DON’T KILL THAT SPARK OF LOVE

DON’T KILL THAT SPARK OF LOVE

It started like every normal day until I received an SOS call from my bosom friend. He was a mental and emotional wreck when I arrived. I had hardly entered the room when I noticed everything was not right. The sitting room was in a state that appeared as if two elephants had used it as a wrestling ring, and the “other room” I can’t even describe the state it was on. The mattress was torn in pieces, the TV that used to hang on the wall was shaking from the wire that was firmly attached to the wall, it had been smashed to pieces and on first thought I felt armed robbers had invaded his apartment. I was scared.

“what happened” I asked “ have you called the police?” where is your wife?”

I was in a state of bewilderment when he told me it was his wife and he who had fought and damaged the house to the state it was in and she had packed her stuff and left. She had been asking for a divorce but he had repeatedly decided not to oblige her with it. Until that day.

I sat down and remembered how he had ran into my room and was describing the love of his life to me.

“It had started as every other day and I had been going about my normal duties when I met her.” He had begun with excitement immediately he saw me. “ First, I was captivated by her radiance and childish laughter. When she turned and our eyes met, she gave me a smile which melted my heart instantly. I was fixated and fascinated simultaneously. I tried to move but, my knees could not carry me. I wanted to tell her how I felt but I could not. I had to sit for a while to let my knees recover from the chemical paralysis that resulted from the emotional outburst. When I sat, I looked at her and met her gaze. Her charming look appeared as though she was gazing into my soul and at that instance, I knew I was locked into an emotional journey. But I could not tell her how I felt because I was scared she would not have the same feelings I had.”

 I tried to pause him so I could get the story straight but he couldn’t keep quiet. I had to wait patiently till he poured out his mind and when he was done I smiled and told him I was happy for him. Two weeks later, he could not stop talking about his dream girl who I later got to as Agatha.

“Falling in love is an experience everybody should have.” He had begun again on that day, “ I would find myself wide awake in the middle of the night with thoughts of her, I wanted the best for her, I hoped she’d rise high and attain so much. I planned to take her to so many places on earth. I would have this heavenly fantasy about her. I saw us going to different planets… infact, I once had a fantasy where I was in what could best be described as heaven with her. I knew from that experience that she was the one meant for me. I couldn’t help but talk about her everywhere and with everyone I knew, but I could not tell her, indeed I lacked the courage to express myself to her. I hoped she could have the power of telepathy.”

At that moment, I knew my friend was madly in love with Agatha. I encouraged him to open up to her and to my pleasant surprise, she had actually felt the same way he had. It wasn’t long before they had hit it off and started dating.

My friend had his dream girl and I was there when he proposed to her. His wedding was the talk of the town and he kept everyone talking about them. He would take her out to the garden and show public display of affection. Infact, on this fateful day, they were in a public display of affection when a police patrol van pulled over and got them arrested. I learnt the hard way that day that in the constitution of Nigeria, (or is it the Nigerian police?) exhibiting public display of affection is a criminal offence.

So you can imagine my surprise when I went into his apartment and saw the state of their affairs. I was even bewildered by his next statement.

“Uchenna,” he began “I want a divorce”

You could imagine how shocked I was. I used to see him as my role model and I had planned to model my relationship the way he handled his.

“what are you talking about?” I asked, perplexed.

“I’m tired of pretending, I don’t love her anymore. I want out.” He said firmly.

Eventually, their relationship had deteriorated a long time ago but they had been trying with futility to hide the fact that they were no more in love with each other. Most times, they would fight and still go to an occasion together just to keep up their image.

Relationships are bliss, but they can be the worst nightmare anyone can have. My friend’s love story gone sour has been experienced by many married couples and accounts for the high rate of divorce cases in the country at present.

Falling out of love is a gradual process which begins with taking each other for granted. When couples meet newly, they are both excited and look forward to spending more time with each other, they have high hopes and expectations from their partners  but gradually, the façade begins to fall off and they both realize they are humans and that is where it begins, people start taking each other for granted.

Being in a relationship means one must be committed to making it work. At every point in time, each partner should aspire for the best of their spouse. A little thought about how to put a smile in the face of a beloved is all that is required to make a happy relationship.

Couples tend to take each other for granted after getting to know each other. The mistake of pushing a spouse to the background, or making other things (or other people) a priority is the first step for losing the relationship. Beyond taking people for granted, couples should strive to make out time for each other on a daily basis.

