*The Marriage Advice ..*


1. **Choose Love, Always:** Even in moments when you find it hard to like each other, choose to love. Love is a commitment, not just a feeling.

2. **Be Present:** Always answer the phone when your spouse calls. When you're together, try to keep your phone off, giving each other your full attention.

3. **Prioritize Time Together:** Make time with your spouse a top priority. Budget for regular date nights because time is the currency of relationships, and investing in your marriage is key.

4. **Surround Yourself with Support:** Keep company with friends who strengthen your marriage. Distance yourself from those who might tempt you to compromise your character.

5. **Laugh Together:** Make laughter the soundtrack of your marriage. Share joyful moments, and even in tough times, find reasons to laugh together.

6. **Team Up in Arguments:** In every disagreement, remember that you’re on the same team. There’s no winner or loser; you either win together or lose together. Work as partners to find solutions.

7. **Be Each Other’s Strength:** A strong marriage isn’t about both being strong at the same time. It’s about taking turns being strong for each other when one of you feels weak.

8. **Value Intimacy:** Prioritize what happens in the bedroom. While a strong marriage takes more than s=x, it’s nearly impossible to build a strong marriage without it.

9. **Give 100%, Not 50/50:** Marriage isn’t about splitting everything down the middle. Divorce is 50/50; marriage is 100/100, with both partners giving their all.

10. **Give Your Best:** Offer your best self to each other, not just the leftovers after you’ve given your best to everyone else.

11. **Embrace Uniqueness:** Learn from others, but resist comparing your marriage to anyone else’s. Your life is uniquely yours.

12. **Don’t Put Marriage on Hold:** Don’t neglect your marriage while raising your kids, or you might end up with an empty nest and an empty marriage.

13. **Be Transparent:** Never keep secrets from each other. Secrecy is the enemy of intimacy.

14. **Build Trust:** Never lie to each other. Trust is the foundation of a strong marriage, and lies will break it.

15. **Admit Mistakes:** When you’ve made a mistake, admit it and seek forgiveness humbly. Be quick to say, “I was wrong. I’m sorry. Please forgive me.”

16. **Forgive Quickly:** When trust is broken, be quick to forgive. This promotes healing and opens the door for trust to be rebuilt. Say, “I love you. I forgive you. Let’s move forward.”

17. **Practice Patience:** Your spouse is more important than your schedule. Be patient with each other.

18. **Model Love for Your Children:** Live the kind of marriage that inspires your sons to be good husbands and your daughters to be good wives.

19. **Protect Your Spouse:** Never speak badly about your spouse to others or vent about them online. Always protect them, in all places and at all times.

20. **Wear Your Ring:** Your wedding ring is a constant reminder that you’re connected to your spouse and that you’re off-limits to the rest of the world.

21. **Connect to Faith:** Being part of a faith community can make a world of difference in your marriage and family.

22. **Pray Together:** A marriage is stronger with God at its center. Pray together regularly.

23. **Choose Kindness:** If you have to choose between saying nothing or saying something mean to your spouse, choose to say nothing every time.

24. **Stay Committed:** Never consider annulment as an option. A perfect marriage is just two imperfect people who refuse to give up on each other.

The reason people find it so hard to be happy is that they always see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is, and the future less resolved than it will be.

True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future.

"NO VICTOR, NO VANQUISHED”? NO, SIR. JUST THE BLOOD OF THE INNOCENT
A Truthful Dissection of Gen. Gowon’s Crocodile Tears

✍Ugochimereze Chinedu Asuzu

"I always remember the Civil War. It was the most difficult period of my life. It was not my choice…” So says General Yakubu Gowon: decades after the fact, as if the burden of memory alone could exonerate a man from the burden of responsibility.

But memory, stripped of remorse, becomes theatre. And this latest performance by the old General, wrapped in prayerful tones and wistful platitudes, is exactly that a theatre of moral evasion. What was presented as reflection was in fact deflection. A man who presided over the darkest chapter in Nigeria’s history now seeks to launder his conscience with the sponge of spirituality, mouthing prayers as if that were enough to bury three million truths beneath the soil of forgetfulness.

