Love or respect

~The SUN, Nigeria. Sunday, July 10, 2016

SHOW me a woman who does not believe in love and I will show you a liar. Every woman wants to be loved. We all long for that indescribable feeling that keeps our heads in the cloud. That feeling that makes you feel that you and your man are the only ones on the surface of the earth and when he touches you, you feel this tingling sensation running down your spine. His voice does things to your system, etcetera etcetera.

It is a feeling that makes a woman see life through rose-tinted glasses. It is a delicious feeling. It leads you into temptation. It makes you do things that you may later in life wonder how you ever contemplated at all. Sometimes it puts a smile on your face in a crowd of serious people doing serious business when your mind wanders to those loving moments. They all look at you like you are losing it but you are glorying in something you hold or once held so dear.

Sometimes a love experience does not end in marriage and till death do you part but it does not take away from the solid fact that for the rest of your life, you will never forget it. Remember that song:


Everybody, think back

To your very first time

Oh, not when you lost your virginity this time. That could be memorable too but we will talk about that sometime soon.

Love. It makes you defy reason, logic, sound advice. Anything that wants to come between you and your Romeo would simply have to step aside or go to blazes, whichever they prefer.

Did you ever defy your parents for the lover boy? Did you steal your mother's jewelry to sell so your Romeo could buy a ticket to Britain? The things we have all done for love... the things women are still doing for love, in the name of love...Ah. They scare me but what is life without love? It is a feeling every man, every woman must experience. And because the cupid's arrow does not strike often, for some people it is a once in a lifetime thing, it must be savoured.

Common tenants' complaints against landlords

Written by Abiodun Doherty
~Punch, Nigeria. Tuesday, June 14, 2016.

Abiodun Doherty

Landlord and tenant problems are among the most contentious after issues of land ownership and the reasons are obvious. The interests and concerns of both categories are usually divergent or opposed to one another. One tends to wonder why this is often so and what can be done to reduce or eliminate it. In my opinion, the journey to solution in this instance should start with a careful understanding of the key issues that generate these conflicts. A discussion with most tenants reveals the following issues are the common areas of complaints against their landlords.

Most landlord and tenant relationships usually start on a semi-formal level and it is only as these issues build up and are not addressed amicably that they degenerate into a level where the landlord is more comfortable with ejecting the tenant or the tenant is more interested in renting another property than renewing his or her tenancy. When issues arise, it is better to discuss them and find amicable solutions to them where possible.

The primary complaint of tenants is that many landlords do not mind their own business. They tend to interfere in the personal space of their tenants and seek to control everything happening in the property. The obvious reason for this is the fact that many landlords have personal attachment to their properties. They are concerned with the look and feel of the properties. They cannot stand to see anyone inhabiting the property without taking care of it as his or her personal property.

Marriage is not for everybody…

Written by Chukwuneta Oby
~Punch, Nigeria. Sunday, May 22, 2016

Chukwuneta Oby

Considering the rate at which marriages are falling like a pack of badly stacked cards…would it not be appropriate for us to ditch our 'holier than thou' slogan of 'divorce is a sin' and pick up a more realistic one like 'marriage is not for everybody?'

The nature of marital issues that I have come across(over the years) has further convinced me that some people are naturally not cut out for marriage or any form of co-habitation that will task everything (patience, tolerance, understanding, sharing, moderation, consideration, etc) in them…this set of people seem to waltz into marriages without an iota of what's involved…in fact, they start feeling stifled or miserable the moment certain 'marital demands'(less time out there- more time at home, being answerable to someone-in a way, realising that you just can't wake up and do as you like-without checking(first) with your partner, often inconveniencing yourself to bring a smile to another's face , etc)-are brought on them.

The wise ones (who seem to understand themselves) have long realised this and followed their path, some others seem to have realised that but would rather pander to the dictates of a society that shoves it in everyone's face to 'get married' or risk being seen as a 'social reject'…is it such a difficult task to understand that some people are simply not cut out for certain life paths? I mean, it is not in their DNA-and frankly-it does not make them bad-in any way…it simply means that anything contrary to their personality will end up making them miserable -that includes marriage, especially when they can't pretend to be enjoying what's actually choking them!