Let me cast a scenario for you. It is possible to live in the same room with a person and gradually lose touch with that same person. When a couple starts living together after marriage, the closeness can be either a good thing to strengthen their bond, or it could make them begin to drift apart. They wake up in the morning and prepare to leave the house for their various occupations then they return in the evening, have their dinner, and go to bed, the cycle continues till they begin to observe that they have not been expressing themselves to each other. Soon they find it difficult to speak with each other, the little crack becomes a big hole that might result into a gully. Couples stop complementing each other and within a few months, they start seeking attention outside their relationship.

Communication is the greatest asset a relationship can possess and any couple who lack it should endeavor to bring it into their relationship. Many people have misunderstandings because they find it difficult to open up to each other. Couples should always be open to each other to ensure that their relationship remains evergreen.

The spark of love that begins when a person meets his or her spouse and at that instance, people are wont to hide their real selves, or should I say, they don’t really express who they really are, until they have gone a distance in the relationship and then they begin to see the “other side” of their spouse and reality begins to set in. it is important to note that it would be better if people stop expecting too much from their spouse and start seeing them from the onset as humans who have their various shortcomings. Almost every relationship that have stood the test of time are those in which both couples tend to exhibit a high sense of maturity and they see their spouse as fellow humans rather than those who see their spouses as superhumans and as such expect too much from them and when that is not forthcoming, they become disappointed and as such begin to seek for the missing link outside their relationship.

I would rather not have another relationship fade away into a state where divorce would be an option, let us endeavor to nurture the spark that begins when we first met our spouse and ensure that the fire is kept alive and not let it quench. Whatever happens, please, don’t kill that spark of love.

Thank You.

DISGUISE

DISGUISE

On the day of the first instance

When my eyes beheld your grandeur

That by a strange happenstance

I saw the spire of my desire

Which in the eyes of my obvious stance

Will satisfy the goal of my aspire

Then you say to me “Shalom”

You becloud my sagacious spirit

With the bait of euphoric spire

And blind me with your salve

To your sacramental – sacrilegious slag

That I cannot resist your sally

So I surrender to your charming siren

Then you say to me “Shalom”

You come to me with your charm

And by sleight of hand imprison my stance

That as a singleton your sisal binds

Yet with skirmish silence I submit

You make a simpleton sire your sublime

With nothing save yourself to mind

Then you say to me “Shalom”

On the day of the first instance

With the bait of euphoric spire

You come to me with your charm

Yet with skirmish silence I observe

And see the guile beneath the charm

And when you say to me “Shalom”

I unfold the mask beneath the guise.

                                                            UGAH UCHENNA

                                                            29/04/2011

KILL THAT CRAVE

KILL THAT CRAVE

I became friends with Joy when I was frequenting the hospital. Joy was an amiable nurse and she can best be described as a nurse’s nurse. Her relationship with her patients was out of this world and that was the most beautiful thing about her. She was like a lamb among wolves.

We live in a community where nurses are not caring, doctors relate with their patients in impersonal manner and the central focus appears to be the financial proceeds of their professional expertise. You can appreciate why the little few who stick tenaciously to the core practice of their various professions distinguish themselves.

On one of my visits to see Joy, I was frustrated with the mannerisms with which a doctor treated a patient so I had to take it up with him. And in his defense, he replied that many patients escape from the hospital and do not fulfill their obligation of paying the hospital bill and because the system was not designed to be a charitable organization, they had to look to their financial interest to ensure sustainability. Sustainability of the healthcare services at the detriment of the human lives they were meant to preserve, protect and serve. I was depressed. I wouldn’t even delve into the numerous lives that have been lost as a result of negligence.

Well, on this fateful day, I decided to pay amiable nurse Joy a visit. We had become friends and I was always looking forward to visiting her in the hospital and watching her from a distance as she treated and nursed her patients back to health.

Nurse Joy was soft spoken and made it a duty to know the names of all her patients. She had an uncanny way of relating with each patient as if they had known all their lives. On that day, I had waited for close to 30 minutes before she concluded with her last patient and came to meet me. But we were not done with exchanging pleasantries when a patient was rushed in. she was pregnant and she was in a critical condition.

