My Aides Thought I Was Dead And Were Already Selling My Properties – Patience Jonathan

Mrs. Patience Jonathan

Wife of President Goodluck Jonathan, Patience, narrated on Sunday in Abuja how a debilitating sickness almost took her life at a time the Federal Government was telling Nigerians that the President’s wife was in perfect condition. The President’s wife said she passed out for over seven days and that her aides, believing that she was dead, were already selling her personal effects before God “miraculously” brought her back to life.
Punctuating her testimony with praise songs, Patience, who refused to read from a speech prepared for her, narrated to a congregation at a thanksgiving service held at the Presidential Villa how she underwent nine surgeries within one month in London at a time the Presidency was assuring the citizens that she had merely travelled to rest after the rigours of the 2011 elections and hosting the African First Ladies Summit.
At a reception later in the day, Jonathan said his wife’s “miraculous healing” had put an end to the superstition about deaths in Aso Rock.
Jonathan’s wife said, “I remember when Chief (Olusegun) Obasanjo was the President of the country, I was close to his late wife, Stella. We worshipped together in this chapel.
“It was a painful moment for me that time when she died and her corpse was brought here. That was how my corpse would have been brought here. It was not an easy experience for me. I actually died; I passed out for more than a week. My intestine and tummy were opened.
“I am not Lazarus but my experience was similar to his own. My doctors said all hope was lost.
“A black doctor in London who is with us in this service was flown in when the situation became critical. It was God himself in His infinite mercy that said I would return to Nigeria. God woke me up after seven days.
“I know that some people somehow leaked the information that I was dead. They are people that I trust and rely on; to them, I was dead and I would never return to the country alive. Some of them even sold my things off.
“I won’t say everything here. It is the Lord’s doing that I returned alive. When God says yes, nobody can say no.
“People are always afraid of operation (surgery) but in my own case, while my travail lasted, I was begging for it (surgery) after the third operation because I was going to the theatre every day.
“It was God who saw me through. I did eight or nine operations within one month. It was not an easy one.”
Curiously, the President’s wife did not reveal the nature of her ailment but she admonished the citizens to stop playing politics with sickness, saying nobody was immuned to ailments.
She said her experience taught her that there was nothing like a First Lady and that she realised that she was “a common woman and my name is simply Patience.”
Patience, joined by her husband and family members, later danced to the altar for a special thanksgiving with the song “This kind God, I have never seen Him before.”
Primate of the Church of Nigeria, Anglican Communion, Most Rev. Nicholas Okoh, in his sermon titled, “The saving acts of God” at the service recalled that many Nigerians and friends of the nation were anxious about the health situation of Patience when she was abroad.
The cleric said while a lot of people uttered negative statements about the situation, he said he was delighted that what the people said was different from what God said.
He assured Patience that her healing was perfect and her ailment would not relapse, saying it was a good thing that when God turns shame to joy, there is need to rejoice and thank Him.
“You have been set free; the forces attacking you have been defeated. God has released His authority and today, you are a winner,” he said.
At the reception, the President said, “The story was that one of us (the President or his wife) will die. Today we are celebrating her.
“Her recovery has put an end to that belief. I am not too good in celebrating, but for this particular one, I think we have to thank God for keeping the life of my wife.
“If anything had happened, there would have been different stories. Fake prophets would have given their stories. As mortals, we must fall sick and die but how and when is what matters most.
“To die when serving your people is not good. Death should come after you have finished serving.”
The President recalled that when he was still a deputy governor in Bayelsa State, he lost a second cousin.
He said during the burial, a story was told how anybody in his community who is gradually going into limelight always die mysteriously.
He said all eyes were focused on him, apparently insinuating that it was his time to die.
Jonathan said he prayed hard that he would not die young and God answered him.
Patience Jonathan left Nigeria unannounced in August last year and spent about seven weeks abroad.
Although her media aides claimed she was resting abroad after the rigours of hosting the African First Ladies Summit, media report had it that she was admitted at a German hospital during the period.
Throughout her period of absence, the Presidency kept mum on her state of health and the nature of her sickness.

True touch makeover: Is coffee healthier for you when you’re drunk?

