Walking time bombs

I took an evening stroll down my street, saw a lot of people, some coming from their work places, some buying, some selling, some taking a stroll like myself, others preparing to have the regular evening or "afterwork" fun. Everyone was actively involved in something with no symptom of any medical condition. Weeks later, a medical screening was carried out on the same street and we discovered that over three quarter of the same population had one form of disease or the other, some even have more than one and none of them had an idea about their health status until the screening, they were bombs waiting to explode, I call them walking time bombs. 

About a quarter of the population screened were hypertensive, another quarter were diabetics and over half were both diabetic and hypertensive...a terrible combination of conditions that cannot be cured. The good thing about is that, with the advancement in medical research and therapeutics, these conditions can be managed very very very well with little or no complication.

The media awareness on HIV/AIDS has been awesome over the years. The constant media broadcasts on tv and radio, billboards, posters etc has helped reduce the incidence of that terrible and destructive disease, but, I believe a lot of people, both literate and otherwise know quite a mouthful about this deadly disease. We need to emphasize more on the "little things" we take for granted, the conditions people overlook or get herbs for, which lands them in the hospital with serious complications or get them to pay a visit to the pathologists.

A lot of herbal preparation are being sold to the public, with misleading information that those preparations can cure hypertension, diabetes and all other conditions. That is a big lie from the pit of hell, I repeat, a big lie from the deepest part of hell. Diabetes and hypertension are incurable, they cannot be cured by drugs or herbs, they are there for life and if not attended to, can turn out pretty bad.

Hypertension, high blood pressure as a lot of people know it as, is a sustained increase in blood pressure over a period of time. The exact cause of this condition is unknown (primary hypertension) but there are factors that can predispose an individual to it (secondary hypertension) e.g diabetes, smoking, hyperthyroidism, pheochromocytoma (adrenal gland tumour) and so on. Uncontrolled hypertension can cause stroke, myocardial infarction (heart attacks), heart failure, aneurysms of the arteries (e.g. aortic aneurysm), peripheral arterial disease chronic kidney disease and a whole lot of other complications which will invariably lead to death. Hypertension is rarely accompanied by any symptoms, and its identification is usually through screening, or when seeking healthcare for an unrelated problem. A proportion of people with high blood pressure reports headaches (particularly at the back of the head and in the morning), as well as lightheadedness, vertigo, tinnitus (buzzing or hissing in the ears), altered vision or fainting episodes. These people walk around and any little thing can trigger rupture of blood vessels, particularly those fragile ones in the brain.

Let's talk about the sweet enemy, diabetes mellitus. It's a condition in which a person has high blood sugar, either because the body does not produce enough insulin, or because cells do not respond to the insulin that is produced. This high blood sugar produces the classical symptoms of frequent urination (polyuria), increased thirst (polydipsia) and increased hunger (polyphagia). Diabetes without proper treatments can cause serious long-term complications like cardiovascular diseases (heart problems), chronic renal failure (kidney failure) and blindness as a result of diabetic retinopathy. Together with vascular disease in the legs, diabetic neuropathy contributes to the risk of diabetes-related foot problems (such as diabetic foot ulcers) that can be difficult to treat and occasionally require amputation. It usually presents with as wounds that do not heal, especially in the leg or foot, furuncles (boil) anywhere in the body, disturbances with sight and so on.

Adequate treatment of diabetes is thus important, as well as blood pressure control and lifestyle factors such as smoking cessation and maintaining a healthy body weight.

These conditions are dangerous siblings which must be kept under watch. Don't joke with your health, don't be deceived by hungry herbalist or people who sell products claiming they cure all these diseases, so go to the nearest health center and get yourself checked. These conditions can be controlled and it won't cause any discomfort or problem(s). Take whatever drug the doctor prescribes religiously, always check your BP as well as your fasting blood sugar level and you'll be perfectly fine. Don't wait till it turns out bad, get yourself checked, you don't have anything to lose and the earlier, the better.

Oshine

Music is a universal language that brings happiness and restores laughter. It is also a medium to be informed and a channel of communication regardless of the language used. African music is now on the front line due to brilliant concepts, melodious beats, inspiring lyrics, unique dance styles (like etighi, azonto, alanta etc) and outstanding performances by our artistes......big kudos to them.

Nigerian music industry has produces artistes who have gone far and wide and an example is Oshine, a vibrant and talented young artiste who has won several awards, done so many collaborations and featured in a lot of tracks.

