More than a decade ago, I was hospitalized for a few weeks. In the same ward with me was a man who went through severe pains and was struggling to heal. This man suffered from an injection abscess. The redness of the skin and pus formation surrounding the physical inflammation which later resulted in incision and drainage was not a pleasant course for this patient. Unfortunately, the pain could have been avoided only if he used a qualified medical practitioner to administer the injection. Put it differently, the pains and hospitalization were the results of using an unqualified person to…
Author: Edikan Ekanem
Dear Online Vendor, I bring you greetings and glad tidings, May peace be unto you. Social media shouldn’t be to you what it is to others, we all have reasons for being on social media and you should define yours, probably as your marketplace, office, etc. Some of us have physical offices and shops and only make social media an alternative platform for sales or advertisement. Put it differently, if you do not have a physical shop or office, but sell and advertise exclusively on social media, then this is for you. We live in an era of the…
Early in the morning and late in the evening at the pedestrian bridge located at Nicon Junction in the Federal Capital Territory of Nigeria, he always sits begging for money from pedestrians. This old Beggar is fondly called Dogo (a tall person in Hausa Language). He was making his living from the begging until things turned around. People who frequently use the overhead bridge would likely know him facially if not by name. Late last year, I took cognizance that Dogo was no longer begging for money but calling people to come and buy his goods (candy, chocolate, chewing gum,…
Mr Femi Gbajabiamila, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, in the course of discharging his statutory and legislative obligations, on Tuesday, April 28, 2020, introduced an 82 section Bill Known as “Infectious Diseases Bill, 2020” to the House of Representatives of Nigeria (Green Chambers). The proposed Infectious Diseases Act is supposed to create a legal framework for the federal government to manage the special circumstances surrounding infectious disease outbreaks like the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which at last count had claimed 68 lives across Nigeria. As reported by Sahara Reporters, “what the Bill is supposed to do is to provide…
The famous aphorism of “if you can write your name, thank your teacher” impelled me to call about three (two from Primary and one from Secondary Sector) of my teachers in Akwa Ibom to celebrate them on Saturday, 5th October, 2019 being the World Teachers’ day. Sadly, all the calls were surrounded with lamentations of unfair treatments by the state government and how public education is being neglected over the years. This lamentation transcend beyond the continuous denial of teacher’s financial entitlements to the deterioration of educational infrastructures in public schools in my own state. Ordinarily, I should have kept…
We live in a country where herdsmen are now traffic officials on public roads. There is a country where herdsmen are now rulers and heads of any community they settle or trespass to graze. We live in a nation where cows are now regarded as the senior citizens, and the country is Nigeria. Children have become orphans overnight. Wives have turned to widows; young widowers are groping for their wives but they are nowhere to be found, they’ve been butchered by herdsmen. Nursing mothers turn to barren women, parents bury their kids on daily basis, and all hopes are battered,…
Sonia, who is an architect, was so elated when she had a call from her friend that her professional exam which was to hold on Saturday, 1st day of April, 2017 was postponed in a week time. Unfortunately for her, the euphoria that ensued from the said “postponement” terminated abruptly by a later call she received from one of her tutors three hours after she had the earlier call of the purported postponement. Sonia was made to understand that the exams she was informed by her friend to have been postponed started ten minutes before the latter call came in,…