Now, how can anybody expect to be made happy by one who hasn't even found happiness-in his/her own life? It is on this line of reasoning that I stand to implore whoever that is going through certain challenges in his/her marriage to view that partner in the light of the issues I raised above…they may not have really set out to hurt you deliberately-especially when what you are experiencing in the marriage is far from your expectations. Perhaps, it will help-if you understand that 'that person' you are saddled with is on the wrong path (marriage)…as far as his/her personality goes.

Getting married even when you are broke

Written by Ugodre Obi-Chukwu

Twitter: @nairamterics or @ugodre. 

Website: www.nairametrics.com 

~Punch: Thursday, April 7, 2016

Nnamdi has been dating Amaka for about three years now and pressure is mounting on for them to take the relationship to the next level. Nnamdi is approaching his mid-thirties and Amaka is also not getting any younger making time not exactly their friend. Their respective parents are also mounting pressure and do not understand why their children would not just get married soon enough.

Unknown to either parents, Nnamdi and Amaka have a major stumbling block. Apart from being career focused individuals they also believe more importantly that their combined salary is not enough for them to build a home and at the same time pursue their career objectives.

Many of us fall into this trap at some point in our life and if not handled carefully can lead to serious emotional and financial distress. How does one get married without enough money? I will attempt to respond by addressing some of the common excuses we give.

I can't afford wedding "ceremoney" - The thought of preparing for a wedding ceremony is one that scares many off early marriages. Most people consider it a very special event and believe the only way to live a lasting memory is to splurge on it. Having a memorable wedding is important for everyone however, not everyone can afford an expensive and memorable wedding. With proper planning you can have a cheap and memorable wedding as well.

Wedding ceremony shouldn't be seen as a do or die affair as all you have to do is spend what you can afford. What you should realise is that at the end of the day it's about you and your spouse being happily married thereafter and not about the drinks, food and the pageantry that comes with the ceremony. There will be many, many more opportunities to be merry with friends and family.

Where will we live after we get married? -My friend, Victor once told me he got married to his wife when he was still living in a one bedroom flat. After the wedding, they came back home to their one room apartment happier than they could ever imagine. I asked him why and he said the thought of them spending the night together forever was all they wished for and could as well have lived in the car if that's what it will take. The point here is that you need not live in a three bedroom or four bedroom apartment to get married. You could even have just married and still living in your parent's apartment provided you are both focused on the goal.

Avoid quarrels in your relationship

~Punch, Nigeria. Sunday, March 13, 2016

Every couple desires a happy relationship. Don't let misunderstandings ruin your bond.Follow these steps and let your relationship thrive

Identify the source

If you always quarrel in your relationship, you need to figure out where it is coming from. If the source is outside the relationship, don't treat it like a relationship problem. Money issues account for more relationship problems than any other source. But in reality, money is a financial problem. It only becomes a relationship problem if you let it.

Don't assign blame

The goal of a relationship is to draw a couple closer, not to alienate your best friend and life partner. Blaming your partner could be very destructive to a relationship and it never contributes to unity. The same goes for being critical of one another, all that will do is divide the relationship.

Acknowledge your partner's concerns

If something goes wrong and you feel responsible, it is easy to turn defensive when your partner expresses their concerns. Rather than turning it into a confrontation by defending yourself, put your ego aside and acknowledge his or her concerns with an understanding heart. You are in the relationship together and that means you probably have similar concerns that you need to work on.

Don't make wrong assumptions

If something happens that you are not sure of, don't make things worse by assuming. Instead of focusing on the negativities, sit down with your mate and discuss possible solutions. If you work together in a creative way you may be able to turn any brewing quarrel around.

This doctor does not fancy your coffin

Written by Biodun Ogungbo Punch, Nigeria.  Monday, March 7, 2016 Biodun Ogungbo Doctors are in the business of keeping people alive. So, it hurts when a patient dies. It is more painful when the death was perhaps avoidable. For instance, the person could die due to lack of finance or ignorance influenced by poor judgment when they were sick. Like delay in treatment often caused by visits to the pastor and the herbalist. Many times this makes the problem to be more complicated and more dangerous to your health. Simple problems that require simple solutions are allowed to get out of hand. Therefore, let me beseech you not to invite me to your funeral. I will not attend! I have buried one person too many and that is enough. Thank you very much. The only funeral I am waiting for and will definitely be in attendance is mine. A great event Funerals should be sombre affairs but have become commercialised in Nigeria. They are now pretty fanfares and, as you can imagine, a lot of fancy, competitive funerals happen in this country. Our funeral is bigger and better than yours! You could spend your time moving from one funeral to another and be pretty well-fed. You could even be well-clothed and get enough plastic to start small restaurant. However, let us dig a little deeper. A woman died recently from stroke, a consequence of hypertension. I heard someone infer that she was afflicted with 'juju'; that she stepped on some charms which paralysed her arm and leg. Foolish thoughts! As you may well know, hypertension (high blood pressure) can lead to stroke, heart attack and sudden death.

