Boko Haram! The evil sect purportedly released a video footage of some of the missing school girls, which was broadcast to the whole world on the 12th of May 2014. The leader of the Sect Ababakar Shekau appeared and claimed to have converted the non Muslim school girls to Muslims. The Girls all dressed in full Muslim dresses, were seen reciting some Islamic verses. Abubakar Shekau asked the federal government to release Boko Haram prisoners before they release our girls. Put differently, he was proposing a deal of swapping our girls for dangerous criminals.

Much have been written and said about the abduction of over 200 Secondary School girls in Chibok by Boko Haram. It would have no doubt been traumatic and depressing for the parents of the girls. A common parlance in Yoruba language ‘omo mi ku san ju omo mi sonu lo’ (a situation of my child is dead is better than that of my child is missing) is apt. One cannot but sympathise with these parents who are so unfortunate.

LEARNED helplessness wasfirst demonstrated by Martin Seligman and his colleagues. They identified conditions under which dogs would demonstrate apathetic behaviour when they were punished by means of electric shock. In the experiment, dogs were continually electrocuted to the point where they simply accepted electrocution and did not try to escape it.

I AM one of those who have wondered why President Goodluck Jonathan has been unusually slow in taking a decisive action on the ‘kidnap’ of 234 students of the Government Girls’ Secondary school, Chibok in Borno state.

DEATH is the last crowning glory of every man’s sojourn on earth. The fool will die. The wise will die. The rich will die and the poor will also not escape the deadly and cold grip of death. The deadly thing about death is that it will come when it will come. Some die at birth.