Her husband kept running helter-skelter in a frantic effort to ensure that his wife received the necessary urgent medical attention she desperately required. In a quick succession, Nurse Joy started the initial resuscitation exercise. After doing all she could, she wheeled the patient into the theatre and all we could do was to wait for the outcome of the medical procedure.

It took over three hours before they were done and had her wheeled back to the ward.

She had lost her pregnancy.

I cannot describe the pains the couple passed through. The silence between them was so strong you could literally touch the tension in the air, and Nurse Joy was not just devastated, she was an emotional wreck.

“I told her” she lamented “I warned her” she kept lamenting. “she killed the poor baby” she muttered.

It happened that it was their first pregnancy and the cravings were uncontrollable. She attended Antenatal clinic with Viju Milk, doughnut and meatpie, eggroll, chips, spring rolls amongst others. Not up to an hour after masticating them, she called her husband and demanded for shawarma, ice cream and soda. At the end of the first antenatal clinic, she had consumed so many junks that could feed an entire classroom.

You see, the constituents and process of producing most of these junks make them to acquire mutagens, most of which are teratogenic (meaning that they have the ability to cause tumors in a foetus) hence they can result in congenital malformations (don’t mind the big medical jargon, it simply implies that the foetus will not be formed well and so would be damaged) and can lead to spontaneous abortion. This may present as miscarriage during early pregnancies but when the foetus has gotten to an advanced developmental stage, the result might be what happened to the pregnant lady.

Please, no matter how much you crave these sweeties, they should be avoided during pregnancy as much as possible. As a matter of fact, the period of pregnancy is the period that women should feed mostly on natural foods for the health of the baby.

I would not want to see another soul pass through the harrowing experience of the couple I met in that hospital as much as I would rather not see Nurse Joy in such an emotional state anymore. We can with effective will power overcome the crave that may arise when we anticipate and plan for it ahead of time (did I say we? I hope I would not be tongue lashed for this).

I would love nothing more than to see you in good and perfect health. Remember to keep off those sweeties that have the potential to destroy our unborn generation.

Thank you.

BIG TEDDY LOST IT

BIG TEDDY LOST IT

when I went to pay a visit to my brother, I ran into Big Teddy  at Abuja after close to a decade. I was pleasantly surprised to see him. My bus had just entered the park and I set down before the driver could turn off the ignition. I was exasperated from the long journey and the dilapidated road.

My visit to Abuja had been scheduled numerous times and cancelled because I had very slim free time to rest. Infact, I had cancelled the trip so many times that my brother had almost given up on my visit. The last time I cancelled I could feel the disappointment in his voice and with my mind’s eye I could see his countenance fall and his expression lowered like a child who had been expectant of a birthday present only to discover that the parents have forgotten the date.

“Really? I won’t see you again tomorrow?” he had asked with disappointment in his voice. 

The excitement he had called me with made me feel a burning sensation on my chest, my mouth dried up immediately and I had to swallow hard while carefully picking my next line tobreak the ugly news to him. I had been so busy that I had forgotten to call him earlier and cancel the trip. When he called that night, I was still working. Immediately I saw his name on the caller ID I felt this heavy sense of guilt because I had forgotten to cancel the trip earlier. I knew, with that line of question with a disappointed undertone that he had gone to the market and had prepared my favorite soup. I had to muster up the courage to apologize.

“something came up, brother” I managed to say “ I will visit you as soon as I can” I could not say more because I was laden with guilt.

When he dropped the call, I knew he was would never expect my visit again so I decided I would pay him a surprise visit when next I was free to travel.

Describing the journey as a harrowingly terrible one would be an understatement. I had bought the ticket on the eve of the day for the journey and had been told that the bus would be leaving by 6am. I had been up as early as 4am to prepare for the journey and had gotten to the terminal before the nick of time. But, the bus was not filled and I had to wait till 10am before they could get all the passengers they needed.

We had not travelled for up to 30kilometres when the car broke down and we had to wait for close to two hours under an excruciating heat from the sun before the car was fixed and ready for departure. We all boarded again and most of the passengers were throwing tantrums at the driver who did not have the gentility to swallow the insults in quietness. While the verbal bullets where flying through the bus, the driver was preoccupied with the skirmish that he did not observe his dashboard to notice that the fuel gauge was in the red alert zone. It wasn’t long before the engine turned off in the middle of nowhere and there was no petrol station in sight.