No, sir. You did not pray. You played. You played politics with people’s lives. You played Russian roulette with the destiny of a region. You played central command while entire communities burned. You stood at the gates of peace and walked away. The blood did not flow because you had no choice, it flowed because you made a choice. And the choice was war.

You stood beside Odumegwu Ojukwu at Aburi in Ghana. There, both of you spoke, agreed, shook hands and made a pact. You returned to Lagos to a hero’s welcome, but before the ink of trust could dry, you tore it apart. You listened to federal hawks, buried Aburi under the rubble of Decree No. 8, and turned your face from peace. You betrayed a solemn covenant for the sake of power. That betrayal, not the first shot fired, is where the war truly began.

The records are stubborn. They do not bend to nostalgia. They remind us that before a single Biafran soldier took up arms, thousands of Igbos had been hacked down in the North. Pregnant women butchered. Children beheaded. Men dismembered in full daylight. Railway stations were turned into morgues. Churches, into chambers of death. Kaduna. Kano. Jos. The North descended into madness, and the East was served grief on a plate of silence.

You, sir, presided over that silence. You were Commander-in-Chief, not a curious passerby. You issued words but withheld justice. You gave speeches, but not shelter. You watched a people bleed and called it unfortunate. And now, years later, you whisper: "It was never out of hatred." But hatred needs no introduction when its fruit is genocide.

And then came your famous phrase, carved into Nigeria’s post-war psyche: “No victor, no vanquished.” It sounded noble. It rang loud. But it rang false. Because the war ended, yes, but justice never began. Biafrans were not vanquished by force alone, they were buried beneath the rubble of reconstruction. Their economy was stripped. Their currency devalued. Their children starved. Their land mined and their dignity mocked. What you called reintegration, we lived as retribution. What you labeled reconciliation, we endured as marginalisation. The victor danced in national attire. The vanquished crawled through national amnesia.

Sir, you had the chance to become a Mandela long before South Africa birthed one. You had the moment. The world watched. The African continent stood still. But you chose empire over empathy. You chose command over compassion. You chose to keep Nigeria one by breaking a people in half. And now, the same mouth that sanctioned the guns says, "I prayed to God." Perhaps you did. But God is not mocked by crocodile tears. Not when the skulls of infants still haunt the red soil of Nsukka, Aba, Umuahia, and Onitsha.

Prayer is not repentance. Repentance begins with truth. And the truth is that you, along with others, enabled a war that was avoidable. You squandered the peace we almost had at Aburi. You enabled pogroms with your silence. You denied justice its wings and handed the world a bullet instead. And when it was all done, you wrapped the pain in poetry and hoped the music would make us forget.

But we remember. Not because we hate. But because we bleed.

This is not a call to bitterness. It is a call to honesty. To name what happened. To look the children of Biafra in the eye and say: Yes, you were wronged. Yes, we failed you. Yes, the war was avoidable. And no, it should never have happened.

Until then, sir, do not cloak yourself in prayer while justice lies unclothed. Do not speak of love when you could not uphold truth. Do not say “it was not my choice” when history has proven otherwise. And above all, do not try to rewrite what we lived.

You may now carry the Bible in one hand. But the other hand still drips with memories. Your legacy may wear the robe of elder statesmanship. But it remains stained by silence, by betrayal, and by the bones of those who trusted your word at Aburi.

So here, General Gowon, is what history truly says:
You may cry now, but the tears do not wash the blood away.
You may kneel today, but that does not undo the horror of yesterday.
You may pray, but the ghosts still answer with questions.
And until Nigeria confronts its past with courage, it will never know peace that lasts.

We forgive. But we do not forget. We move on. But we do not move blind.

Because truth, bitter as it may be - is still better than convenient lies.