Seun Balogun, professionally known as "Oshine" is a songwriter, singer and entrepreneur. The 'sugarcane girl' crooner who resides in the states has successfully anchored his tunes into minds. With his success in the USA, Nigeria and other parts of the world, he's aiming at making a long lasting impact in the music industry, both locally and internationally.

Oshine is making me proud as a friend and I wish him all the very best. I'm happy that his recently released single 'Ding Dong' is making waves on the charts. You can follow him on twitter @oshinealasheju.

Let us support our artistes and promote their music to the next level.

Click here to download 'Ding Dong'

Social media and it's vices

Social Media are social software which mediate human communication. Social media includes web and mobile-based technologies which are used to turn communication into interactive dialogue among organizations, communities, and individuals - Wikipedia.

According to Nielsen, global consumers spend more than six hours on social networking sites. "Social Media Revolution" produced by Socialnomics author Erik Qualman contains numerous statistics on social media including the fact that 93% of businesses use it for marketing and that If Facebook were a country it would be the world's third largest in terms of population, larger even than the US, wow!!!

Social media has overtaken pornography as the No. 1 activity on the web, and that gives us joy, at least "something good" has overtaken pervs...lol.

In June 2011, it was reported that iPhone applications hit one billion in nine months, and Facebook added 100 million users in less than nine months.

According to Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein there are six different types of social media:

1. collaborative projects (for example, Wikipedia)

2. blogs and microblogs (for example, Twitter),

3. content communities (for example, YouTube),

4. social networking sites (for example, Facebook),

5. virtual game worlds (e.g., World of Warcraft), and

6. virtual social worlds (e.g. Second Life).

The main increase in social media has been Facebook. It was ranked as the number one social networking site. Facebook is a social networking service launched in February 2004, owned and operated by Facebook, Inc. As of June 2012, Facebook has over 955 million active users, more than half of them using Facebook on a mobile device.

These networking sites have been advantageous in so many ways e.g couples have met through Facebook, some started their friendship via these sites, business transactions have been made, we see procedures and videos on YouTube and so on and so on.....but, as good as they seem, we must remember that, there is a whole lot of personality we don't have the slightest hint about behind those lovely profiles we view. As Gordons rightly said, Jesus had 12 disciples but still had a "419" among them. If Jesus Christ, the saviour of the world can have few disciples yet, had a criminal among them, how much more Facebook or any other social media with millions of subscribers.

There has been a lot of terrible news about killings through Facebook. The most current being the 15 year old Dutch teenager who murdered a school girl because of comments she posted on his girlfriend's wall...smh. He was convicted and sentenced to a year in juvenile detention with subsequent three years' detention in a psychiatric institution afterwards. I just wonder why every white boy that murders suddenly had severe behavioural disorder with psychopathic tendencies, as their experts always say....."mtcheew!!!! awon ode". Though some may see this as justice being served, it won't bring back the little girl to her family.

Let's not quickly forget Cynthia Osokogu, a 24 years' old postgraduate student of Nasarawa state university, Nigeria, that was killed by her Facebook friends after having met them in real life at a hotel in Lagos.

The Guardian on 8th March, 2010 brought to our notice, a Facebook murderer, Peter Chapman, a 33 years' old man who posed as a teenager to lure his victim, a 17 years' old Ashleigh Hall. He had claimed to be a handsome teenager and used the profile to meeting him after he befriended her through Facebook. In order to entice her into his car, Chapman sent her a text message saying the boy's father would pick her up. He texted her to say: "My Dad's on his way, babe" and once in the car, he attacked her, kidnapped, raped and murdered her. Her body was found dumped in a farmer's field, her arms bound and tape was put over her face, suffocating her to death. Though he was sentenced to life in prison, imagine the effect of the cause of her death on the family.

Mail online news on 28th July, 2011, brought to our attention, a 16 years' old boy who killed his girlfriend for a bet.he was dared by Facebook friends to murder in exchange for a free breakfast, can you imagine, breakfast, possibly bread with scrambled eggs and bacon. The idiot killed a fellow human being because of food.

I can bring up a whole lot of other unfortunate news that cannot be written here, a couple even killed a family friend for unfriending them, "na wa ooh", is it by force to be a friend?.

Anyway, the main thing is that we have to be very careful how we make ourselves porous with the information to give out, the way we make friends on these sites, how we meet or transact with them and a whole lot of other cautious steps we must take to keep ourselves safe and impenetrable. Be wise!!!