When you realise that long-distance relationship isn't going to work!

Written by Bunmi Sofola

~Vanguard, Nigeria: Tony Chinonso

When Joanne left the comfort of her parents' home to study pharmacy at the university, she wasn't in the least apprehensive. A bubbly girl just turning 20, she looked forward to making friends. Inside a few months, she'd not only made friends, she found Alfred, a boyfriend she fell madly in love with! "He lived off campus," explained Joanne,' and I moved in with him in my second year. The rest of my stay at Ibadan just flew by, and in no time at all, I had a degree under my belt ready to go back to Lagos for another stage of my life.

"Alfred, who was studying architecture carried on studying, and it was a massive shock to go from living together to hardly seeing each other. Nevertheless, we decided to give the now long-distance romance a go. We rang each other most days, but it wasn't the same. Travelling to see each other every other weekend was stressful. The car I had wasn't top-notch and the roads were a nightmare.

Apart from the highly unpredictable traffic, pot­holes often ruined my car and I had to rely a few times on public transport. We were often under pressure to make the little time we were together brilliant, but it was such an effort. I began to realise the relationship might not work long-term. I was never going to go back to Ibadan, and I couldn't expect Alfred to move to Lagos.

"In the end, I had to make the awful decision to say goodbye but I had no choice, I told him how I felt one weekend just after Christmas, after I'd spent hours on the Ibadan-Lagos expressway trying to get to his digs. It was very late when I eventually made it and I was really grumpy. He was very upset but I think he also realised it wasn't working. I drove away from his place the next morning in tears and felt really sick. I couldn't bear the thought of never speaking to him again.

"We did carry on talking for a while, but about a year later, I got a boyfriend I was serious with and felt I had to be honest with him. We've managed to stay friends and he will always be a part of my life. I was genuinely happy for him when he told me about his new girlfriend when he eventually found one and how happy he is now. He'll definitely be one of the first people I'll invite if I ever get married, and I hope I get an invite if he does too…"

Alfred was really sorry distance had to permanently separate him from his first love. "From the moment I met Joanne, I found her very easy to get along with," he said. "We got on so well, I thought it was the real thing and that our relationship would last forever. I always knew she would eventually move back to Lagos when her course finished and I supported her decision to go back. I didn't realise a long-distance relationship would be that hard.

One Word That Can End A Friendship

~TheGuardian, Nigerian.

We all have friends and we all know how important it is to have friends for the various reasons that we do; be it for reasons like networking, social life or for the sake of having a life partner. Yes, sometimes they support, encourage and stick with us through thick or thin but there is one major thing that can turn a good and lively friendship into a sour tale of strangers. Can you guess it? it has the following meaning:

1. to be actively and attentively engaged in work or a pastime
2. not at leisure; otherwise engaged

Yes, you guessed it. The one word that can trigger the end or terminate a friendship/relationship is "busy". It's the one word that's driving away your friends and you immediately need to remove it from your vocabulary. To you it may seem fine because you may be at work or occupied at the present time but nobody likes to hear these words:


"I'd love to hang out! But I'm really busy."


"Sorry I didn't get back to you earlier! I've been so busy."

"What's going on with me? Just busy as usual!"


Truthfully, there is nothing wrong in being busy, people can actually have a ton of things to do and still maintain a great relationship. It's not the work that is bothering, it's the word "busy". The word busy makes the other person feel like there is something more important at that present time to do than engaging in the activity in which they would like to do with you,indirectly letting the person know their place in your social scale of preference.


Let's see some other alternatives to telling someone you are "busy":

• Telling them the actual reason you can't meet with them

Be specific with your reason. The easiest way to turn a friend down without hurting their feelings is telling them the real reason you can't meet with them. For instance, a friend invites you for his/her birthday party, writing back "i'dlove to but i'mreally busy" is simply rejecting your friend but saying "i'd love to but Yemi has his office dinner and he want's me to be there this time, i have turned him down twice already. Have a glass of champagne for me. Happy birthday". That's a much nicer way that explains why you can't meet up andyour friend knows you have his/herbest interest at heart.