✍Ugochimereze Chinedu Asuzu
Social Cum Political Analysis|Tuesday, June 10, 2025

You need not aspire for or get any new state. Get rid of your present thoughts, that is all.

*"I want to remember your face so that when I meet you in heaven, I will be able to recognise you and thank you once again."*

When Nigerian billionaire Femi Otedola in a telephone interview, was asked by the radio presenter, "Sir what can you remember made you a happiest man in life?"

Femi said:
"I have gone through four stages of happiness in life and finally I understood the meaning of true happiness."

The first stage was to accumulate wealth and means. But at this stage I did not get the happiness I wanted.

Then came the second stage of collecting valuables and items. But I realised that the effect of this thing is also temporary and the lustre of valuable things does not last long.

Then came the third stage of getting big projects. That was when I was holding 95% of diesel supply in Nigeria and Africa. I was also the largest vessel owner in Africa and Asia. But even here I did not get the happiness I had imagined.

The fourth stage was the time a friend of mine asked me to buy wheelchair for some disabled children. Just about 200 kids.

At the friend's request, I immediately bought the wheelchairs.

But the friend insisted that I go with him and hand over the wheelchairs to the children. I got ready and went with him.

There I gave these wheel chairs to these children with my own hands. I saw the strange glow of happiness on the faces of these children. I saw them all sitting on the wheelchairs, moving around and having fun.

It was as if they had arrived at a picnic spot where they are sharing a jackpot winning.

I felt REAL joy inside me. When I decided to leave one of the kids grabbed my legs. I tried to free my legs gently but the child stared at my face and held my legs tightly.

I bent down and asked the child: Do you need something else?

The answer this child gave me not only made me happy but also changed my attitude to life completely. This child said:
"I want to remember your face so that when I meet you in heaven, I will be able to recognise you and thank you once again."

What would you be remembered for after you leave that office or place?

Will anyone desire to see your face again where it all matters?

*This is a must read piece. It got me thinking. I am sending it to all my friends. I pray it does same to everyone.*

Try to touch lives , God bless you.

Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.

If you’re married or not married yet but you want to be a good husband and a great dad someday read this.

This isn’t hearsay. It’s my personal experience talking

1. Don’t keep late nights.
One of the things that earned me serious respect in my house is simple: I come home by 7pm.
I learned it from my dad.
No late-night hanging around. You avoid a lot of unnecessary wahala that way.
If you must stay late. Let your wife know who you are with where you are.

2. Listen to your wife.
I told a newly married friend:
If your wife is a good woman—listen to her.
Women have strong instincts. From experience, 99% of what my wife says turns out right.
Two old men in their 80s even told me the same thing peace starts from listening. Her opinion really matters bro. Don’t take it for granted.

3. Don’t be an absent father.
My kids no dey joke with me.
I bath them. I play with them. I take them out.
And guess what? Children don’t forget.
The little things hold big memory when they grow up. Make out time to always be presents.
This is very important ooo. So you won’t come to say your kids love your wife more than you.

4. Do house chores.
Yes. As a man.
I sweep, I clean, I help. It doesn’t make you less of a man.
It teaches your sons that housework isn’t “woman work.”
It creates bonding with your wife. If I can do it and still have peace-you can too. My kids know I can cook because I do it sometimes. They don’t see it as a big deal anymore.

5. Stick with one woman your wife.
Let me tell you the plain truth:
There is no trophy for sleeping with everything in skirt.
Mekwe is mekwe.
If you want to spice things, spice it with your wife.
Men who stay faithful grow faster mentally, spiritually, and financially. Real men have one woman while boys sleep with anything under skirt anyways choose where you belong.

6. Say “I love you” to your wife and kids.
Even if you’re showing it, still say it.
Some of us never heard it growing up.
Now I say it to my wife and kids daily.
And they say it back.
It makes them expressive, open, and confident.
Teach them to your kids early.

