#DearBuki: How Can We Be Lovers If We Can't Be Friends?

Hello dear blog readers, how has your day been? I have started a column tagged #DearBuki where you can send whatever issues weighing on your minds and I would do my best to proffer solutions to them by giving my opinion and showing other perspectives to them. I do a lot of these guidance and counselling offline so I felt the need to bring it on my blog. Do send me an email on bukiotuyemi@gmail.com and we will put heads together. Check out the other posts here.

As they say, a problem shared, is a problem half solved................ :)

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 Dear Buki, good afternoon. Please I need your advice on a situation I am in at the moment. There is a guy I have had a crush on for over a year now but he did not appear to notice me much. We attend the same university but he is a level ahead of me. I thought the feelings I have for him would pass but they remain. He does not seem to notice me besides a short greeting of "hello, how are you?" every now and then. He has a lot of female friends but I don't think he has a girlfriend.

About two weeks ago, he started following me on twitter and we have been gisting every day since then. He says he is presently single but not willing to commit to a relationship but he wants me to be intimate with him. I really like him because he is funny and really suave but I think he is not as intelligent or nice as I assumed he is. I don't know what to do about this, whether to follow my head or my heart.

What would you advise Dear Buki?

Thank you.

Bothered Debbie.

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Dear Bothered Debbie,

"but not willing to commit to a relationship but he wants me to be intimate with him", that is called wanting to eat your cake and having it right back with some buns on the side. You seem really smart and I believe you know exactly what you should do. If you aren't on the same emotional page as another person, why give your heart and body to them? Unless you are willing to take a chance on lust love, I would advice you to remain friends with this fella and not get intimate with him.

Above all, you must face and focus on your studies. True love will find you and you would be glad you followed your head in the end.

All the best.

Buki O.

Our Boys Have Been Freed!!!!

There are no words apt enough to describe how elated I feel since I heard that the six kidnapped Igbonla students have been freed after over 60 days in captivity. The young boys were kidnapped from their school premises on the 25th of May and despite efforts to get them back sooner, they have only just regained their freedom from the den of the nefarious kidnappers.

The boys were released somewhere in Ondo State and are now at the Ondo State Police Command Headquarters in Akure, Ondo State.

I am glad they were released and would soon be reunited with their families and loved ones. I hope our government has adequate medical care in place for them because I cannot even begin to imagine the physical and mental state they are presently in, the poor lads.

What a happy ending to such an ordeal which lasted over two months.*side eyes the stupid kidnappers and our government*

Envy My Envy, Not!

Hi everyone, how are things going on with y'all? I know, I know, I have been MIA but it's all for a greater good. I apologise for my erratic writing of late and I really am working on rectifying this. I miss writing and I miss you all. Special shoutout to my dedicated blog readers and visitors, who check in here daily, post or no post. Muah. I'm still here for y'all. :)

Today I want to ponder on why people envy others to the point of pulling them down either verbally, physically or even financially. Often to the point where they gloat when a misfortune befalls the subject of their envy. Envy is defined as that feeling of resentment or dissatisfaction which is evoked by longing for the possessions or qualities of another person. When you strongly desire what someone else's has up to the point where you resent the person for having this item or qualities which you don't have, then you have been consumed by envy and this is never healthy for you.

The way this life is set up, there will always be that person who is better dressed, better coordinated, more eloquent, most beautiful or handsome, more vocal and funnier, richer and more powerful than you. The sooner you process that and comes to terms with the realisation of it, the better for you. Envy knows no gender, race, religious bias nor age, for it cuts across all borders. 

Often times, if you don't nip envy in the bud, it grows deep roots which could end up choking you. I recall a horrifying story that happened in Lagos a few months ago about a teenage school boy who got envious of his new classmate's academical achievements and plotted to kill her. He actually laid his hands on some acid from the school's chemistry laboratory (don't ask me how this happened, Naija is well, Naija) and poured it into the girl's drinking bottle! Thankfully, he was spotted by a couple of his other classmates and was ousted. Such is the depth of hurtfulness, madness and depravity that envy can send you spiralling down into if you don't curb it.

