General

BY CHINYERE OJIDE

The atmosphere is already charged by the spirit of Christmas via the exciting scarlet color greeting cards, Christmas lightings, road and street marks, the Santa, green trees and special flowers – all accompany the traditional feelings and spirit of Christmas. Busy shops and crazy buying and selling mark this time of the year that invariably keeps most people in good spirit. Last Christmas, a guy entered a Star Bucks coffee shop in Manhattan and asked if anyone needed anything paid for in the loving spirit of Christmas. Well, he got many fingers raised and he paid it all off with his credit card and screamed, “Merry Christmas.”

Christmas is gift coded. Nearly every employee expects some kind of “thank you parcel or check from employers...

Read more: Christmas Reflections

There are evolving customs and traditions relating to celebration of marriages in every human society, regardless of their relative primitiveness. Celebration of marriages or marriage ceremonies is to most ethnics and races, a customary rite of passage which every young man and woman must of necessity undergo as a pre-requisite to becoming full-fledged adults.

It is one of the areas where the uniqueness of a people and diversity of cultures come to fore. In some cultures, marriage ceremony is a one-day affair, in some, it is week-long, while in some, especially in Africa, marriage is celebrated in a series of ceremonies spread over several months or even in some cases, years The rites to be performed, the pre-requirements, activities and the duration of the ceremonies vary from...

Read more: Marriage in Africa

Few years back, an international Non Governmental Organization on Health and Development had an HIV/AIDS sensitization outreach in Ejigbo, a small town in South West, Nigeria. At the end of the program, several people who expressed willingness to know their HIV/AIDS status were counseled and subsequently tested.  An alarming number of them were discovered to be living with the virus. They were therefore taken through series of counseling and assigned to a support group with trained public health workers deployed to help them manage their health condition.

Most of the members of that support group did not make it beyond the year. No doubt majority of who were women, did not die from the virus. They were well aware that they could still live healthily with the virus for many...

Read more: Stigmatization and Discrimination against those Living With HIV/AIDS

Following the successful conduct of Nigerian general elections in April, 2011, the winners in the polls have assumed their respective offices. The inauguration ceremonies which were held simultaneously in all the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory on 29^th May, 2011 marked the inception of a new democratic dispensation and the conclusion of a third successive transition to democratic government in the Country.

The Nigerian April, 2011 polls have been widely adjudged the most transparent and credible in the history of the nation, even though it is not by any means a perfect one in light of a few snags that were recorded in the course of the exercise in some parts of the country.

Meanwhile, election tribunals constituted to adjudicate...

Read more: 2011 Election in Nigeria