the nation's largest black-owned businesses, said in interviews that he "unequivocally and vigorously" denies the Nigerian charges. The African case was initiated by the top financial crime-fighter in Nigeria, a country that's rich in oil but also rampant with corruption.

Lawal, a commissioner of the Houston Port Authority since 1999, a community leader and a philanthropist, said he didn't know of the charges against him until McClatchy contacted him last week. Saying he was "stunned," Lawal said he's traveled at least 70 times to Nigeria since 1999, is often greeted by police and has never been served with legal papers.

Lawal said he suspects that a now-deceased partner in a Niger Delta drilling venture "trumped up" the accusations as part of a scheme to blackmail subsidiaries of his company, CAMAC International Corp.

The criminal complaint in Nigeria against Lawal, two of his affiliated companies, five other individuals and the Irish firm Tuskar Resources Ltd. was filed in a legal system that's fraught with allegations of graft and phony, politically driven prosecutions.

But the case against Lawal was brought by Nuhu Ribadu, an assistant police commissioner who later rose to become the country's top anti-corruption crusader.

During Ribadu's four years as head of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, the agency recovered $5 billion in stolen government funds and prosecuted 250 individuals, including a top police officer, eight former governors and a former vice president who allegedly was bribed by Democratic Rep. William Jefferson of Louisiana.

Jefferson has been charged with bribing an unidentified Nigerian official, and his case is ongoing in a federal court in Virginia.

The case against Lawal has received little attention in Nigeria and none in the US. media until now.

The separate South Africa controversy unfolded after the Commerce Department named Lawal to a business development committee of the US.-South African Binational Commission, and President Bill Clinton appointed him to a Trade Advisory Committee on Africa in 1999.

From 2003 to 2005, the Mail & Guardian in Johannesburg, South Africa, reported in several stories that Lawal had engineered a deal between the South African government and Nigeria that ultimately promised to bring South Africa 120,000 barrels of oil a day at wholesale prices.

Neither of two companies that CAMAC set up ever provided any oil to South Africa, however. Instead, the oil went to one of them in the Cayman Islands that was 75 percent owned by CAMAC, the newspaper said. Its minority owners remain secret.

The other firm, which apparently got no oil, was the South Africa Oil Co., established in Pretoria. CAMAC owned 49 percent of its shares. The remaining shareholders were a "who's who" of relatives of leaders of the country's ruling African National Congress, the newspaper said.

No one has been charged with a crime in connection with the incident.

The case against Lawal stalled for five years due to a legal challenge after CAMAC's Nigerian affiliates and employees challenged the federal police's authority to prosecute cases that normally are handled by Nigeria's attorney general. The Supreme Court of Nigeria ruled in favor of the police in 2006.

Lawal said he was told last week that three national police chiefs have looked at the case since the court ruling, and each concluded that it "has no merit." Others blamed the inaction on Ribadu's departure from the federal police.

Ribadu, who's now studying at a rural institute, was replaced as crime commission chairman in February. He declined comment.

But in Nigeria's capital city of Abuja, Columbus Okaro, the commissioner of the federation police's legal section, said the criminal complaint is pending. He also expressed irritation at hearing that Lawal had visited Nigeria without being served legal papers. While he couldn't explain the inaction since 2006, Okaro said: "I'm the man who should be charging him. I want to go ahead with the case."

Lawal didn't respond to requests for comment about the South Africa deal, but in an extensive interview on the Nigerian charges, he said he's neither a fugitive nor a convict.

Sitting in his 22nd-floor office overlooking Houston's upscale Galleria neighborhood, he said: "My company, my actions and everything that we have done has always been aboveboard."

He urged a reporter to check with Nigeria's attorney general to see whether the charges remain valid and said he'd ask Nigerian police "to make a decision one way or the other" on the criminal charge "to close the chapter or to go forward with it, so that we can have a logical conclusion."

In an interview in Nigeria, Taye Akiyemi, a spokesman for Attorney General Michael Aondoakaa, said: "There are many rich and powerful Nigerians out there. If he's innocent, he should come here and defend himself. The Nigerian courts are waiting for him. Nigeria is practicing the rule of law now."

Lawal said he supports Clinton because she and her husband are "just an intelligent couple, and we are fascinated by what they have done for America."

Lawal, who attended US. colleges, founded CAMAC in 1986 and built it into a $1.6 billion enterprise that ranked No. 296 on Forbes Magazine's 2007 list of the top 400 privately held companies.

He's also the vice chairman of the Houston Airport System Development Corp. and a co-owner of Texas' first black-owned bank, the Unity Bank.

(Connors, a McClatchy special correspondent, reported from Lagos and Abuja, Nigeria. Tish Wells contributed.)

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/election2008/story/32648.html

God is Faithful and deserves our praises. Thank God for His wonderful blessings to you, Amen.

Love custard, love it, and miss it.

Lady, it depends on your specialty. If you are a nurse, and are fired today, chances of landing a job soon (like under a month) is feasible). As for getting a job a day after being fired, nna, that's a tall order. Have you factored in the interview process and all that?

