We are H-A-P-P-Y… We know we are…

How’s everyone doing?

Good weekend? Ready for the week? This is going to be one of my busiest but I thought I’d take a few minutes and say a big hello to everyone, play catch up a bit.

So my niece and nephew were ill, one had malaria and a tummy bug, and the other one had a cold that stretched at least two weeks, and she still had it after she gave it to me. We spent small time in the hospital, and that’s where the story about blood donation came from (I published that recently).

I’ve also done a bit of local travel, looking forward to when I can take a proper holiday… I owe myself two – one for my birthday and the other because life is short and we should take time off to rest and be quiet when we can. Amen?

God dey.

Work is alright… Moved into a new office in June and we’re getting settled in really nicely. Really thankful to God for that, and the immediate possibilities I see for expansion.

Still on work, got two interesting referrals recently, a stark reminder that clients, no matter how little, matter and an excited client post your custom might make a difference as much as 24 months after. I’m really thankful for the referrals, and now just need God’s help to ensure that we beat the standards we’re being held to. Amen?

On Saturday I was privileged to speak at my church’s business/entrepreneur summit, and I drew my topic/talk from some work I’d done for a client recently. I spoke on minding the gaps and facing the direction of travel. Corny I know but it was a good opportunity to fuse my love for trains with my experiences as a student, an employee, and now an employer. It was interesting for me to talk about some of the lessons I’ve learned, and how each step leads to the next, and the next, and the next. It was also very instructive to talk about the place of God in business, and the mistakes I’ve made simply because I ignored the still small voice telling me no. I had a good time, and I’m grateful for the opportunity.

What else? I’m happy. Sweet baby Jesus this daughter of God is happy. I am joy-like-a-river, peace-like-a-fountain, love-like-an-ocean brand of happy. Such a beautiful feeling. Everything in my life; experiences, joy, sadness, mistakes, successes; everything that I have seen has prepared me for where I am now, and I am thankful to God for His many blessings and precious gifts. There’s a new mercy every single day! And I’m loving it!

Finally, I need to get back in the gym. Don’t know why I’m typing this instead of renewing my membership but yeah, this child needs to be back in that place where more calories are burnt than piled on. Yep. This week is out of the question sha, and I’m not bothered in the least what you think! *sticks tongue out*

Finally finally, lol. My nephew moves to reception next school session! Whoop! He’s officially a big boy now! Interestingly, he’s slowly outgrowing the millions of hugs and kisses I drown him in, and he’s only four! I thought they didn’t start all of that till much later? Arrrrrghhhh! Bring back my baby! *sad face*

Finally finally finally, I got a birthday gift yesterday… I know o, this is still for the birthday that passed in May. Is the Lord laying it on your heart to send me a pressie? Harden not your heart biko!

How have you been? Are you keeping okay? Are you doing well? Want to share? Please do!

Mwah!

PS: A song in the back of my mind for a few days now has been “we are h-a-p-p-y, we are h-a-p-p-y, we know we are we are sure we are, we are h-a-p-p-y!” (If you went to primary school in Nigeria this should ring a bell… or two… or three… or four… I’ll stop here)!

#31Days31Writers: Demola “Learnt more about the nature of men”

Demola the politician. Demola the PDP guy. Those are probably the bits of Demola the world (read as young Nigerians within and outside the country) know. I know a Demola who loves history, who can quote Nigerian history from here till tomorrow and not make a mistake. From this post, you’ll meet a Demola who’s head over heels for his family, and his entry (very quiet but laden with wisdom) is a joy for me to share today.

This time last year, my son was just few weeks old and since then, I’ve watched him grow and learn. And I have learnt as well… seeing the world as he sees it, seeing him struggle to understand the nature of things as they are – that a ball rolls but a remote control won’t/can’t. That the flick of a switch can flood a room with light, that a bed doesn’t make a good place to walk but the floor isn’t good for rolling around either. That my phone cannot be chewed and that every morning he has to get his body washed, though he doesn’t like it. He’s learning the nature of things and the laws that govern them and I have also learnt.

I’ve learnt more about the nature of men – that people are often who they show themselves to be, not what you imagine them to be. That who they are is often obvious but emotions blind us to their reality. I’ve learnt to work more with my instincts about people and not question those instincts.