Why Hot Women Are Single

~TheGuardian, Nigeria

One of this world's most interesting phenomenons is when hot women are single. If you're reading this, chances are you are you are hot and constantly wondering why you're single. Or you know someone who is.

There are countless women in the world who are gorgeous, smart, witty, and down to earth. But in as much as these women are thriving in their careers, extremely loyal to friends and family, and have glorious senses of self-worth, they still find themselves being asked one question over and again - How are you single?

Why are women who meet even the most standard definition of beauty, and seem to be perfect, struggling so much to find dates today? Like, no one is calling up these women to hang out, or sending them drinks or food. And they definitely don't have anyone to call up to come spend time with them on lonely nights.

HERE ARE A COUPLE OF REASONS WHY HOT WOMEN ARE SINGLE:

1. She's no longer interested in dating just for the sake of it

As fun as casual dates can be, there are some people who no longer get any satisfaction from them. Maybe she would rather have one solid date than go on a thousand mediocre ones. It may not make a lot of sense to some people, but most women who feel this way just don't want to go out with a person they can't see themselves with in a long-term situation. While it may come across as being unnecessarily picky, but it's really just that she wouldn't want to waste her time or that of anyone else's.

2. She's done with her "hoe phase"

No, I don't think having casual, meaningless, no-strings-attached sex makes you a hoe. The "hoe phase" is simply a phase of liberated sexual exploration, as far as I'm concerned.

Why men will continue to be babies in the hands of women!

Written by Candida - Vanguard, Nigeria.

In the battle of the sexes one advantage women will always have over the men is their boobs! Simple as it is. it is very comical how seemingly intelligent men turn into whimpering teenage boys at the sight of a well-stacked women. I thought I'd heard and seen everything for and against the mammary gland until recently when I was in the midst of 'matured' men who amused themselves by analysing the aqnatomy of fremale gtuests at a wedding.

"What's so special about a pair of boobs?"I asked Supo, one of these men. He had bragged he was strictly a boobs man. Actually, most men do.I agreed with him, swearing that a woman without `more bounce to the once', has virtually lost her femininity! "Are you serious?" he wanted to know. "Do you know of any other aphrodisiac that's been around since God created man that generates as much excitement as a pair of boobs? It is not as if they've suddenly arrived out of nowhere you know? All warm. All soft. And pleasing to touch! New toys for the beautiful generations to play with! To make it more interesting, you get them in various

shapes and sizes.

"My fIrst fascination with boobs started in my second year in secondary school. I was only 14 then and our housemaid allowed me to do it to her. She must have noticed me lusting after her and decided to take me out of my misery! There I was. a pubescent boy confronted with a pair of knockers. She was huge. Just huge! I had never seen a pair of boobs like hers in all my life. And I'd seen my mother's and my elder sister's. Her own (the maid's) just bulged from everywhere. Over. Under, Between. Great trembling folds of flesh like a set jelly that you shake around. Terrific! You could put your head between them and blot out the world!

LETTER TO WHITE MEN...

By Tanoe Michael Nah on fb - Liberia

Dear white men, U asked us to wear coats under hot sun, we did;

U said we should speak your language, we have obediently ignored ours.

U asked us to always tie a rope around our necks like goats, we have obeyed without questioning.

U asked our ladies to wear dead people's hair instead of the natural hair God gave to them, they have obeyed.

U said we should marry just one woman in the midst of
plenty black angels, we reluctantly agreed.

You said our decent girls should wear catapults instead of
the conventional pants, they have obeyed.

You asked us to use rubber in order to control our birth rate,
we agreed.....

Now U want our MEN to sleep with fellow MEN & WOMEN
with fellow WOMEN so that God would punish us like Sodom
and Gomora? We say No!!

We don't agree with U this time! Proudly African, we say a
huge NO to GAY relationships and LESBIAN.

~Robert Mugabe

Must a wife always say yes to sex?

Written by Bunmi Sofola - Vanguard, Nigeria. 

Forget the old wives' tale that a married woman must be ever ready to satisfy her husband's conjugal rites' (how archaic!) but when push comes to shove, must a wife always be her husband's 'obedient servant' in the bedroom? Some months back, two couples were asked about their mismatched libidos, and how it affected their marriage.