True touch makeover: Is coffee healthier for you when you’re drunk?:  Strange question to ask. If you are drunk, why worry about health? Right? Wrong. Maybe. First of all, computational chemistry is n...

7 Ways to Look Younger Using Just Makeup!

Nothing works better in keeping yourself young than to eat healthy and exercise. BUT, if you’d like some additional ways to look younger instantly, here’s some helpful tricks!

1. Skip the Powder As we age, we tend to lose the natural “glow” to the skin. Adding powder can make the skin too matte looking and dull or can make it look cakey. Opt for liquid foundations or tinted moisturizers as they allow the skin to shine through.
2. Apply a Creamy Pink Blush Powder blush can also dull the skin, so using a cream blush adds a glow to the cheeks. Plus the pink color adds a nice flush to the cheeks that gives a youthful appearance.
3. Curl your Lashes Making your eyes appear larger and more open is a great way to make you look younger. The best way to accomplish that- curl your lashes and apply 1-2 coats of mascara.
4. Wear Plumping Lipgloss Making the lips look full and glossy is another way to look younger, plus it makes them look uber sexy and kissable! Avoid dark shades as that can make lips look smaller.
5. Conceal your Dark Circles Whether it’s age or lack of sleep that’s giving you shadows under your eyes, hiding them with concealer with automatically make you look fresh! The trick is to use a peach or coral color concealer to counteract the blueness of the dark circles. Then applying a concealer on top that is your natural skin color or 1 shade lighter will brighten this area	.
6. Wing Your Liner Getting that droopiness to the eyelids is another change that happens as we age, but bringing your eyeliner up and out will help lift the eyes. Take a bent liner brush and some gel liner, apply along the upper lashline and wing it up on the outer edge of the eyes.	.
7. Wear Light Shimmer Shadow Applying a light colored shimmery shadow near the tear duct and just under the brows will brighten your eyes and make you look more awake. The key is to not wear shimmery shadow all over the eyes- JUST near the tear duct and under the brows.

Is coffee healthier for you when you’re drunk?

 Strange question to ask. If you are drunk, why worry about health? Right?
Wrong. Maybe.
First of all, computational chemistry is not giving you a license to get drunk (or fat for that matter). It is however telling you that coffee may be more effective in combating oxidative stress when the medium (your blood, perhaps?) is less polar (water is very polar).
In any metabolic process, reactive oxygen species (ROS) are common intermediaries. Think of them as waste by-products of the business of living. Left to themselves, these species can cause oxidative stress that can lead to diverse human diseases such as hardening of the arteries, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s syndromes, cancer, etc. So, it is important that these toxins be regularly removed from the body. Caffeine is one possible precursor biomolecule that helps remove these species from the body.
In a recently published paper in the International Journal of Quantum Chemistry, Annia Galano, et al., find that the anti-oxidant scavenging activity of caffeine is much more rapid in a less polar (possibly alcohol or lipid-based) medium than in water. The authors studied three different possible reaction mechanisms (SET, HT and RAF) for the commonly problematic ROS toxins ^•OH, ^•OCH₃, ^•OOH, and ^•OOCH₃.
A note of caution before anyone gets carried away.
My guess is that converting the blood solvent into alcohol (as opposed to the 95%+ water we are all made up of) is not a great idea. But should we ever find life on a very different kind of planet/moon, chances are that investing in inter-planetary coffee trade may be the ultimate stock tip.
Until we all get rich, let us try to avoid hangovers.

10 Words To NEVER Use On Your Resume

Here are 10 of the most overused, uber-cliché words you could ever use on a resume, cover letter or job application. Here’s why:

1) Ambitious: “If it were so, it was a grievous fault; and grievously hath Caesar answer’d it.” Ambition may be a wonderful thing for your career, but no one wants to hire someone who’s going to try to replace them or leave as soon as he gets a bit of training at the company’s expense.

2) Competent: If that’s the best you can say about your work performance maybe you ought to consider a new line of work, perhaps the Post Office. When the chips are down we want people who are awesome. Don’t tell us you’re competent, show us you’re amazing.

3) Creative: The last thing we need is more creative accountants. You’re trying to demonstrate business value. Creativity is neither measurable nor reliable. It can sometimes be turned into profit. In that case tell us how you did it and how much it was worth. Let us determine for ourselves how creative you are.