The mechanic had used a greater quantity of the fuel to fix the bus when it broke down and the driver had forgotten to replace it. It took us more than an hour before he could board a bus to the nearest petrol station and return with the precious commodity.

By the time we were setting off again, all the passengers were livid with anger. We were so angry that we could not complain about the dilapidated state of the road. Just when were about getting calmed after the heated emotional outbursts, we ran into a traffic jam which was caused by a complete breakdown of a bridge so we had to navigate our journey through a longer bush path than ran through the houses of the villagers and we had to move at a snail’s pace. By the time we arrived our destination, we were all exasperated from the tortuous journey.

The car had hardly stopped when I set down and flagged down a cab. The driver looked at me desperately while I described my destination. I asked him the cost of the fare but he kept staring at me. He stared so hard I felt he didn’t understand the language I spoke. So I decided to revert to creole and repeat the destination in the language which I felt he would understand.

“oga, na after that market for Area One I dey go” I started, in creole “ you sabi that fly over wey dey after that Mega filling station? If you pass am small, you go reach the market, enhe, then you go negotiate through that bank…”

“Uchenna!” He screamed, cutting in.

Now, I was shocked. I took a second look at him and behold it was my long lost friend who was now the cab man.

“Big Teddy!” I screamed.

We hugged so tight that passersby had to stop and take a second glance at us. Big Teddy had changed so much; he was wrinkled and looked close to twenty years older than his real age.

Big Teddy was my childhood friend. He earned the name from his big size and his love for teddy bears. We had grown up with very great plans for the future. We had big plans for ourselves, we would sit outside during break time and talk about how we would be big men, how we would be very wealthy and influential. 

We had great goals and plans and high ambitions for ourselves. He had wanted to be an aeronautical engineer. After we were taught about Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin how they walked on the moon, Big Teddy had said he would build giant spacecrafts and would explore the universe with his team.

We settled at a bar, close to my brother’s house after I reached home to inform him that I had arrived. And I asked him how he ended up as a taxi driver.

Many of us grow up with very high hopes for the future. Even as undergraduates, many of my colleagues aspired to work in the oil companies and most of them would brag about their parents or uncles working in these big companies and how they have been promised employment. Some would even note that the school was tying them down as they wish they could graduate immediately to start pursuing their careers. But the graduation day would arrive and they would go out to the larger society and meet with reality.

The reality is that people lie to themselves about three things;

i.             They view themselves in implausibly positive ways.

ii.           They think they have far more control over their lives than they actually do.

iii.         They believe the future will be better than the evidence of the present can possibly justify.

The truth is that whatsoever the human mind can conceive and can believe is possible can be achieved, but the problem with most of us is that we find it difficult to focus long enough on what we truly want, we are easily distracted by frivolities and we find it difficult to plan on how to achieve our life goals and targets.

We only think positive about ourselves and find it difficult to reason about our actions with a rational mindset. We think we have all the control over our lives and can as well control others, we believe the future is cutout to look so good for us that we most times ignore the big roles we have to play towards achieving the dreams we have about ourselves.

It is important to note that while every aspiration we have ever desired can be achieved, we need to learn about the power of focus. We must show that we are committed to our cause. Whatever we aim to be, we must strive on daily basis to achieve it. Our plans must be unambiguous and our goals must be predetermined and our focus must be very sharp as to what we aim to achieve in the long run.

We must start now to make plans for a year, two years, five years, a decade, twenty years, fifty years and even up to a century. We must start projects that would outlive us and must evolve ways in which our long term goals can be broken down to the smallest actions which we must carry out on daily basis that will result in achieving the big goals we have set out for ourselves. One can only say he is successful if that person had a goal which was achieved.

The essence of breaking down big goals into smaller goals is because when we achieve the smaller goals, we are more encouraged to remain on the path that will lead to the attainment of the larger goals.

Many people discover to their chagrin that while they were distracted and started chasing the shadows, a decade had passed.

Big Teddy told me his story which I must confess is a very pathetic one, we should strive to always stay on our path so that we would not lose our goals.

Thank you.

THE DEVIL IS INNOCENT

THE DEVIL IS INNOCENT

It was a beautiful evening years ago when almost all the students were hurrying to leave the hostel and go to their various hideouts and start reading when Patrick (Not his real name o, so he won’t lynch me after reading this, but he knows himself) was busy arranging his Bible, prayer book and lantern. I was perplexed because there was no haste in his pace. He was relaxed.