While one partner claimed to be pretty much always in the mood, the other often felt pressured to have sex when they had little desire to do so. The challenge? For one month, the couples agreed they'd make love every time their partner made an advance. Would this highlight cracks in their relationship-or bring them closer together? Both couples kept diaries for four weeks.

COUPLE 1: Nathaniel, 38 an architect, and wife, Motoke, 40, an industrial nurse have been married for 12 years and have three children. While Nathaniel would like sex every night, Motoke says juggling work and family has sapped her libido, meaning she's only in the mood a couple of times a month. Their score: Week 1: twice; Week 2: once, Week 3: once; Week 4: twice. Total: Six times in four weeks.

According to Nathaniel: I'm so excited at the prospect of being able to make love to my wife more often that, on the first night, even though I'm shattered after 12 hours at work, my heart is racing as we climb into bed at 10.30pm; even more thrilling, Motoke actually makes the first move-I cannot remember the last time that happened.

I spend all the next day fantasising about what will happen later, but after a couple of glasses of wine, we both collapsed into bed and fell asleep. I'm too tired to mind. Sex is then off the agenda for a few days as it was Motoke's 'time of the month', but then she actually asks if we can go to bed. You bet!

Things That Hinder your Progress

~The Guardian, Nigeria

YOU cannot go back and start a new beginning. But anyone can start today and make a new ending. However, it is October now, before you can make a great transformation by December, you have to stop doing the things that have been holding you back. Such bad habits include one: holding grudges. So, don't live your life with hate in your heart. You end up hurting yourself holding grudges more than the people you hate.

Forgiveness isn't saying: What you did to me is good. Forgiveness says: I am not going to let what you did to me ruin my happiness forever. Forgiveness lightens the burden of disappointment. By letting go you find peace. Also, remember, forgiveness isn't just for others, it is for yourself too. If you want progress, you must forgive yourself and move on.

Two: stop blaming yourself for old mistakes. You may love the wrong person, cry about wrong things, but whatever went wrong, certainly mistakes help you find the person and things that are right for you. We all make mistakes and regret things in our past. But you are not your mistakes, you are not your struggles. You are here and now with the power to shape your day and future.

Every single thing that has ever happened in your life is preparing you for a moment that is yet to come. Three: stop spending time with wrong people. Life is too short to spend time with people who suck happiness out of you. If someone wants you in their life, they will make room for you. You don't have to fight for a spot. Never ever throw yourself upon someone who continually overlooks your worth. But remember, it is not the people that stand by your side when you are at your best but the ones who stand beside you when you are at your worst that are your friends.

Sex in the city: The shame of campus prostitution

Written by Laju Arenyeka, Anozie Egole, Iyabo Aina, Adeyeri Aderonke & Juliet Ebirim(Vanguard, Nigeria)

Prostitution—It is the oldest profession in the world; from   before Deliliah’s seductive ways with Samson in Bible times, to last   night in a dark corner at Ojuelegba bus stop in Lagos.

Women, selling their bodies for money; some pushed into this nefarious profession out of poverty, some, out of sheer greed and some others, simply for the love of sex. In this piece, Saturday Vanguard explores the lives students in our tertiary institutions who now appear more remarkable in their runs for men and money than their primary purpose of acquiring quality education.

‘Runs’ and ‘Aristoism’ in the ivory towers

This is not a sad tale from a Nollywood movie.

In 2010, 19 year old Elizabeth Ehis (not real name), had the world at her feet. She was writing her West African Secondary School Certificate Examinations, WASSCE, hoping to fulfill her life-long dream of becoming an accountant. However, life took a different turn when she lost her father to the cold hands of death before finishing her exams.

In spite of this, Elizabeth, the first of four children, forged ahead and gained admission into the University of Benin in 2012. Things were tough for her widowed mother. But sending Elizabeth to the university was top priority for her. Her mother would never have guessed that disastrous blend of harsh conditions, bad company and wrong choices would lead Elizabeth into prostitution. Her mother would not know that Elizabeth told our reporters her story from a brothel.

Her bad company came in the person of a friend she calls Stephanie. She said: “I met Stephanie during our Matriculation ceremony in the school, we were and still are in the same department.   But we did not really become close until we met at the party where we got talking and exchanged contacts. At first, I thought she was into lesbianism because of the way she was asking me about myself.