I’m grateful for relationships and the doors they opened this year. Grateful for life, for love, for friendships and for family. I find it hard to be grateful most times about life because there’s always so much more I want it to yield to me so I should be grateful for this chance to write about my gratitude.

Let me think for a minute please.

I am grateful for my son. He’s moved to being the centre of my world in the most amazing ways – no matter how things upset me on the outside, I only have to think of his unflappable spirit and I smile. The woman who takes care of him is the woman in my life – that’s my wife is also another reason to be grateful. She’s understanding and very tolerating of my excesses. I’m not the easiest person to live with but she has managed to cope with me.

All life for me is an experience and there is little I would undo if I could but I could have done some things better this year. I’m one of those who believe it is up to me if things will be or not – like if Arsenal loses a football match and I did not watch it, I think they lost because I did not watch. I had a small chance to play a small part in the last presidential elections and I saw my party make mistakes. I truly believed we had the better candidate, I truly believed our platform was the best for the country. I shouted, but I could have shouted harder. I fought but I could have fought more. I could have challenged those who assumed we would win as we always do – but perhaps I too was guilty of thinking that our candidate would do all it took to win, unlike he had promised to do.

In a way, that loss turned out to be a good thing – I’ve learnt now to fight harder to make my views known in any political setting and not succumb to prevalent wisdom. I’m more convinced about the things I suggested – a victory would have meant my methodology wasn’t necessary but now I know it was and better? My party knows too.

I would also have loved to have published a couple of books this year – one written already on my laptop so if you’re reading this and think you’re into publishing: holler.

2015 has been a great year as I reflect on it and I’m hopeful of a greater 2016.

Awww, so cute how you talk about your son and your wife, family is precious and I’m all about that! I’m also excited about the new dispensation with a new party in power, big hopes and prayers for Nigeria because it either works or it doesn’t, for all of us. 

Thank you Demola for sharing today, most appreciated!

#31Days31Writers: Ochuko’s about when ‘Na God’ becomes ‘but God why’?

Brethren! Welcome to Day 2! We started the series with my friend Adenike, and I’m totally pumped at how much joy I felt publishing her entry! I can’t wait for all the others to come in!

About Ochuko; we’ve never met, but I love his blog. I don’t even know how he found my blog, but his blogposts sometimes are some of the most hilarious things I’ve seen! This post on how parents pressure their kids on marriage is everything! Other times, he’s quite therapeutic. I’m super grateful for my blog family (didn’t know I would ever use that term, but I mean it), because I know they are always there like an invisible court, ready to offer a kind word, advise, prayer, whatever.

Before I digress too much, I give you, Ochuko!

Hi everyone, I’m Ochuko A. Akpomudjere but everyone calls me Chuk (out of pure laziness I gather), fear would not allow me type out my full name. If you haven’t already figured it out, I’m Nigerian, yes we are the ones with names longer than our lifespan, a 20-something year old student of Biochemistry, in the beautifully old city of Benin, Nigeria. As for what I do, for now I’d restrict my list to Photography.

So 2015, where do I begin? Well let me not lie, if I say 2015 wasn’t what I expected when I was dancing in Church on December 31^st 2014, I would not be far from the truth. That guy was just dancing away, not realizing that life was just waiting to hit him with the fat stick that is “reality”. Well I can’t fling all the blame at life, wait actually I can, but that would just be denying that some of it, ok a large part of it was my fault.

Ok, 2015 wasn’t that bad, it was great actually, perhaps even my best year yet (yeah I still can’t say that with a straight face). I’m just going to come out and say this, if I was to pick one thing I am truly grateful for, it’d be the people in my life. I’d just start from the back, in the space of 3 months quite a lot happened and for a while it felt like I was standing outside life, watching things unfold in my life.

I lost 2 friends within the space of 3 weeks, made more mistakes than I’d made in my last 5 years of life, life bending mistakes that all but cost me my life, but through it all, God placed people in my life at just the right point when I needed them. I did some things that would have earned me lifetime achievement award in the “Disgrace to The Family” awards 2015, yet all I got in return was love from my family. I became friends with my dad, a friendship that helped me remind who I am as a person and not what my circumstances made me to be. PS: My dad actually said “as long as you don’t give up on yourself, I won’t give up on you”. In my mind I saw the Hollywood sign for weeks after that.