My secondary school had this policy that everyone who was unable to have a minimum average of 50 marks when the scores of first, second and third terms were summed for each subject, especially the core science subjects would repeat the class. Many students did not plan for the average and would not put much effort for first and second terms and as such would have to work very hard to earn very high scores so that they can meet up with the 50mark cut-off when the ‘day of reckoning’ as we always called it arrives.

Now, this attitude of most students waiting for the last minute before doing what would have easily  achieved earlier and as such resulting in a last minute rush to get things done when the deadline has almost arrived is a practice virtually every Nigerian can relate with because it can be seen in virtually every fabric of the nation. That attitude is a topic for another day but it sets us back and we should evolve strategies to overcome it and imbibe the attitude of making plans early and initiating those plans. It is also the reason for our infamous ‘African Time’ still another area I wouldn’t like to delve into at the moment.

Now you can relate with my surprise at his nonchalant attitude towards his academics. My surprise was even greater because usually during the weeks preceding examinations, the school abhors spiritual programs of any sort, both Christians and Muslims. But here was Patrick, getting ready with his prayer materials.

“Pato” I asked “where are you heading to? Na Bible and prayer book you wan jack?”

“Oh boy, I dey enter chapel” he replied.

“wetin dey happen there this period wey I no know?” I inquired further and I could see I was getting on his nerves.

“I wan go pray.”

“You want to go and pray when we are all going to read for exams? You want to fail?”

“I want to seek the face of God” He blurted with confidence “ I cannot fail, reading is nothing, I have declared a one week prayer and fasting for this exams. My God cannot disappoint me, he would show me the way and point me to things I would write.” He concluded.

I was taken aback by such barefaced self-deceit.

Here was a man who had been taught just like everyone else and who needed to study harder so he could earn higher marks to meet up with the 50mark average but all he wanted to do was to declare a seven days fasting and prayer to “Seek the face of God.”

Even in our Universities, I noticed that many students who headed various fellowships performed poorly and most of them had to spill over because they had excess carry overs and as such could not graduate at the time their peers graduated because they had more interest and paid more time to the fellowship than to their academics.

Patrick failed and was told to repeat the class. Did God not answer him?

Every Sunday, Christians throng to their various places of worship and lift up holy hands and sing and shout Haleluyah and believe that their problems are over by shouting Haleluyah. Churches get filled and in one street alone you can see up to twenty churches. Infact, there is hardly a street in Nigeria without a church. The problem is that with the increase in the number and population of churches, there is increase in the problems of the country. Worst still, many Christians believe that they can shout Haleluyah and achieve success.

A big lie most Christians tell themselves.

It is not by magic that the richest black man in Africa is not a Christian. He did not become successful by lifting his hands and shouting praises.

Success comes by self-determination, hard work, inspiration and perspiration. You cannot fold your hands and become successful. Going to church should be for spiritual growth and not for material success.

We lie to ourselves about so many things and it is about time we started telling ourselves the truth. For instance, we cannot depend on prayers when we should be working on how to fix our dear country. I have looked at different developed countries and observed that when they begin to hold themselves responsible for the woes befalling them as a nation, they begin to workout modalities to fix that problem. Unlike our country where we blame everything on the devil. Herdsmen invade villages and kill people and the State Governor would tell them to pray. Really, I find that absurd and an excuse for laziness and ineptitude. Why would prayer be declared when the right thing should be to beef up the security, acquire helicopters to ease security checks and hold the security operatives responsible for any breakdown in law and order. I was not surprised when on subsequent attacks by herdsmen, a Seminarian was killed. Does it mean God did not answer their prayers? Or was it the handiwork of the devil?

Many Christians have abrogated too many powers to the devil even more that he can lay claim to and that should stop. I do not believe that the devil has any role to play in whatever concerns me. People may decide to be wicked because of their personal  aggrandizements but the devil has no such power, the devil knows nothing about me and cannot see anything about me. Infact, with the way people go about accusing him, I believe he is too busy attending to those who fan his embers to know my location. So why make him a hero and make him out to be something he is not?