7. Don’t take advice from everybody.
Only learn from people whose homes you respect.
People can advise you how to run your home
but they won’t let you advise them.
If washing your wife’s bra brings peace, my brother wash it well.
At the end of the day, what you need is peace, not public opinion.

8. Never raise your hand on your wife.
No matter what. Don’t do it.
The day you raise your hand even once you’ve damaged something in that home.
Even if you stop, the scar remains.
Your kids will see it and think it’s normal.
The best punishment is silence or just leave the house when you feel like you’re losing control.

9. Last but not the least:
It is your duty as a man to provide for your home.
Do it with pride, no matter the hustle.
Whether you’re pushing wheelbarrow or sitting in office own it.
But also share responsibility, so you don’t break down early trying to carry everything alone.
And as you build yourself, build your wife too.
Nobody knows tomorrow.
How you treat your wife and kids today will determine how they treat you in old age.

What I just wrote is for intentional men
Men who want to be present. Men who want to build.
Men who are called simps or finished men just because they love and lead their homes with sense.

If you’re not one of them, skip the post.
No need to argue or feel triggered.
Those I’m speaking to already know themselves.
Because at the end of the day The kind of man you are at home matters more than the one you act like outside.

Copied.

Dear Parents and Teachers: A Heartfelt Plea on Behalf of Our Daughters…. By Esomnofu Chidiebube Ifechukwu

If you are a parent—especially of a girl child—please, I beg you, take special care. I am not in any way suggesting that boys don’t deserve our attention; they absolutely do. But let’s be honest: female children mature faster—emotionally, physically, and mentally. And because of that, they often face unique vulnerabilities at a much earlier age.

I’ve been teaching for over a decade now, and from my earliest years in the classroom, especially in senior secondary school, I observed something deeply troubling. You walk into a class, full of passion and commitment, ready to teach mathematics or any subject—and then, midway into your explanation on indices or algebra, a hand goes up. But instead of a question related to the topic, you hear:

“Sir, I like your trousers.”
“You look handsome today.”
“Are you married?”
“How old are you?”

These are not academic questions. They are signs. Signs that these children are at a sensitive stage of self-discovery. Their minds are searching for validation, attention, affection—even if they don’t understand it fully. And without the right guidance, they may seek it in the wrong places.

That is why parents must be vigilant—not overbearing, but intentionally present. Don’t just buy clothes, pay fees, and think your job is done. Talk to your daughters. Guide them. Warn them. Watch them. Be their safe space.

And to my fellow male teachers, I speak with a heavy heart: not every compliment is an invitation. Not every glance is a green light. You are not just a teacher of subjects—you are a teacher of values. Be disciplined. Be responsible. These girls are not temptations; they are someone’s daughter, someone’s hope, someone’s entire world. Please, don’t be the one who ruins that world.

If we fail to mentor these girls with integrity, we risk handing them over to a world that will not be as merciful. Let us raise them with wisdom, not leave them to figure life out through regret.

Because when a girl child stumbles—especially due to the silence or failure of the adults around her—the scars often last a lifetime.

Please, let’s do better. For our daughters. For our conscience. For the future.

*How to keep a relationship..*

It's not about perfection. It's about effort, every day.
Communicate-talk about everything, the good and the bad. Build trust. Be honest, even when it's uncomfortable.
Be faithful, not just in action, but in thought and intention.
Show up for each other. Be present. Make time— not just when it's convenient, but when it's needed. Leave the past where it belongs, especially the parts that no longer serve the present.
Yes, even the exes.
Understand that arguments will happen. It doesn't mean it's broken—it means you're human. You won't always be happy, and that's okay. Don't expect the other to change
-grow together instead.
Appreciate the flaws. Celebrate the small things.
Become best friends. Laugh. Cry. Fight fair. Forgive faster.
And most of all - Love each other, not just when it's easy, but unconditionally.
That's how you keep a relationship.

Mind is not in life. If mind is not in life, how on earth could it know what is life? It has to be present to know what is life. That's the illusion that life creates; that the mind is there... but it is not there! That is why it's an illusion.