As for what I learnt this year, I’d some it up in one word “Rest”. I learnt the hard way that it’s easy to preach about a situation, when you gone through it. It is even easier when you’ve never experienced it. After all anyone can wake up, sigh and say “Na God” but when life slaps you, you forget all the sermons you preached, all the articles you wrote and suddenly “Na God’ becomes “But God why?”. I learnt to rest in God, more importantly, to rest in his word. The present is temporary and so is everything that is bothering you. Death however is permanent, so you can either worry yourself to death, or trust that there is a way out of that situation.

Honestly speaking, I don’t know if I’d want to change anything about 2015, but if I had to change anything, it’d be not trusting my family & friends with my problems early enough; there’s only so far you can go on your own before life reminds you that “Hey this is getting out of hand, you need to tell someone”.

Oh by the way, this is the first thing I’ve written in 4 months, I can now say that all is well with the world again. Ok I’ve gotten to that point in my write-up where I start typing gibberish, so let me just go.

Till next year I hope.

See his cute, googly eyes! Ladies please allow him finish school first o, hian.

Bia, Chuk, what did you mean by “till next year I hope?” Hope that only has to do with you writing in another #31Days31Writers series o, ehen, because you’re not going anywhere (anywhere not positive and great that is). Thank you!

7 killer emotions – which ones are killing you?

So in April I woke up one Sunday morning and felt I wanted to attend a church I’d never been in before. And pronto, HolyHill Church came to my mind, so I had a shower, got ready, and went.

I got there a little late, and so I slipped into a seat at the back. And after a little bit, it was time for the word, title of which forms the first half of the title of this post. Seven killer emotions. Before we pray, can you hazard a guess what they are? Yeah?

Maybe I should digress a bit before we pray – Pastor Sunday Ogidigbo is a good friend of mine; one of the people who define what running a church should be in my opinion. The church has an arm called Holy Hill Relief Foundation which not only caters to the fees and educational needs of indigent children in the FCT, but also has a team of volunteer teachers who give an hour of their time each week teaching subjects like English, Mathematics, Literature, etc. Brilliant stuff, affecting the community beyond messages of prosperity, hell, or holiness. That’s what church/religion should be. They’re on Twitter as @HRelieff, and you can contact them via hrelieff.org

Digression done, let us pray. Dear Lord, let this post bless someone today; let it take them from where they are now, to where they should be in/with You, amen. Bibles and note pads out; ready? Let’s do it!

Most of the things that happen to or around us start from the inside and then manifest in everything we do.

Our emotions affect everything we do, a Chinese proverb says”he who does not smile should not keep shop”.

Pastor Sunday also said some people who purport to help you when you embark on something are just there to document your failure, others are there because they care, others are there because they are afraid. Very few truly buy into and believe your vision. Remember Gideon and the 300 in the Bible, book of Judges?

It’s not not what people do/say to you, it’s the mind and the interpretation I ascribe to those things that give them power over me or not.

So what are these emotions?

1. Fear: reacting to real or perceived threats and assuming erroneously that God cannot help you

2. Anxiety: looking at tomorrow and not believing that God is there and will come through for you

3. Pride: convincing yourself and acting like you lifted yourself by your own hand

4. Anger: An intense, emotional response to real or perceived violation of trust/interests/boundaries. Anger has a way of limiting the intelligence of your actions. Remember Ecclesiastes says anger resides in the belly of fools.

5. Bitterness: anger not dealt with leads to unforgiveness and that in turn leads to bitterness.

6. Malice: a dangerous, deep-seated desire to uplift injury/harm or to see a person suffer (loss) because of anger, the need for vengeance, or just because of wickedness.

The interesting about malice is that it doesn’t need a cause – sometimes events around you that seem nasty might just be the bestiality of the devil, not because the person suffering did anything.

*The existence of a bright light does not extinguish yours. Why not think, “the more, the merrier?”

7. Envy: hating on a person (sometimes more deserving) because they have something you don’t, or something you wish to have. So you wish they lose it, just like Joseph’s brothers in the book of Genesis.

Hian! Are you a devil? (Pastor didn’t say this, this line is all me, but super valid!)