Later she told me that, I did not deserve the kind of poor life style I was living in school and that I needed to upgrade myself. She introduced me to some friends who would call me when there was a party to attend. At one of the parties we attended, they introduced me to some ‘big’ men.

Nigerian designer wives

Written by Jide Ojo - Nigeria

Follow on twitter: @jideojong

Jide Ojo

The title of this piece is a copyright from Aisha Falode and her team of co-presenters of "Amazons", a magazine programme on African Independent Television. The phrase was the topic of the episode aired on Friday, August 28, 2015. I watched the fascinating edition and therefore decided to share my perspective on the issue with a wider audience. In the episode, Nigerian designer wives was the ascription given to married career ladies who are trendy, sophisticated, and cosmopolitan but deficient in culinary prowess. They are women who are well-read but lack the ability to manage the home front. They rely heavily on house-helps to clean and cook thereby outsourcing crucial matrimonial duties.

Ace actress, Funke Akindele, in one of the recent episodes of her highly entertaining TV drama entitled "Jennifer's Diary" featured a character that best describe Aisha Falode's Nigerian designer wife. The lady couldn't cook nor do any household chore and only tried to do them when she was about losing her fiancé to another woman.

Is it not shocking that this country now has a sizable number of married women who cannot cook anything beyond noodle? There are even some of them who cannot boil water let alone egg. They have been so pampered that they do not know the way to the market and if they do, they don't know the recipe for soup making; how to identify good fish or meat; which yam is good for pounded yam and which one is good for porridge; how to bargain, etcetera.

There are many ladies in today's Nigeria that hire people to go to market for them. Thereafter, they go for their cookery book for guidance on how to go about preparing their meals. Some who couldn't cook order large quantum of prepared food and soups from restaurants which they take home to refrigerate and microwave when they want to eat or entertain visitors. Some don't even bother themselves going through all that stress, they simply eat out.

These designer wives do not know how to sweep, wash plates and clothes, mop the floor, dust the furniture, iron clothes, arrange the home and tidy up their environment. While some of them make heavy investment in purchasing washing machines for their laundry; some others hire people to do their home cleaning. Some do most of their laundry at the dry cleaners. All these are done at great financial and social costs.

What then do these designer wives know how to do? Oh, a lot! They are fashionistas and are specialist in the use of information and communications technology. They are connected to all the social media and can ping and chat from morning till evening except when they are busy at work. They regularly upload their latest pictures on their social media accounts such as Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. They also are good at watching the latest movies and films on satellite television. They have favourite soap operas they cannot afford to miss on terrestrial TV. They know all the major characters in Mexican soaps, Nollywood and Hollywood. They like to gossip and as such spend quality time on phones chatting up friends, colleagues and relations. They also love cars, customised, posh wonders-on-wheel, with which they cruise town.

Is marriage getting outmoded?

Written by Francis Ewherido - Nigeria

An Igbo Traditional Marriage event

Recently, I came across a number of write-ups from Europe and America questioning the relevance of the marriage institution. This thinking is mainly borne out of the increasing rate of divorce, and people now living together without being married and having children outside wedlock. In their thinking, if the primary purposes of marriage are companionship and procreation, why go into it when you can cohabit and procreate without being married?

This thinking, though defective, is understandable. More than 50 per cent of marriages in the US end in divorce. The rest of the West is not too far behind in divorce rate. Among African Americans, especially, you see a girl of 25 already a mother of five children from three or more fathers.

But this multiple-fathers trend is not peculiar to them. Here in Lagos, it is not uncommon to see a woman with three grown-up daughters living with her. Between the daughters, they have 10 children from five or more fathers. Some of these absentee fathers are agbayas(good for nothing. That is what you are if you abdicate your parental responsibilities).

The rates of divorce and cohabitation are also increasing in Nigeria. So it is not entirely surprising to hear some Nigerian youngsters also saying that marriage is going out of fashion. Some of these guys "are having the time of their lives." They "camp" girls in their houses without paying any bride price or performing any marital rites.

They owe the girls and their families no allegiance, no commitments, no bond, no strings attached and they can float away like a butterfly anytime they want to. And the situation is perfectly okay with these daughters of Eve because they are either desperate, in lust or do not give a damn.

What is the fate of children brought up in these settings? I have been observing two of them over a period of four years. Even before chest out (sign of puberty), they had started making up and strutting the streets like adults. Now they have reached puberty and gone full blast. They are between 14 and 15 years old, but I will not be surprised to see a protruding tummy tomorrow. May be a few abortions have already taken place.