The reason is simple, because we have chosen to either be lazy or to be irresponsible. When we take a look at the state of our nation with respect to basic amenities like water, power, good roads and the like we should not deceive ourselves that it is the devil at work that is stopping us from getting things right.

That would be outright cowardice, to say the least. The right people to be held responsible are those who were awarded the contracts to carry out those projects like constructing the roads, or building the power plants or water schemes and who fleeced the nation dry and made away with our commonwealth whom should be held responsible because believe it or not, the devil is innocent.

Now, to our personal lives, let us stop blaming the devil for our personal woes. You did not cheat on your spouse because the devil pushed you to do it, you did not inflate the contract or steal the billions because it is the handiwork of the devil, you did not loot the treasury or deceive the masses because it was the handiwork of the devil. Those acts were committed due to human lusts, greed and inordinate ambition and should I add wickedness? The devil did not push you to do those things, that is why there is SELF WILL, in all these accusations, the devil is innocent.

Also, you are not broke because the devil is tying down your destiny hence you need to go to church and raise your hands and shout Halleluyah and expect to become successful, NO! if you don’t have a job, look for something small you can do, start a business, think outside the box. The honest truth is that there is hardly any civil servant who is really stupendously wealthy. Such wealth mostly comes by growing a business or by providing the solution to a problem.

Please, when next you are in church and you are lifting up Holy hands, let it be because you are worshipping your God, remember that success comes by preplanned actions that is directional, it starts with the little things you do every day and is brought about by conscious efforts. Also, before you blame anyone for any misdeeds,  remember that the devil is innocent.

Thank you.

SHE KILLED HIM?

SHE KILLED HIM?

I walked in on my neighbors arguing about how long we live, and why people die so young in our generation. There was a gloomy atmosphere because we just lost one of our neighbors. He just got married and hadn’t been with his wife for up to three years, worst still, her belly bump was just appearing and we have been congratulating him.

He had been married for more than two years and as is our custom of making other people’s privacy our business, we had taken interest when after six months there was no sign of pregnancy. His wife was beautiful, gorgeous and had this aura around her that made us all attracted to her… and she was soft spoken with a voice that was always pleasant to the ears and had the innocence of a child. You can see, with all these sterling qualities, we had great interest in seeing babies run around their home. Many of my neighbors would always tell her to hurry up and get them a female child so they can get their sons betrothed to her girls. We had all been expectant.

Oh, I didn’t tell you that she was a great cook as well. We were always captivated by the aroma from her kitchen. She would fry almost everything she cooked and the aroma would fill the air making us all to salivate. Many times, the single neighbors would drop into her apartment at “the nick of time” on Sunday afternoons. It was always easy to guess when the food would be ready so one would be invited to join the table. Almost everyone expected her meals on festive days.

Now, my neighbors were arguing the cause of early death among young adults, and wondered why people no longer live as long as our ancestors. One of them said humans are supposed to be living for close to a millennium like Adam, Methuselah, Noah and the like when I joined the discussion.

“Remember” I told them “that during that era, the Julian calendar was not being used and time is not counted as we count it today,  that means the 500 years you hear may just be seventy years by our calendar. Was it not a few centuries ago that we started using the Julian calendar?” I could see the awe in their eyes so I continued “ You know April 1^st used to be the beginning of the year at a time, and if you compare our calendar with the Chinese and the Arabs, you will see that there are various differences in dates, so don’t just jump into conclusions. However, it is true that they lived longer than us.” I concluded.

Well, one of the reasons why they had longer lifespan was because they were eating mostly natural foods. Their vegetables were planted by them and they had to qualms in getting whatever they needed from their farms. Recall that they were greatly dependent on subsistence farming and there was minimal interference by industrialization.

Now, things have changed and we have evolved new ways of cooking. We like to eat fried foods because it tastes better. However, it is important to note that there was very little or no frying of foods till the 19^th century. Little wonder those guys lived long and had minimal terminal diseases.

Cooking oils used to fry foods is made up of saturated fat and trans fat. They can easily permeate into foods and that is the reason why fried foods take shorter time to cook when they are fried. I wish to reiterate that eating fried foods has an adverse effect on health. Deep fried foods can contain acrylamide which is a carcinogen, and as is the practice, there is a very high tendency to reuse the oil that was used to fry, the reused oil may cause vascular hypertrophy and has the potential to increase blood pressure.