Pastor however advised us to share our ideas with wisdom. Your innocent excitement about a project you’re working on, a blessing you’ve just received, or some progress you’ve made can inspire envy.

I loved the service, talk about my steps being ordered by God to go there that wonderful morning in April! It was so relatable, such a ‘live in 2015’ sermon, and I hope that you’ve enjoyed the read.

We prayed a prayer to close the service, and it was “Father give me the grace/wisdom not to be negative and to operate with the right set of emotions, amen.

Have a fabulous week! God’s got you!

Light, love, and God’s great blessings,

FGS.

From my heart to yours: A word of encouragement

Children of God!!

How have you been? Good? How’s work, your family, your life?

Greetings from Leamington Spa, green, quiet, quaint, serene, providing such a connection to my spirit.

Nope, I’m not going to apologise for not being here for a bit. I needed the time away. The past few weeks have been difficult, and I decided that instead of masking the things I was going through with activities (like climbing trees, lol… that story will be told soon), I wanted to drop everything, go away, think, cry, pray, workout, jump (happening soon); everything to bring myself back to myself, if you know what I mean.

In a few days it’d be another anniversary of my aunt’s death. My darling aunt, who we still talk about everyday, who I still feel very close to. Puts to shame all the ‘time heals all wounds’ talk people say, except two years isn’t classed as time. I miss her. Yesterday, today, everyday. Some days are hard, some others are harder, some days are a damn blur.

Keep resting aunty. I love you so much. So damn much!

So I woke up about 4am this morning, couldn’t sleep anymore. Maybe cos I left the curtains open and summer means the sun rises about 3.50am, maybe my eyes were tired of sleep (like my aunt would say, lol), dunno. I just couldn’t sleep.

Anyway, so I started catching up on emails, articles, all those kinds of things, and then I remembered two songs I heard in like 1995, maybe I even danced to one of them in a group, don’t really remember. And so far I’ve played both of them back to back like 10 times each, and they’re so uplifting I thought I’d share with anyone going through a rough time/patch.

This is from an era when music was truly uplifting, not the rubbish we have to endure now. Sigh. This is ‘Count it all joy’ by The Winans.

And then there’s this one by Sound of Blackness called ‘Hold On’. Fun, really great song. Check on it!

I’m talking to myself as I say this. You will feel better. That pain will pass. You will want to get up and work again. Your morning will come. That heaviness will lift, hard times will pass. Just keep holding on, keep working at it, hanging in there, keep looking up, to the One who has our manuals and the perfect story of our lives.

Today’s a great day, whether you like it or not! God’s got you!

Light, love, and God’s great blessings,

FGS!

PS 1 – God bless Ruona for me today. Not tomorrow. Today.

PS 2 – I stumbled on this website yesterday, and I haven’t been able to close it. Such a profound story, such a representation of the absolute love and mercies of God. Have a look, you’re welcome! http://www.heatherllindsey.com/?m=1

Receiving from God: Is your faith ‘violent’ enough?

I was at Winners Chapel, Dartford on Sunday the 23^rd of September 2014, first time in almost 4 months… was good for me to have attended, because the sermon was brilliant! I enjoyed it so much I want to share it with you. And I pray it does for you what it was intended to, bless, uplift, and inspire.

Bibles out everyone!

The topic was, ‘loose him and let him go’, and the focus was on faith. The pastor started by saying; “there is no excuse tangible enough for you to remain under hurt and oppression”.

According to 1 Corinthians 10:13, we have the God-given capacity to triumph over every challenge we ever face; every time we refuse to take up a challenge it’s because of laziness, not an inability to surmount it. So says Proverbs 22:13.

3^rd John 1:2. Ephesians 1:20-22; 2:5-6

Now, Luke 10:19 says there’s a provision for us to triumph, and hurt-free at that. Not pyrrhic victories as in the case of boxers where their battered bodies tell the tale of their wins.

Isaiah 11: 9

Psalm 91:1-7. Technically, our enemies would have to hit God to get to us; possibility of that? Nil. How do we get into that hurt-free zone though? We get there on the platform of our faith; violent faith. Matthew 9:29

Ephesians 1:3. Galatians 3:14. Faith is the only instrument that translates what God says to what we see; it changes the ‘promise’ to an ‘experience’.

