The Pacesetter Frontier Magazine

Category: Lifestyle

  • Insecurity and Food inflation in Nigeria, Finding solutions to poor management

    Insecurity and Food inflation in Nigeria, Finding solutions to poor management

    THE coronavirus pandemic has contributed a lot to the current food inflation ravaging Nigerian families. Coming in February/March, the beginning of the planting season, and forcing a prolonged national lockdown, it prevented many of our farmers from sowing their seeds.

     

    Food inflation, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, rose from 16.66 per cent to 17.38 per cent in September this year and getting worse as the year draws to a close.

     

    General inflation in the economy stands at 14.33 per cent. The prices of staple food items such as yam, garri, pepper, onions, rice, tomatoes and others have gone sky high at a time when the incomes of average families have dwindled or run out altogether due to layoffs and pay cuts.

     

    It promises to be a very bleak Yuletide festive period.

     

    The situation we face could have been much more manageable if the President Muhammadu Buhari administration had made good its campaign promise of solving our security problem which is part of the regime’s three-point agenda: economy, security and anti-corruption.

     

    Indeed, the security situation has worsened under the watch of this regime due mainly to poor management and the kid gloves with which it has treated aspects of our insecurity.

     

    Though the Federal Government often beat its chest that it has dislodged Boko Haram jihadists from their captured territories, the terrorists have multiplied beyond Boko Haram, with the Islamic State in West Africa Province, ISWAP, now equally formidable.

     

    The foreign bandits that some evil politicians had brought to fight their turf wars have now turned their guns on residents of states in the North West and North Central, particularly Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna Niger and parts of Kogi.

     

    Also, armed Fulani militias from all parts of Africa masquerading as herdsmen have flooded the forests and farmlands of states in the Middle Belt and South, killing and kidnapping for ransom, robbing, destroying farmlands with their cattle and forcibly settling on people’s lands.

    Curiously, the herdsmen militias are the only terrorist groups that government has refused to tag the terrorists that they are. It has also refrained from deploying the army to flush them out of our bushes.

    All these agents of insecurity marauding all over Nigeria have succeeded in displacing farming communities and making farming unsafe.

    Farmers are afraid to engage in their legitimate occupation. With the closure of the borders and restrictions on food importation, it is not surprising that Nigeria is on the verge of famine.

    If the Federal Government is unwilling to get rid of the armed herdsmen, then it should allow each community to deal with them and allow farmers back to work. Without solving our insecurity problems there are simply no ot her ways out of this problem.

    Source: www.vanguardngr.com

  • Cardiovascular health – What you should know

    According to research presented at the scientific congress of the European Association of Cardiovascular Imaging held recently, climbing four flights of stairs in less than a minute indicates good heart health.

     

    As reported by sciencedaily.com, the study included 165 symptomatic patients referred for exercise testing because of known or suspected coronary artery disease.

     

    “Participants walked or ran on a treadmill, gradually increasing the intensity, and continuing until exhaustion. Exercise capacity was measured as metabolic equivalents (M ETs)

    “After resting for 15 to 20 minutes, patients were asked to climb four flights of stairs at a fast pace without stopping, but also without running, and the time was recorded,” the scientists wrote.

     

    They analysed the relationship between METs achieved during exercise testing and the time it took to climb four flights of stairs. Patients who climbed the stairs in less than 40-45 seconds achieved more than 9-10 METs. Previous studies have shown that 10 METs during an exercise test is linked with a low mortality rate. In contrast, patients who took 1.5 minutes or longer to climb the stairs achieved less than eight METs, which translates to a mortality rate of two to four per cent per year, or 30 per cent in 10 years.

     

    The study author, Dr. Jesús Peteiro, who is a cardiologist at the University Hospital A Coruña, Spain, said, “The stairs test is an easy way to check your heart health. If it takes you more than one-and-a-half minutes to ascend four flights of stairs, your health is suboptimal, and it would be a good idea to consult a doctor.”

     

    “This study was conducted to examine the relationship between a daily activity – i.e. climbing stairs – and the results obtained from exercise testing in a laboratory. The idea was to find a simple and inexpensive method of assessing heart health. This can help physicians triage patients for more extensive examinations.”

