With more than 40 million Nigerians as healthy carriers of sickle cell gene (Hb AS) and over 150,000 babies born each year in Nigeria with sickle cell anaemia (Hb SS), the country is believed to have the largest burden of the disorder in the world. Due to ignorance, lack of access to correct diagnosis/proper care and funding for research, most of these children will die in childhood.

A trip to Igbologun community, located on Snake Island, Lagos, can be scary.

It was in Auchi, sometime around 1986, when in company of a few friends, we visited our mutual friend Clem Agba, who was in town on holiday from Bendel State University Ekpoma where he was a student of Economics. Two things struck me on that particular occasion. The excitement in Clem’s voice when he introduced the young lady we met at his home as Orobosa his heartthrob and the warm reception she accorded us throughout the time we spent with them that day.

WE will be watching out for buyers and sellers; all we need is just a scapegoat. Don’t buy plantain chips or any other items in traffic from July 1, buyers beware. The issue is we need to enforce our laws because we already have a law in respect of that and then there is a clause in it which says the buyer and the seller are both liable and that we are going to fine them either N90, 000 or a six-month jail term. ”

CALABAR—THE crisis rocking the Capital Traders Umbrella Association, CATU, Watt Market, Calabar, Cross River State, over a purported diversion of N50 million small-scale loans obtained from the Federal Government through the Bank of Agriculture, BOA, in 2012, has taken a new dimension, as aggrieved members have dragged their leaders before the Obong of Calabar.