Habakkuk 2:4. Know that we are not at the mercy of the devil, we’re at the mercy of our faith.

 

How To Operate Violent Faith

1. We must get a word from God
2. We must believe without doubt
3. We must confront fear. Job 33:25

Hebrews 2:14-15. Every time I am afraid, it is a sign of distrust in God

So let’s say you’re trusting God for, let’s say a raise at work, and you’ve found a scripture where it says that the path of the just is like a shining light shining brighter and brighter unto a perfect day. You believe the word, appropriate it to your situation in prayer, and confront the doubt in your mind that no one in your office has been given a raise in two years because you know your case is different. Right?

Let’s move on.

Acts 14:3 – Long time therefore abode they speaking boldly in the Lord, which gave testimony unto the word of his grace, and granted signs and wonders to be done by their hands.

2Timothy 1:12

Daniel 11:32 – When we realize our backing, we won’t be wavered by anything because we enter a strange realm of dominion. We need to wake up to our backing!!

Isaiah 53: 5

4. Make declarations. Psalm 8:10. 2 Corinthians 4:13 faith that does not speak is fake!
5. Engage the spirit of just men made perfect: taking advantage of the hand of God working in the lives of his servants. 2 Kings 2:12-15

So, back to our desire for a raise, now we start to declare that word, in secret or in the presence of other believers (because wisdom must be spoken to the wise). We can also key into testimonies of others (in the Bible, at church, through messages, etc.) to shore up our faith that God is able to do the impossible.

It is possible to see the transference of the workings of God from one person to the other, long as faith is in place.

How To Remain In The Violent Faith

1. Be obedient. 1 Peter 3:13. Be committed to obeying God.
2. A life of prayer ensures a steady hurt-free zone because then we keep hearing God, and that shores us up, makes us unbeatable! Ezekiel 9: 1-6

Do I already hear a prayer for the strengthening of our faith? I’m standing with you in prayer dearies!

Have a great rest of the week!

Related articles

• The Mind of Christ Exercise
• The Gift of Apostle
• What are ways I could serve / be serving in the church?

All in a week’s work

Let’s start from Sunday, and the confusion/relief/strength I felt after Saturday. What did I do with it? Eat, sleep, hang out with my friends, and about night-time, I realised there was something wrong with my body. I was literally shutting down.

Monday morning I had lost every sense of taste and smell. I woke up exhausted – like I don’t know how I carried out all the chores I had to do. Ended up in Lagos and had to change hotel rooms because the air conditioning in mine stopped working. It will be a long time before I book a hotel room on DealDay. A very long time.

Tuesday I was done with wearing makeup; that’s how sick I felt. Struggled through my meetings, satisfied a pizza craving, and got back into Abuja in the evening, about close of business time. Went straight home, and slept. Did I mention that I was sweating profusely the entire day? Even in air-conditioned spaces, I was literally dripping of sweat. And regardless of how much fluid I took, my mouth felt very dry. For once I didn’t look out for anything worth writing about on the flight, as I am wont to do. Didn’t miss the man who came out of the toilet on the plane and the air hostess asked, “did you flush?” The question was loud enough for me to hear, but it was the answer that made me chuckle, even in my sickness. The man responded, “are you saying I am a bush man who cannot flush a toilet?” I dozed off after this, but I can imagine that he said a bit more, from the tone of his voice.

Struggled through work on Wednesday, don’t know why I didn’t listen to the children of God who told me to stay home. Work couldn’t wait – there’s so much to get through! Left the office early though, and it was home to sleep.

Woke up on Thursday still feeling pretty exhausted so I went to run some tests. Results at the end of the day said I didn’t have malaria or typhoid or anything like that. I’d spent Wednesday night talking to a doctor friend of mine, and we both agreed all the symptoms I had were the effect of stress/exhaustion. I agreed to slow down, a lot. Ah, I went to a meeting in the evening with a potential client/mentor, and not only had he put in a word of recommendation for me somewhere other than what I was meeting him about, I met someone I’d only ever heard about before! Whoop!

Friday morning. I woke up early, Happy. Stronger. Nostrils were still blocked but I felt considerably stronger. Went to work, hung out with ‘awon goons mi’ afterwards, and was in bed before 11pm. Happy.