What more can I say, eating fried foods causes high cholesterol level (which is a prerequisite for many heart diseases), obesity, diabetes and heart attack (remember that high cholesterol can lead to many heart diseases which can ultimately culminate in a heart attack). Worst still it increases the risk for various cancers, especially prostate cancer (men, please take note of this). To add salt to injury, frying of foods causes a drastic reduction in the nutritional value of the food. So what really is the advantage of frying food when it has all these negative effects? I mean, what other effect beside the sweet taste?

Now, could it be the tasty and aromatic foods which are mostly fried that killed my neighbor? I wondered, but I can’t tell because I am not about performing an autopsy. Could it be the reason for the sudden death syndrome that is presently happening in Ebonyi State of Nigeria? Where young men “just die” like with the snap of a finger… I can’t say.

However, there is something I know I can say, it is better to eat foods that are not fried. It is better to eat natural foods and keep away from the industrially packaged ones.

Let us strive to live healthier lives, and pay more attention to our health… especially with the way we make our foods so that we would not, in our bid to satisfy our taste buds end up consuming poison.

Thank you.

I NEED YOU

I NEED YOU

I woke up with a start… something was not right, I looked around, everything seemed all right but I had this feeling that something was amiss somewhere and I could not place it. That thought made me feel uneasy.

I took my bath, got dressed and all set to go out, looked into the mirror and winked at myself. I was set to go out. I was going to dazzle them today at my presentation. I took a quick check at my laptop and slideshow pointer. Everything was in place. I had forgotten to wear a cologne so I went back into the bedroom. Soon I was all set to start the day. I opened the door and went outside.

That was when I saw it.

I realized what I had been missing. It was all clear. Everywhere was uneasily quiet and there was no one in sight.

Not a single soul.

Everything seemed to be normal except that no one could be seen.

I wanted to take a cab to my destination, but no one was present. I saw my neighbors’ cars parked along the street with their car keys in their ignition.

That was strange.

I looked around and waited for a cab but it appeared as though none was about coming. I tried calling my friends who had cars to come pick me up but there was no network. I was literally stranded.

I went into my neighbor’s room and was about knocking but it appeared as if he was expecting me because his door was open so I went in. when I entered the living room there was no one. The TV was on and on static. I was sure he left in a hurry because everywhere was scattered. So I decided to borrow his car. So I wouldn’t be late for my presentation.

I turned on the ignition and the engine came to life then I left. No one was still in sight. I drove past different petrol stations and saw that their metres were all turned on but there was no fuel attendant.

I made it to the venue of my presentation on time but alas, there was no one present.

I was scared silly. I became frantic.

Where was everyone?

I was the only human on the planet….. for a moment I thought I had been kidnapped into an alternate universe by some aliens and I was the only human in that universe. I was ALONE. I had all the resources on earth at my disposal but I was alone.

I was scared. I tried to run but it appeared as though a very strong magnetic force held me down. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t scream, I wanted to shout but couldn’t.

I woke up from the dream with a start!

You didn’t guess right…. I am not onto the subject of sleep paralysis, that would be a topic for another day.

When I got up, I sat on my bed and wondered how I would have lived my life all alone in that universe I had found myself in my dream.

I realized all the importance I felt about myself was because there were other people on earth. There cannot be a doctor without a patient, or a  leader without a follower. We all need each other.

Please when next you go out, place great value on that okada rider, or the cobbler, or the hawker in your street. Without them, your importance is nothing.

Humanity should remain at the centre stage of everything we do. We should place more value on our fellow humans and drop the air of importance many of us walk around with.

I feel heart broken when I see people disrespect those that are lower than them, like their gatemen. Or treat people with disdain.

“If I finish dealing with you, you will know who I am”…. “ I will show you my real colours”……. “who do you think you are?”……. “ Do you know who I am?”

Let’s all remember that in the end, we are nothing but skulls and bones. Let us always have this consciousness when dealing with people. That way, we would realize that without the woman in the village who wakes early in the morning to go to the farm, grind, peel and wash cassava, we wont have our well sought after eba  or akpu, and that without the women who wake early to sweep the streets or the people who make it their duty to remove the wastes, we would all be swarming in filth.

A chain is as strong as its weakest link. We truly need each other, we should regard each other as we regard ourselves.

I realized from that dream a very big lesson…. And I will never forget it…. I NEED YOU.

Thank you.