A life goes through many phases, we grow from the time we are born and pass through many things. Through the course of our life’s journey we evolve with the passage of time becoming different things to different people.

At the beginning of a venture, certain persons who show ample brightness sometimes end up badly thereby losing the accolades they had received.

In simple terms, religious intolerance or fanaticism is the inability of an adherent of a particular religion to acknowledge, accommodate and accept the right of others to live by another faith different from his own.

Ms. Mma Odi is the Executive Director for Baobab for Women’s Human Rights, a non-governmental organisation in the vanguard of promoting the rights of women in Nigeria and Africa. Baobab is the Secretariat for the Nigerian NGO-CEDAW Coalition, a coalition established in 1997 to give a voice to the issues of the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women(CEDAW) in Nigeria. Here, Mma Odi who is a veteran in gender activism, bares her mind on gender concerns in the 1999 Constitution proposed for review by the National Assembly. Hear her:

“I am pessimistic about the human race because it is too ingenious for its own good. Our approach to nature is to beat it into submission. We would stand a better chance of survival if we accommodated ourselves to this planet and viewed it appreciatively instead of sceptically and dictatorially.” — E.B. White

The Spanish author of that hilarious piece, whose name escapes my memory at the moment, was commenting on the Falklands/Malvilands war involving Britain and Argentina in I982. The remote and virtually useless cluster of islands, captured by Britain from Spain, in an earlier era of colonial expansion, became the reason for carnage in that year.

A life goes through many phases, we grow from the time we are born and pass through many things. Through the course of our life’s journey we evolve with the passage of time becoming different things to different people. Our personalities change from time to time and we adapt as a direct result of our experiences to whatever reality confronts us.

At the beginning of a venture, certain persons who show ample brightness sometimes end up badly thereby losing the accolades they had received. Indeed, when the indictment of any person is done or endorsed by the Judiciary, withdrawing the honours does not call for controversy.

*The signing into law of the symbols of nationhood by the Bayelsa State Government, this past week, adds a warning note to the anxiety expressed about the crumbling unity of Nigeria—but who is listening? The subsidy “robbery” raised a bit of noise in the recent past, but did the indictment stop where it should? More about that in the future.

Nothing can be as gazundering as the launch penultimate week of a particular type of Television that uses battery as its source of energy.