Saturday – day didn’t start till 1pm when I had a meeting with a client, and another meeting at 5pm with two people who I’ve just given a week’s contract to do some stuff for us. Really excited, and looking forward to the greatness they will produce. Went grocery shopping afterwards then went straight home to continue playing with my darling nephew.

I’m writing this on my bed – had a good time in church, gorged myself on this lovely bread I bought yesterday (#FITFAM I’m sorry), and trying to get through some writing tasks. So far, so good. Not leaving this house today.

I learned a few things this week –

1. God is the healer of the body, and the saviour of the soul. And He works overtime for me.

2. At the end of the day, you’ve only got yourself. People exclude themselves from your times of need for different reasons, and you exclude others intentionally for other reasons. Either way, the only person who is 100% in the know and on your side when things go south (apart from God), is you.

3. Sometimes the best thing to do is to ignore. ‘Unlook’ (according to my brethren on Twitter) – don’t validate ignorance.

4. Take time to rest the body, otherwise it will shut down.

That’s me! How did your week go?

PS – for the people who honored me enough to call/text/get in touch with me one way or the other, thank you. I won’t forget it.

#PRAISEwithCC! This is why we’re here…

I’m so excited!

When I was younger and living full-time with my folks, I would join church members to go out on soul winning drives, invite people to church, witness to them, that kind of thing. I loved it, looked forward to each and every one of those outreaches, and have tons of stories.

A lot older now, many times I’ve wondered how to keep that evangelism up, how to share my love and affection for God with people, more people than I did as a child. I just feel like there’s so much more I can do to bring people together to rejoice in Him and to share His Word.

And then on Sunday morning, I was listening to a message by Bishop TD Jakes and he said something about us Christians asking God to do things He had already empowered us to do – so we ask God to help us with things He has already released strength for us to do on our own, wherever we are. And in that moment, I just knew that I wanted to start something about sharing His word.

So I started thinking, wondering how I was going to do this from my little corner. And then boom! #PraisewithCC came into my head. Whoop!

What is this about? Very simply, we’ll just praise. Praise, praise, praise Him for 30 minutes on Wednesday, and Friday. We’ll do this wherever we are, on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, wherever. I’m using the place where I’ve been called to make a difference, where I am most comfortable, to do what I was created to do.

Who’s in? Join me at 7pm on Wednesday, and 7pm on Friday. Let’s return glory to God for what we’ve seen, for what we’re seeing, and for what we want to see this year. What are you grateful for?

#PraisewithCC!!

P:S – I want to be able to curate as we praise, so please use the hashtag #PraisewithCC. I know that as we lift Him up, tell of His wondrous works, He will lift us up.

I’m so excited!

 

 

When does a joke stop being a joke?

Right.

I haven’t blogged in days because I thought I’d take a break from the writing after the very successful #31days31writers project. Plan was to come back tomorrow.

I saw something on Twitter this morning though, and just thought of put things in perspective. It’s about the Basket Mouth ‘rape’ post, his thoughts (or what I think his thoughts are), and the bit that made me write, his very distasteful apology.

A bit of history – Basket Mouth, real name Bright Okpocha is a comedian, a very successful one at that. He’s also got a very large following on social media, including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. To contextualize ‘large following’, his posts on FB get as much as 6000 likes. Automatic opinion leader.

He put this up on Facebook last night:

I didn’t see it, cos I don’t follow him on Facebook. That post got approximately 5200 likes. A lot of people took him up on it this morning (especially on Twitter), and his only ‘response’ to the issue was to retweet this.

Of course that made stuff worse, and people really began to call him out. And if you’re familiar with Nigerian Twitter, when it is ‘your day’, it is your day.

Basket Mouth, in his ‘wisdom’, and probably under advisement from peers that the conversation on the issue was getting out of hand, decided to tweet an apology. Of course I captured it.

Here he is referring to the #ChildNotBride controversy from the middle of last year.

That’s it for history, at least up to the time of publishing this.

Personally, I think the joke was in bad taste. Very bad taste, and on a lot of levels. Start from racial profiling, and the silly stereotype that says ‘white girls are easy lays’. Aren’t we the ones who scream the loudest when Africa is lumped into one country?