4) Efficient: So was Jack the Ripper. What we really want to know is how you’re efficiency is going to make us money.

5) Flexible: What are you, a contortionist? If by this you mean that you’re able to take on a number of different tasks then show us a range of what you can do. Better yet, show us the range of results you can get. If you mean that you can put your foot behind your head then show us that too, you’ll definitely get remembered.

6) Hard-working: We could say the same of a prisoner on a chain-gang. What an employer is looking for is results. If you achieve them by hard work or occasional bursts of brilliance doesn’t matter a whole lot. Merely working hard isn’t enough. For all we know you tend to do it at cross-purposes.

7) Knowledgeable: Everyone has knowledge of one sort or another. It comes from being alive and experiencing things. If you have a degree, tell us that. If you have specific knowledge relating to the job then you’ll be asked to demonstrate it in the interview. Use the valuable space in your resume to show us what you can do with what you know.

8) Logical: If you arrived at your results by logic, intuition or voodoo isn’t truly my concern. The only question that matters is if you’re going to be a profitable investment. A computer can follow a prescribed set of instructions and doesn’t earn overtime.

9) People Person: This is a truly vacuous term. It sounds pretty, nice and alliterative, but at what does it actually mean? Whether you like people or not is irrelevant, as is if they like you. It’s what you can do with your “people skills” that you’re getting paid for and we want to know if you’re going to be worth the money.


10) Successful: This is either self-evident or false. Without a definition of success to apply to your situation we can’t tell which one. Show us some successes, we’ll be much more impressed.

These words will not only make you look like everyone else, they might even throw out your application due to plagiarism or copyright fraud! Be specific in what you write and what you bring to the company in terms of business value.

7 Diet Mistakes Women Make!

If you have been doing everything possible without seeing results for your efforts, it could be that you are making some of the mistakes that is inhibiting your weight loss goals.


Are you exercising regularly?
Are you also dieting?
What could make doing any of the above not yield the expected outcome?
We are going to look at 7 reasons why all your “right” methods to weight loss may actually be wrong.
Here are the top 7 mistakes women make that stops them from reaching their goals.
1. Dieting – Starving Yourself
The most common way most women who wants to loose weight follow is by starving themselves of the foods they love. The truth is, initially you loose weight dieting. The downside to this method of weight management is that the fat that you seek to burn is not what you burn when you diet.
Instead you burn your muscle tissues thus making you flabby and not strong. You feel weak as a result of this method.
When you diet and loose muscle, your fat burning comes to a half as the muscle is the mechanism that helps in fat burning. When most of it is lost, you develop a very weak metabolism for fat burning and thus you tend to gain weight over a prolonged period as you will be forced to go back to the foods you have left. This time you will grow fatter than you were.
2. Doing Only Cardio Exercises
What type of exercise do you engage in? Is it just light exercises like running, jogging, and brisk walking? Cardio exercises are the least effective form of exercises that works.
If you want to get good result, then you must increase your metabolism more than the output that cardios give. In order words, you must engage in exercises that will help you burn more calories while you are doing the workout and will also continue to burn calories off your body several hours or days after you stop exercising.
Such exercises are high intensity exercises designed to work up to 48 hours after your last workout. An example of such exercise is squats. You can do several squats per minute. This will get your heart beat rate high and keep burning calories long after.
3. Skipping Breakfast
I’m sure you have heart it before that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. The reason is this. When people sleep for eight hours or more, they have been fasting for that eight hours period. At that time, the body is starving for food nutrients to continue it’s metabolism, when it doesn’t get any, because you skip breakfast, it starts breaking down the muscle in the body for energy.
This is bad because the muscle is the number one organ for fat burning. When this happens, the body’s ability to burn calories is limited and slowed down such that other efforts to loose weight is minimized..
However, when you start the morning food with a healthy meal, you are less likely to overeat later in the day.
4. Dependence on Slimming Pills
Another approach that many busy women take is taking weight loss pills with the believe that these pills have the capacity to “miraculously” burn all the extra fat in the body. The industries promoting these pills have become so good with their advertising that the truth is shrouded by enticing promotion.
Truth is, there is no miracle weight loss pill that have the capacity to burn all the fat in your body without any form of activity on your own.
The only time you see women who have gotten in great shape thanks to a diet pill is on the advertisement for the diet pill.
5. Eating Out Most Of The Time
One of the problems of busy executives striving to loose weight is getting a good choice of a restaurant where healthy meals that enhances weight loss are served.
Most times, these food outlets don’t exist in your work place. To avoid the problem of eating junk while outside your home, you need to learn how to cook and bring it to your place of work in your flask. And in the few cases you can’t help it, ensure you watch the amount of calories you take and be selective in the foods you choose.
6. Eating Too Little
Three small meals a day is just the bare minimum for a healthy body. To succeed, you need to add 2 in-between meals of healthy snacks. This makes it a total of 5 meals per day. This doesn’t mean you are eating too much food, it simply means you are taking care to satisfy your body with all the healthy nutrients it needs to keep the fat burning muscles working optimally each day.
Of course, each course meal should be average size meals that you can eat without getting bloated. The 3 square meals should be regulated and shouldn’t be skipped if you are to achieve results.
7. Not Sleeping Enough
Did you read my last article on how sleeping late can affect you? Well little sleep, late night sleep and stress cause one not to lose weight. Have you watched your sleeping patterns lately?
Sleeping and having enough of it can help your goal of weight loss. If you are doing everything you can to lose weight but not getting the results you seek, use this list to cross check your activities to see if you are guilty of any of these mistakes.
The list above is not exhaustive, there are still more mistakes women make in their efforts to lose weight, that will be published in a future article.
From henceforth, commit to eliminating these mistakes one after the other and at the end of the day, you will come out with the dream size you have always wanted.
Did you benefit from this article? You can tell your friends about it by sharing it.