Some of the things that could trigger envy are a lack of contentment, pride (stemmed from falsely believing you deserve more than the other person and often comparing yourself to others. There are ways in which you can rid yourself of envying other and some of these are by embracing a life of gratitude with whatever you have while seeking to better yourself inwardly and outwardly, by being completely honest with yourself, by resisting the urge to compare yourself with others in such a way that will stir up envy and strife within yourself.

Learn to pass compliments to others without barbed edges in your words. Just let the good stuff come out of your mouth and move on, no need to let envy cause you to spew additional and unnecessary words after you've said something nice to people. 

Remember that envy consumes, so don't let it get you.

Have a prosperous day ahead.  

Their Lives Matter Too

Hello everyone, here is Robert Ogbogu, a passionate writer who is being featured on my blog for the first time. This write up of his comes from a clear place of pain, empathy and hope. Do enjoy and join us in our demand to bring back our kidnapped boys. 

If you would like your written articles featured in my #BlogFeaturePost columns, kindly send them in to bukiotuyemi@gmail.com.

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How long is enough? How long will our children be in servitude? And how long will parents wait to be reunited with their sons? It is over 50 (FIFTY DAYS!!!!!) days today since families were met with an unsolicited prominence of some sorts; a kind of prominence and limelight recognition that most of us wish not to be associated with. A kind of recognition that can be likened to gravel in the mouth or more like being left in the cold with no blanket or fire tools to keep warm.

Frankly, words cannot bring to realism the trauma and psychological breakdown that the parents and guardians of the six kidnapped students of Lagos State Model College, Igbonla will be going through right now. It is just nerve wrecking to think about it, how much more when we are the ones in the situation. Really spine-chilling to boot.

Writing this article brings to mind a real life event my mother told me not so long ago. As a new born baby, after my dedication in church, it seem as if I was everyone’s favorite; I would be passed around from hand to hand until the end of service. But it happened that on this fateful day, I was nowhere to be found. The pastor first made the announcement for the member carrying me to take me to my mother. Nothing happened. When it was getting to the end of service and there was no trace of me… what seemed to be a joke had turned into panic.

Well, to cut the story short, a member carried me to see off a friend she invited to church. That was how I was safely returned to my mother. Now for some other mothers in the church, naturally they will show their concern and sympathy, but not the way my own mother would feel it. Obviously, the whole incident must have sent shock waves to my mother. At that moment, so many thoughts will come to mind and even envelope her. That is to show how real and mind boggling events can turn us to be maniacs especially when we are the persons directly involved.

Has anything happened to any of your siblings, friends, colleagues or relatives that made you to briefly lose contact with them? Well, while you try to recall, just bear in mind that some families are going through some unspeakable trauma every day when they wake up from sleep with the reality of their abducted children staring them in the face and their safe return looking very bleak and uncertain.

The day we start failing and dying as a nation and as individuals is the day we start weighing and analyzing lives that are more important or top priority than others. When that happens, it simply implies that the founding fathers of this great nation made a grave mistake by trying to instill the tenets of equality, equity, justice, freedom and security for all the citizens of this great nation.

Yes, we have seen cases where the abducted relatives of the rich and famous in the country were released within twenty hours of their abduction. And yes we have seen the culprits brought to book and the abductors face the full wrath of the law. This simply means that a whole lot can be done in the case of the abducted school children. This is not a time for the blame game session amongst security agencies, showing nonchalant attitude or using the media as a tool to raise false hope.

Truly, this is not a time to stack it up with the rest of other piled up missing cases but a time to show pragmatic approach and explore different angles and options. The families of the kidnapped deserve to see their children and have them returned safe and sound. They deserve the right to be kept abreast with vital information on the turn of event, and they deserve the hope of going to bed each night knowing that the security agencies are really exploring all options in the release of their children.

We may not know these families directly neither do we know what the abductors school children will turn out to be. But one thing remains certain: if we keep looking the other way when events like this happen, how  much time will it take before one of your own is abductors and everyone gets to act like nothing happened too.

As a nation, we can do better because every life matters.  #FREE6LagosBoys

Ogbogu is a Fellow at Civic Hub, Lagos. Connect with him by email locate@civichub.com.ng  or ogbogurobert@gmail.com  Twitter: @OgboguRob