Another one validating our earlier stance that lack of sanitary products can interfere with a girl's day to day activities.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4816558.stm

Another School Barrier for African Girls: No Toilet
                   
By SHARON LaFRANIERE

Vanessa Vick for The New York Times

Fatimah Bamun, 14, is the only girl in her fourt-grade class in Balizenda, Ethiopia, where a lack of sanitation threatens education for girls. More Images / Related text: Slavery in the family

BALIZENDA, Ethiopia - Fatimah Bamun dropped out of Balizenda Primary School in first grade, more than three years ago, when her father refused to buy her pencils and paper. Only after teachers convinced him that his daughter showed unusual promise did he relent. Today Fatimah, 14, tall and slender, studies math and Amharic, Ethiopia's official language, in a dirt-floored fourth-grade classroom.

Whether she will reach fifth grade is another matter. Fatimah is facing the onset of puberty, and with it the realities of menstruation in a school with no latrine, no water, no hope of privacy other than the shadow of a bush, and no girlfriends with whom to commiserate. Fatimah is the only girl of the 23 students in her class. In fact, in a school of 178 students, she is one of only three girls who has made it past third grade.

Even the women among the school's teachers say they have no choice but to use the thorny scrub, in plain sight of classrooms, as a toilet.

"It is really too difficult," said Azeb Beyene, who arrived here in September to teach fifth grade. Here and throughout sub-Saharan Africa, schoolgirls can only empathize. In a region where poverty, tradition and ignorance deprive an estimated 24 million girls even of an elementary school education, the lack of school toilets and water is one of many obstacles to girls' attendance, and until recently was considered unfit for discussion. In some rural communities in the region, menstruation itself is so taboo that girls are prohibited from cooking or even banished to the countryside during their periods.

But that impact is substantial. Researchers throughout sub-Saharan Africa have documented that lack of sanitary pads, a clean, girls-only latrine and water for washing hands drives a significant number of girls from school. The United Nations Children's Fund, for example, estimates that one in 10 school-age African girls either skips school during menstruation or drops out entirely because of lack of sanitation.

The average schoolgirl's struggle for privacy is emblematic of the uphill battle for public education in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly among girls. With slightly more than 6 in 10 eligible children enrolled in primary school, the region's enrollment rates are the lowest in the world.

Beyond that, enrollment among primary school-aged girls is 8 percent lower than among boys, according to the United Nations Children's Fund, Unicef. And of those girls who enroll, 9 percent more drop out before the end of sixth grade than boys.

African girls in poor, rural areas like Balizenda are even more likely to lose out. The World Bank estimated in 1999 that only one in four of them was enrolled in primary school.

The issue, advocates for children say, is not merely fairness. The World Bank contends that if women in sub-Saharan Africa had equal access to education, land, credit and other assets like fertilizer, the region's gross national product could increase by almost one additional percentage point annually. Mark Blackden, one of the bank's lead analysts, said Africa's progress was inextricably linked to the fate of girls.

"There is a connection between growth in Africa and gender equality," he said. "It is of great importance but still ignored by so many."

The pressure on girls to drop out peaks with the advent of puberty and the problems that accompany maturity, like sexual harassment by male teachers, ever growing responsibilities at home and parental pressure to marry. Female teachers who could act as role models are also in short supply in sub-Saharan Africa: they make up a quarter or less of the primary school teachers in 12 nations, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

Florence Kanyike, the Uganda coordinator for the Forum of Women Educationalists, a Nairobi-based organization that lobbies for education for girls, said the harsh inconvenience of menstruation in schools without sanitation was just one more reason for girls to stay home.

They miss three or four days of school," she said. "They find themselves lagging behind, and because they don't perform well, their interest fails. They start to think, 'What are we doing here?' The biggest number of them drop out in year five or six."

Increasingly, international organizations, African education ministries and the continent's fledgling women's rights movements are rallying behind the notion of a "girl friendly" school, one that is more secure and closer to home, with a healthy share of female teachers and a clean toilet with a door and water for washing hands.

In Guinea, enrollment rates for girls from 1997 to 2002 jumped 17 percent after improvements in school sanitation, according to a recent Unicef report. The dropout rate among girls fell by an even bigger percentage. Schools in northeastern Nigeria showed substantial gains after Unicef and donors built thousands of latrines, trained thousands of teachers and established school health clubs, the agency contends.

Ethiopia has also made strides. More than 6 in 10 girls of primary-school age are enrolled in school this year, compared with fewer than 4 in 10 girls in 1999. Still, boys are far ahead, with nearly 8 in 10 of them enrolled in primary school.

Unicef is building latrines and bringing clean water to 300 Ethiopian schools. But more than half of the nation's 13,181 primary schools lack water, more than half lack latrines and some lack both. Moreover, those with latrines may have just one for 300 students, Therese Dooley, Unicef's sanitation project officer, said. In theory, at least, outfitting Ethiopia's schools with basic facilities can be cheap and simple, she said. Toilets need be little more than pits and concrete slabs with walls and a door; rain can be trapped on a school's roof and strained through sand.