    Peteiro noted that the correlation between the stairs time and exercise capacity would be similar in the general population. But the corresponding mortality rates and heart function by imaging would be more favourable than for patients with symptoms and suspected or confirmed coronary artery disease.

     

    Source: www.punchng.com

  • Paternity Scandal : “What you don’t know about my troubled marriage” – Moyo Thomas

     

     

    The lady at the centre of the trending story involving the Managing Director of First City Monument Bank, FCMB, Mr. Adam Nuru over the paternity of her two children, Mrs Moyo Thomas has finally come out of her shell to reveal the circumstances that led to her separation from her late husband, Mr. Tunde Thomas.

     

    For over a week, social media have been awash with allegations of infidelity against Moyo leading to doubts about the paternity of her two young kids. She was accused of having an affair with Adam while she was still living with Thomas and that her kids are products of the illicit affair while she worked with Adam in FCMB before her relocation to the United States in 2017. Thomas was said to have died as a result of the trauma suffered from the scandal while Adam during the week stepped down from his seat as the bank MD to go on vacation to allow for a proper investigation of the swirling allegations. Though Moyo’s friends and family members had spoken in her defence, but in a statement personally signed by her and made available to Saturday Sun yesterday, Moyo told her story herself.

     

     

     

    “I write in reference to all the allegations and accusations that have recently been making the rounds on the internet and various social media platforms. I have refrained from responding to this matter for various reasons, one of which is to preserve the memories of Tunde who departed to be with his maker on December 16, 2020. Memories, not only to me, but to his children, who are still young, and to everybody who had a relationship with him.

     

    “Just like any marriage, Tunde and I had a lot of differences in our marriage, some of which even led to police intervention . But I remain committed to keeping only positive memories of him. No one can ever understand what transpired between us or what each of us experienced in the marriage; like they say, it is he who wears the shoes that knows where it pinches. In all of it, I never for once wished him bad. His untimely and sudden death is still a shock to me as it is to many others.

     

    “On no occasion did I ever tell him he was not the father of our two children. It is therefore deliberate falsehood and certainly malicious to allege and insinuate that I informed him that the children are not his. The children still bear his name. Only God knows why he died in an untimely period. It is not in my place, or anyone’s place to play God and talk with certainty as to the cause of his death, without proven medical facts.

     

     

     

    “Despite our separation, we never allowed our differences affect the relationships we respectively have with the children. He still had conversations with the children like any father will, up until his sudden and unfortunate death. It is quite sad and disheartening to see the pictures of these innocent children splashed all over the internet with very disparaging and weird comments.

     

    “I do wish his family and friends the fortitude to bear the unfortunate loss and I ask that we all be allowed to grieve his loss in peace. He has now been laid to rest and we implore all and sundry to please respect our privacy and allow those grieving his loss, including the children and I, to do  so in peace.”

     

    Source : www.sunnewsonline.com

  • NKANU TODAY: Ịkpụite

    NKANU TODAY: Ịkpụite

    By Muna Chinedu

    Ịkpụite (Pottery) has been one of the major crafts that Nkanu people have been known for, for ages and now.

    In Nkanu West, it is predominant among Awkunanaw women. For Nkanu people, it’s some sort of a pride.

    Back in the days, a woman who was a good potter was seen as a full and talented woman. Mothers then taught their daughters how to do pottery at a young age, while a woman that didn’t know how to do it was looked at like she missed from an essential blessing or gift.

    My grandmother once told me how much it took her to learn pottery from her mum.

    One community that has stood out in the practice of Ịkpụite is Obuoffia-Awkunanaw in Nkanu West Local Government Area of Enugu State, Pacesetter’s findings revealed.

    Pottery is not just a skill, gift or talent in Obuoffia in particular, it is a celebration. On the day the pots, earthen bowls, earthen plates, and many other varieties are to be heated through fire, as a way to harden it, or say, bring them to the final stage, to get them ready for use, neighbors turn up to wish the potter well, so her pieces will come out of the fire well.

    Then the best part; there will be food; abacha, fufu and soup, ihuobe, palm wine and other edibles to celebrate the successful finishing of the pottery. The molding and finishing are always done during the harmattan season, perhaps for the dry breeze the season comes with and how it helps harden the clay pieces.

    When my grandma was alive, pottery for her, was pride, and it’s a celebration and still is.