Credit: Wikipedia, The Guardian, Mail online.

BRS Creations: the brain behind it

The world is constantly changing, from the days of walking around naked, to using banana leaves as clothing, to animal skin, then to all sorts of designer wears. We all like the big designer names and it boosts our confidence wherever we go or any event we attend.
The amusing thing is that, as expensive as those wears are, some don't fit us perfectly and most don't reflect the true designs we have in mind.
In the midst of the numerous choices of wears, emerged BRS Creations, a radiantly simple but outstanding and unique outfit which caters for various fashion needs, including sweaters, cardigans, mufflers, headwarmers, caps, bolero, jackets e.t.c which are all knitted, and yes, ALL KNITTED.

Meet Miss Abiola Salvador, the owner and brain behind BRS Creations as she epitomizes her contagious passion for her outfit. This beautiful, brilliant, elegant, classy and gifted young lady who is inspired by her mum, as well as everything around her, is a graduate of microbiology from Crawford University, Nigeria.
Abiola, a lady who has eyes for details when it comes to creativity and fashion has successfully carved a path for herself in Nigeria’s emerging fashion industry with her brand....BRS Creations. 

A 'Flygerian' whose driving force is about making a difference and adding glamor to the use of wool, plans to take over the fashion industry both locally and internationally by becoming a global player in the fashion industry through the supply of various quality knitted wears available and affordable to everyone.

You can contact her on +2348036627331 or mail her at biosalvador@yahoo.com for all kinds of superb, quality and outstanding designs, and trust me, she delivers with the speed of light, even beyond expectation. Contact for business ONLY please.

Click here to know more about this gorgeous lady and her outfit.

Nigerian student faces life imprisonment in Ukraine

According to Wikipedia, racism is generally defined as actions, practices, or beliefs that reflect the racial worldview: the ideology that humans are divided into separate and exclusive biological entities called "races" but my modification of this 'plenty grammar' is that racism is simply hating other people whose 'body colour' is different from yours.

From the incidences relating to racism in the Euro 2012 hosted by Poland and Ukraine, we can draw conclusions that Martin Luther King's dream that "one day little black boys and girls will be holding hands with little white boys and girls” is still a work in progress.

On the 5th of November 2011, Olaolu Sunkanmi Femi, a Nigerian student studying in Ukraine and his yet to be identified Nigerian friend (also a student) were physically molested and attacked in front of their apartment by a gang of Ukrainian racists.

Eye witness accounts say Olaolu and his friend who were hurled to the ground and racially abused all this while, was able to get up and grab hold of a piece of glass from a broken bottle to use in self-defense and it was while he was defending himself that police arrived at the scene. He was arrested and charged with attempted murder of five people which makes me wonder how one man will attempt killing 5 people (who were probably armed) in his sane mind, only Jet Li does that. Anyway, Olaolu has since been remanded in detention by the Ukrainian police who refused to take the case to court citing unavailability of the police to get an interpreter for him.

As we all know the 'Aluta spirit', Nigerian students in the Ukraine are not taking it easy as they have been protesting his arrest and labeling it an act of racism. The Nigerian students’ community in Ukraine under the leadership of Osarumen David-Izevbokun, a Phd student in international relations has been working tirelessly to ensure justice for the Nigerian by organizing protests as well as drawing the attention of the human rights groups in Ukraine to the plight of Femi who has spent almost seven months in jail without trial.

David-Izevbokun told African Outlook that he alongside other Nigerian students in conjunctions with some members of the Ukrainian human right groups staged a protest on April, 9 outside the Leninsky District Court in Luhanski demanding the release of Olasunkanmi.

The actions, according to David-Izevbokun has put the Ukraine police on the spot as the case came up for hearing on May 3. “We had a lot of media coverage on the protest ” David-Izevbokun said, noting that he was sure the attention given the case may have prompted the May 3 court appearance of the suspect.

David-Izevbokun who was at the May 3, court hearing told African Outlook that Olasunkanmi appeared depressed when he showed up in court.

In almost typical fashion, the Nigerian embassy sent a representative to visit Olasunkanmi in jail once and thereafter, never returned.

Too many Nigerians are facing jail terms in various European countries over phantom allegations and even more disheartening is the role of the Nigerian government via its embassies in such countries. Nigerians are subjected to various forms of maltreatment, from the way we are searched at international airports, to bank transactions and literary in every aspect of our lives, the terrible thing about it being that, even our neighbouring countries don't spare us.