Still, she said, toilets for boys and girls must be clearly separate and students who may have never seen a latrine must be taught the importance of using one. And the toilets must be kept clean, a task that frequently falls to the very schoolgirls who were supposed to benefit most.

In Benishangul Gumuz Province in western Ethiopia, where low mountains rise over brilliant yellow fields of oilseeds, such amenities are rare indeed. Guma, a town of 13,000 about an hour's drive from Balizenda over a viciously rutted road, has water only sporadically. The town's main street is dotted with shops, but not one sells sanitary pads. Few residents could afford them anyway. Women make do with folded rags.

Balizenda primary school, with 178 students, is a long, litter-strewn building in a dirt clearing surrounded by brush. Two lopsided reed-walled huts pass for fifth- and sixth-grade classrooms. On the playground soccer field, three tree limbs lashed together form the goal.

With the exception of the first grade, where girls are more than a third of the pupils, Balizenda could be mistaken for an all-boys' school. Only 13 girls are enrolled in grades two through six, and even that is an improvement over three months ago.

"When I came here in September, there was not a single female student" in the entire school, said Tisge Tsegaw, 22, the first-grade teacher. "We went to the homes and motivated the parents, and then they came."

But in many cases, not for long. "The parents prioritize. They figure if the girls stay home, they can do the grinding, help with the harvesting, fetch the water and collect the firewood," Ms. Tsegaw said. "They agree to enroll them. Then after two months, they take them back."

The school's latrine, a hovel of thatch and reeds, fell down last year. Yehwala Mesfin, the school's director, said neither the villagers nor the Education Ministry would help build a new one. Parents viewed their annual rebuilding of the reed-walled fifth- and sixth-grade classrooms as a sufficient contribution, he said.

Ms. Beyene, the fifth-grade teacher who arrived here in September, said she agreed to stay at Balizenda only after Mr. Mesfin promised that she could use a toilet at a health center nearby. But since then, the health center has been closed for lack of staff.

"The majority of time I use the open field," she said. "There is no privacy. Everybody comes, even the students. So we try to restrict ourselves to urinate before school and at nighttime. I already have a kidney infection because of this. My situation is getting worse."

The school's only sixth-grade girls, Mesert Mesfin, 17, and Worknesh Anteneh, 15, said that when they could not resist nature's call, they stood guard for each other in the field. When her period began one recent Thursday morning, Mesert said, she had no choice but to run home. Worknesh said she sometimes avoided school during her period. "It is really a shame," she said. "I am really bothered by this."

Fatimah Bamun, who started school so late that at 14 she is only in fourth grade, said she did not want to miss a single class because she wanted to be a teacher. But, she added, she does not have a lot of backing from her friends.

"I have no friend in the class," she said. "Most of my friends have dropped out to get married. So during the break, I just sit in the classroom and read."

Her father, however, now says he is fully behind her. "The people from the government are all the time telling us to send our daughters to school, and I am listening to these people," he said.

Neither Fatimah's older sister nor mother went to school. And Fatimah is all too familiar with the alternatives for illiterate girls. When she returns home after school each day, she is greeted by another girl, named Eko, who lives in her hut. Thin and poorly dressed, 12 years old at most, Eko is literally a wedding present, given to the Bamuns when Fatimah's sister married Eko's brother.

Before the wedding, Eko was an avid second grader. "I liked school very much; it would have been better to stay in school," she said quietly, picking at her callused hands. Now she is the Bamun family servant, up at sunrise to pound sorghum with a stone for the breakfast porridge. Her education is vicarious.

"She always asks me, 'When are you going to school?' " Fatimah said. " 'What do you do there? What subjects do you study?' "

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company. Reprinted from The New York Times, International, of Friday, December 23, 2005.                                                 

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Ndipe's comment.
Word!

I dont know of any Nigerian girl, from a less privileged background who would shove their face away from Always for attempting to help them out. Needlelady, please you are no ambassador of these girls.

No abortion please. 2 wrongs dont make a right.

@kobojunkie, your school was better, Chei, and I was so flummoxed as to what caused this 'accidents'. Now, I know, expensive tampons and pads force these girls to use an inferior alternative therebuy risking embarrasment and their self dignity. Now, an american company is trying to help out (and what is the Nigerian government doing to assist?) and someone here is taking offense at it. Some people no like good thing.

Why would you expect anybody to come on a public forum and pan their parents?

It does work, only if the couple are willing to compromise. As for me, no compromise when it comes to my Faith. Jesus Christ is the Messiah of the world whether you believe it or not. May God grant me the Grace to continue to uphold my Faith in the Name of Jesus Christ Amen. So, if I tenaciously cling to my beliefs, why then, would I in the name of 'love', albeit, a temporary one compromise my stance on the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ who gave up all for the sake of my soul. Nope!