The increasing rate of divorce all over the world is a major source of concern to everybody. In the last few weeks, I met about five wonderful American couples: two of them have been married for over 50 years, while the others have been together for over 40 years. They are even more worried than we are over here. They "can't understand what is happening to youngsters.

The teenager and the challenges of sexual pressure

Written by Funmi Akingbade - Nigeria

Funmi Akingbade

A good percentage of our teens and young adults today are under the siege of sexual pressure. Many willing teens and young adults easily give in to the pressure of sex and not because they actually bargained for it or were in full support of the sexual experiencing they were having. But it has been discovered that lack of good parenting and mentorship have led many of our young stars into undue negative early sexual exposure and disaster.

Parents and guardians, in a bid to balance business and parenthood, fail in their responsibilities towards these young ones.

The negative media influences (Internet) cannot be over emphasised. It is from the internet these teens and young stars are polluted as many of our teens get hooked to porn sites as early as age 10 and sometimes below. Masturbation, pornography, sex chatting have now become the order of the day among these teens. It is from internet that these young ones are pressured into bad gangs, sexual perversion etc. Research has shown that many sexual activities are pre-programme into all children's games, phones, ipad, iphones, Facebook dating etc. Then again, the violence-saturated media leads to the ever-increasing acceptance of violence among our young adults.

I am of the opinion that parents and guardians should do a bit more on sex education than they have done. Then, we would be able to salvage our teens and young adults from this impending sexual disaster.

But the greatest challenge is actually how to start this sex education.

Many well-meaning parents want to know the best approach they can adopt with their teenagers when they want to introduce and discuss sex and sexuality with them. Talking to your teenage child about sex and puberty can be quite challenging as some parents even avoid the topic completely because they are ignorant of their teens budding maturity, exposure and even the extent of what he or she knows already.

Others have the concern that talking about sex and their teens' body change would lead to early experimentation. Some other parents hesitate to start the conversation out of unnecessary fears, as such, leaving their teens to chances. I think it is not safe for parents to leave children to chances while wishing all would be well. Why not effect the changes you want to see in them?

A sex therapist expert says sex education is easier passed to the male teen than the female teen. This is the more reason a teen girl should be taught way ahead of her male counterpart. As soon as a girl- child reaches puberty, you should not delay discussing sex and puberty any longer. Many teens turn to friends and the media to get answers, much of which may be way off base. You might be surprised to know that although teens report getting most of their ­­information from the above two sources, the number one source they would wish they could go to with questions is 'you,' their parents.

How To Stop Your Partner From Criticizing You

ZeeZee is a certified Relationship and Marriage Coach who believes her purpose in life is to equip couples with the right tools for a successful relationship. Through her website and YouTube channel she shares practical tips and principles that help couples understand the inner workings of a healthy marriage.

Web: http://zeezeeio.com

Email: questions@zeezeeio.com

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"I'd love to hear from you! Do you think your spouse is just too critical? What exactly can you say to them to stop them from 'stomping' on your self-esteem? I can help. Wishing you unending joy in your marriage". - ZeeZee

Do you feel like your spouse is constantly criticizing you? The second they open their mouth to utter any words, you "dock" because surely, the daggers will soon come flying out. Communication between the both of you has now become extinct, as God-forbid you engage them in conversation, only to end up dealing with such callousness. Right?

You watch out for yourself!

What your spouse does goes beyond criticism of your actions and extends to criticism of your character, which could have a long-term effect on your self-esteem. (Yes it does! You always avoid them because they make you feel less than adequate once the critical comments start flowing).

In most situations, this negative behavior has always existed in the relationship (you just overlooked it hoping they'll see the light and 'change') and eventually the partner who is constantly being criticized - YOU – will get to a point where they can't take it anymore.

So how do you earn your respect back, after you've allowed yourself to be disrespected for so long? Here is one key tip that can help change the course of your relationship for the better.

Your partner needs to learn how to complain and not criticize!

I hear you asking...is that not the same thing? Doesn't complaining still prove they disrespect me? Why must they complain? I'll tell you why. If your name doesn't follow the designation 'St.' (for saint), there is NO possible way you could do everything right in your relationship. Be honest! (If you still need convincing, check in with me ASAP and I'll help bring home a few truths.)