Then there’s the African part of the equation that justifies rape because the man has done a, b, c, and d and still cannot get the girl into bed. Disgraceful.

And there’s the apology, which I think was a bigger insult on our sensibilities than the offending post.

To be honest, going beyond BasketMouth’s indiscretion (considering his influence online and offline), I’m more concerned with the over 5000 who thought it was funny. The ones who rebuked people who disagreed with rape being reduced as fodder for jokes, and were bold enough to say so.

Nigerian women already have a lot of issues they have to contend with everyday; I cannot count how many times I have written on violence (sexual or not) against women and young girls, and so to waste an opportunity to inspire, to abuse the loud voice/platform to effect change just grates.

The fact that his mind thought that up in the first place is worrying, remember the scripture that says, “as a man thinketh in his heart, so he is”? Everything we see in our world today starts in the mind.

For those who say it was just a joke, have you ever been raped? You, or a family member? Do you think it would still be a joke if you had been?

For those who say jokes about rape should be allowed because jokes about the disabled et al are allowed, who have you been listening to? You need to change your sources of entertainment!

Rape is wrong. Jokes about rape are distasteful, and wrong. Nothing anyone says will counter those two.

UPDATE – 6.37pm, I’m on the way from a glorious time at church, and I see on Twitter that he’s apologized, ‘properly’ this time. Ignore the grammatical errors please.

P:S – Dear BasketMouth, this joke was not misunderstood. There is nothing even remotely funny about rape.

Lessons in business – the silly and the wasteful one

Had a chat with a buddy the other day, and he was telling me of a lady designer, new in the fashion business, who wanted him to set up a shoot for her with some models. Cool idea right? As is with most new businesses, she didn’t have money to pay the models, but said they were welcome to some of the clothes, and for the others there would be a discount, her way of saying thank you. Still cool right?

So the models come, and in this semi-freezing weather they try on outfit after outfit, and pose for pictures. When they’re done, they get an outfit each; one of the models has her eyes on another outfit and wants to know how much it costs. “£200”, says the designer. For one dress? From someone whose clothes don’t have a label? Laughable. That’s over 50, 000 naira, for one dress. One dress that won’t wake me up in the morning, give me a shower, and then wrap me in its ‘goodness and mercy’. One dress that isn’t by Nine West, or Ralph Lauren, or …(insert any name you please). Insert the name, because this designer (for now) is nameless.

How much will designer sell for when she makes a name for herself then? Lol, that’s one less designer for me to patronize already.

You can’t afford to pay these people who have worked for you (didn’t even refund transport costs) and yet you want them to further enrich you by charging an arm, a leg, and maybe even their Nan for ‘unknown’ dresses? Pretty? Yes. Worth 200 quid? Definitely not. Did they buy them? No. Especially since the said designer refused to sell two for £150. I’d just give the design to a dressmaker to recreate for me. Simples! (insert meerkat voice)

Whatever happened to starting small, and then working your way up?

Almost borders on greed if you ask me, but hey, what do I know? Just going to walk away.

Second scenario came from a story my dad told me. You have a store or a shop in a market and about 10am, you’ve sold goods worth, let’s say £150. Then you remember you haven’t had a coke, so you buy one. Then you decide you might as well mix it with sprite, and so you buy one as well, and mix them all up in a big cup.

Then you remember that soda goes best with a snack, so you order some, just one or two. And then you see something online, maybe earrings or a dress, and hey, you’ve made some money today anyways, so you might as well order one.

Before the day is over your friend drops by and there’s a friend’s sister’s daughter’s wedding in a few weeks you should attend, and you must take asoebi* for it. How much is the fabric? Just £120 pounds. At the moment you have less than £70 so you put down £50 as deposit and promise to pay the rest in a few weeks.

When you’re locking up at the end of the day you realize that not only are you back at the zero you started with at the beginning of the day, you’re in debt.

And so you show up in church on Sunday asking the pastor to pray (and urgently too) because your enemies from the village are working day and night to see that your business doesn’t succeed.

It won’t.

Derive the lessons as you please, and have a super productive week!

*Asoebi- common in Africa, this refers to a group of friends coming together to pick one fabric they’ll wear in support of their friend who is celebrating (or mourning).