They say home is where the heart is and that normally assumes a home is a place. A place where one can lay a weary head, find some emotional and physical nourishment and retreat from the world to refresh and re energise. In the process of my personal evolution I have concluded that a home does not necessarily have to be a place; a physical location.

“No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in jail, with the chance of being drowned” – Dr Samuel Johnson, 1709-1784.

A truly rich man is one whose children run into his arms when his hands are empty.-Anonymous
I cannot tell you when I first had my first proper conversations with my dad, but I know he has always been present and handing out those pearls of wisdom of his for as long as I can remember. I know for sure , that I am a daddy’s girl and when I was younger, I remember going to my father to report my mother!

The caption of our discussion today is cloned from Walter Rodney’s How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, but its major thrust is not the recurrent problem of underdevelopment in Nigeria.

It’s always a joy to hear of women who are dogged in the pursuit of their ambition. Women who don’t allow culture or the usual societal concept of what a woman has been assigned by nature to be in life, discourage them from what they desire to be, or, what they want to do with their lives.

All these events swirling around us embodying power outage, poor health delivery, bad roads, dysfunctional so-called amenities, brutal insecurity, stifling corruption and ineffective leadership strike one as a mirror of our society. They express a sad comment about what we are, and who we are.

I AM in the fortunate position of being able to explore the world at intervals, either at my own expense or courtesy of various media organisations and government bodies. And I’m in Singapore at the moment with a Greater Port Harcourt City Development Authority, GPHCDA, delegation.

RECENT events in the country, especially the security situation, have put heavy burden on leadership at every stage, and especially on national leadership.

I AM in the fortunate position of being able to explore the world at intervals, either at my own expense or courtesy of various media organisations and government bodies. And I’m in Singapore at the moment with a Greater Port Harcourt City Development Authority, GPHCDA, delegation.

I have to tell this story to President Goodluck Jonathan for he is also the patron of Nigeria Olympic Committee.