By Morenike Taire
You feel you are in their lives, those sometimes doubtful characters that live inside your television and get you holding your breath every so often when you watch them. You get sucked in, too involved. You take sides in the conflicts. You feel their fears, tensions, joy.

You are absolutely touched when something touching happens to them. You know them. You worry about them. You are more faithful about your dates with them than you are even with your boss. They are the icing on the cake of your day.

•Main cast of Tinsel

If you are a woman, you probably understand the effect soap operas have on you. They shape the thinking of whole generations and if you indulge, the way you live, love and work has probably been influenced by one or the other.

And for every woman who has burned the dinner or stabbed an appointment to meet up for that all important soap episode where you will learn exactly just what new drama your favourite character has been up to, guilt is a recurrent factor. In addition, men love to berate women and pigeonhole them as being fickle minded, emotional or trivial.

Yet Soap Operas are actually good for you. Here’s why, according to experts:

They Help you Relax

Soaps change the state of mind of the person who watches them, making you forget about the daily routine.

They Educate you

They last for a long period of time and they give you the opportunity to learn the spoken language, especially in the Latino ones. As well as this, some soaps deal with problems like drugs, alcohol, drinking and so on.

Increasingly, soap operas, or telenovelas, are being used throughout the world to disseminate messages about health issues such as the need for contraception, domestic violence, HIV/AIDS, nutrition, how to achieve peace between countries in conflict and how to elevate the status of women in developing countries. By identifying themselves with the protagonists’ dreams and problems the viewer establishes an immediate connection with them.

They let you Dream

Many soaps feature rich, powerful and glamorous protagonists and antagonists, sucking you into their world. Many successful women have become so just by following soaps and dreaming of being like their favourite successful character.

They coach you for life

Soaps usually run over the course of years and you get to see many changes in the characters. You watch them make bad decisions, as we all do in life, and you see what the consequences can be. They teach all kinds of life lessons including knowing all the money in the world cannot buy happiness. You can also learn to forgive people who have wronged you.

Expressions

100 days: Jonathan administration food policy flawed

President Goodluck Jonathan made clear his dislike for a good, healthy, mudslinging debate earlier in the year when prior to this year’s presidential elections, he declined to attend the regular parley with the other candidates and chose, rather, to do a one man show after he had had the privilege of seeing what the competition had on him.

Clearly, he is one for a one man show, and so was in his elements this week in his latest media chat where he spoke brilliantly about sundry issues concerning the nation- more brilliantly, one could dare say, than he had during his campaign.

One of the subjects he was most passionate about, in that event, was that of the country’s agriculture policy. Unfortunately, over this very crucial matter considering rising costs of food globally and the slipping value of the naira, Mr. President appears not to have any better ideas than the average secondary school kid, even in Nigeria.

To say mechanized farming is the future is actually saying nothing. To be unable to give any clear insights into how the administration hopes to draw the younger generations into the agric sector is exhibit little understanding of the problem. To peg the whole policy on the brilliance of the minister in charge is to be escapist at the very least and to refer to Agriculture as a business is heresy, plain and simple.

This is perhaps what happens when you ask a theorist to come and play politics.

Elections tribunal or not, Jega owes us a better explanation

What is to be made about the report that the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) secretary Buba Galadima has accused the PDP, at the court of appeal Abuja during an election tribunal hearing involving his party, of printing excess ballot papers in order to rig the presidential elections in May.

Jega

Sounds a little strange now, since INEC boss Atahiru Jega had been forgiven and transformed into the blue-eyed boy of the Nigerian quest for political reforms, but it was not so long ago that Nigeria roared up in rage over cancellation of elections over the botching of the printing of ballot papers.

The elections were postponed and the INEC boss had taken the gallant road, taken responsibility, apologized and made amends. The one thing he did not do and ought to have done for the sake of transparency, is to have given the facts out to the public, especially with regard to costs. When public information is treated like classified information, the chickens come home to roost.