Children are the glory of marriage. Then there is the glory of the first-born and the glory of the last-born. The first-born is given pre-eminence in all things. He gets the best and the biggest portions. He goes out without being chaperoned. He is treated with great respect by his siblings.

Last Saturday, I was a member of a panel of discussants at a youth forum. One of the questions that came via SMS was from a young man who claimed his fiancée is HIV positive, what should he do? In my response, I said the first issue is, does he love the lady sufficiently enough to want to spend the rest of his life with her? If the response is yes, then he should deal with the HIV issue along with the other issues people involved in courtship should deal with.

They were like identical twins from different mothers. From the now rested Concord Press of Nigeria Limited, publishers of defunct National Concord, Saturday Concord and Sunday Concord newspapers, where they nurtured their friendship and got bonded in the early 1990s till last year, when death snatched one of them, Dimgba Igwe and Mike Awoyinfa have indeed proved to everyone that their friendship was beyond this world.

According to UNICEF Women do 60% of the worlds work but earn only 10% of the world’s income, while reinvesting 90% of their income into families and community.

Buhari is working. As the first 100 days in office approaches, many pundits are presumably getting their pens ready to deliver their judgment on the President’s performance during the period which now seems to have been accepted as a critical point of assessment, at least, in the short term. The President has himself named three critical areas as his initial starting point—economy, security and employment, with no clearly stated priority. His performance will, of course, be examined beyond that.

Suicide is bad but one would understand why Hitler preferred it. The boko haram variety is propelled by the lust for heavenly virgins. The delusional is sick , so his plight is perhaps understandable. But when my undergraduate second cousin drowned herself in shaving powder some years ago because her school boyfriend jilted her, anger more than sorrow took hold of me. Lagos APC is currently possessed by such a terminal folly. Vindictiveness is pathetic.

Fashola is also—or should be—the poster child for APC. He set a bench mark for what governance should be and his achievements were recognised by friends and foes alike. Yet by all accounts, judging by the way political outings are rated, it was a dismal outing. None, as in none, of the political heavyweights was in attendance. The Oba of Lagos, Rilwan Akiolu who normally loves these things could not find the time to honour one of his own. If the de facto Chairman of APC was absent for reasons best known to him, what about the de jour Chairman?

Last weekend, a Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, senator I’ve known for many years heard that I had a personal problem that was giving me sleepless nights; and he contacted me, invited me to his home and went out of his way to help me solve my problem.

I was deeply touched by his brotherly concern and practical assistance, especially since we had been on opposite sides during the recent elections.
I had vociferously campaigned for the All Progressives Congress, APC, and Muhammadu Buhari, while he had thrown his weight behind ex-President Goodluck Jonathan.

EUROPE is in panic. No, not because of tumbling stocks over what they see as China ‘slowing down’. This itself is intriguing; fanatical prophets and apostles of market forces, begging the Chinese Government to intervene in the Stock Market. The panic is about the tidal waves of migrants from war torn countries, surviving the seas, especially the Mediterranean, to make landfall on European coasts.

Anybody that is HIV positive, we refer them to the hospitals and we don’t just stop at that we follow up and make sure they are well taken care of, we make sure they take their drugs but the issue is that we also engage them to be on our support group where we take care of our clients that are positive and they benefit from our support group.