(ifekaokonkwo@yahoo.com) is the most vociferous reader of this column. Highly opinionated, unrepentantly blunt and almost gleefully unsychophantic, he takes his democratic and human rights very seriously indeed and flatly refuses to be as bovinely philosophical as most of us are about the multiple disappointments that the average Nigerian faces.

It has to be said that Nigerian oil barons are not famed for passionately campaigning for the victims of oil exploration.

LAST week, I criticised Anglican traditionalists who have prevented women from becoming Bishops. I expressed the opinion that female and male priests should have equal status and identical promotion prospects in this day and age.

ON Tuesday, the Church of England’s General Synod said “no” to women bishops. Even though the modernisers were only narrowly beaten – by a mere six votes – the traditionalists’ victory is immensely significant, not least because this matter cannot be voted upon again until a new Synod is elected in 2015.

THANK YOU to all the Vanguard readers who kindly sent commiserative emails and text messages when they discovered, via last week’s column, that I had been very ill. Many comments were made about the fact that I only started to recover from my ailment when I was flown out of Nigeria and handed over to British doctors.