Hating people because of their color is wrong. And it doesn't matter which color does the hating. It's just plain wrong ― Muhammad Ali. Let's come together and fight this deadly practice which poses a serious threat to all of us.

“The piano keys are black and white but they sound like a million colors in your mind" ― Maria Cristina Mena from "Spiders web”

Please, if you can, visit the “Free Olaolu” page on facebook and show your support at facebook.com/FreeOlaolu

Credit: Funto, Searchlight Magazine

The dedicated drunk

It was a very cold and silent evening, the only sounds were those of patients moaning in pain and some doctors talking. There wasn't really anything to do at the SME (surgical & medical emergency) and as I was talking with some colleagues about how that weekend wasn't eventful, an elderly man was suddenly rushed in...."Move! Move!! he's in shock" was all we heard.

My colleagues and I on duty rushed to meet them, he was cold, unconscious and there was blood all over his mouth and shirt, so we set up IV lines and started pushing in IV fluids (drip) in order to resuscitate him. We took blood samples for grouping and cross matching, and was putting him on the third bag of IV fluid when the blood requested from the blood bank arrived. Before starting the transfusion, he responded and we were all happy that he was stable, just for him to respond with a faint voice that "doctor! doctor!! I don't take blood, I'm a Jehovah witness and it's against my belief".

We all opened our mouths out of amusement and disbelief, "Ewurade!! this man paa (in Ghanaian intonation), he no make serious oo" as my colleague said. We couldn't believe that this man will turn down blood transfusion which will save his life. He came in with an upper GI bleeding (bleeding from the upper part of the gastrointestinal tract i.e. from the throat to the first part of the intestine). His condition could either be portal hypertension secondary to alcoholic liver cirrhosis, acute haemorrhagic pancreatitis, gastritis or Mallory Weiss syndrome. All differentials were supported by a strong history of binging and alcoholism.

My colleague asked him, "sir, is alcoholism part of your belief?", he was silent and thanked us for helping out but declined the blood transfusion or any other plasma expander, which will help increase his chances of survival. He was discharged after two days though with a low haemoglobin level which is dangerous and can transfer him to the other side....if you know what I mean.

I cannot but continue to wonder how someone can endanger his life by doing things outside his belief, yet, he can't agree to something outside "his belief" but will save his life from his own suicidal habit. "Na wa ooh" as we say in Nigeria, homo sapiens can pass for hypocrites.....lol. "Na we do religion pass".

Celebrating a rare gem at 60

Mr. Adeyemo Adejumo as you know him, well, I know him as "daddy leko" (Daddy in lagos) or daddy. A wonderful man with the fear of God, humble, well mannered, intelligent, lucrative and a whole lot of other qualities I can go on and on to write about. He's a man with great foresight, married to a beautiful woman and blessed with many wonderful children (can't call them kids cos they're giants, especially the one who is the latest dad in town...lol).

A retired managing director of a top re-insurance company: Continental Reinsurance Company (CRe), past president of Chattered Insurance Institute of Nigeria (CIIN), in short, a perfect gentleman.

Daddy is 60, wow!!! To survive 20 years on earth is serious, then 30, 40, all the way to 60, it's such a blessing, a gift from God.

I remember back in model college days (secondary school), I had a family friend who always came to my school for business. Everybody said all sorts of terrible things about her and I couldn't defend her because everything said about her was true. The only thing I could do was to pretend as if I didn't know her anytime such discussions came up, or leave. It's a whole different ball game with daddy, he's a man of integrity, someone I can identify with anywhere because of his integrity which is unequivocal.

I grew up knowing him, he's actually my second dad, not that I'm trying to "famz" but it's the fact. We (my siblings and I) go to his house for vacation, something we always looked forward to. He plays with us, tells jokes, advices us etc and before I forget, my pocket never leaves his house empty (if you know what I mean) and it's the same thing with mummy.

He's a role model, a rare gem.

Daddy, happy 60th birthday. You're a blessing to us and we pray that God continue to bless you, keep you safe and grant you long life in abundance and prosperity.

He launched his book "Singing of His mercies: the Adeyemo Adejumo story" and trust me, it's a book to get. It's an autobiography where we all can learn how to live a fulfilled, prosperous and God fearing life.

He told of his background, how he grew up, his school life (hmm… kinda different compared with ours), how he met… (u get the gist!), how he started his career, how he rose up the ladder of success and a whole lot more. Mark you, all was by the grace of God and he really emphasized that fact! You can get the book through me, of course!