Third Mainland Bridge Is Safe – FG

Third Mainland Bridge

The Minister of Works, Mr. Mike Onolememen, has declared the Third Mainland Bridge in Lagos as safe, just as the Senate Committee on Works opened an investigative hearing on the integrity of the bridge. The investigative hearing arose from a motion brought by Senator Gbenga Ashafa representing Lagos East constituency last week, raising the alarm over the imminent failure of the bridge.
Ashafa had relied on a report of a company, which reportedly carried out an inspection of the underwater structures of the bridge and suggested that it could collapse soon if nothing was done about it.
While appearing before the committee on Monday, Onolememen said the experts whose report Ashafa relied on did not have the competence to reach such conclusions.
He explained that the ministry had contracted Nigerian Submarine Divers Limited in 2010 to undertake an inspection of the Third Mainland and Eko bridges in Lagos in order to ascertain the state of the underwater structural elements.
The minister said an initial report of the underwater inspection presented by NSD in July 2011 showed alarming deterioration and serious damage to numerous piles of the Third Mainland Bridge.
“The final report submitted by NSD in November 2011 indicated extensive deterioration of embedded steel reinforcement in piles, concrete degradation and appreciation loss of concrete material as well as discontinuities in some foundation piles, which had apparently affected the load bearing capacity of the piles,” Onolememen said.
He added that after reviewing the final report by the company, it was observed that not all piles were inspected due to various reasons such as obstruction by human activities and inaccessibility, but the ministry insisted that all piles, whether underwater or on land, must be investigated in line with the contract.
Onolememen said, “The findings of Messrs Nigerian Submarine Divers Limited were strictly based on visual inspection and underwater photos. For this reason, and following meetings between officials of the ministry, Messrs NSD, Julius Berger and Borini Prono, it was decided that an advanced integrity assessment, including high technology and chemical analysis of concrete samples from piles was inevitable, and in order to authenticate the findings of NSD as contained in their reports.
“Moreover, since Messrs NSD Limited is not a civil engineering consultancy firm, its capacity and professional competence to carry out such works was doubtful.”
The minister also told the committee that a bill of N33bn was submitted by a consultant to his office as what would be required to do some immediate repairs on the bridge, but he turned it down because he adjudged it to be unrealistic.
He said, “Of course, that memo came to me and I refused to approve it; instead, I now want the entire pile by pile investigation to be carried out so that we know exactly what to do.
“After all, the most critical sections of the bridge, the first two sections where we need to carry out immediate repair, from information available to me by people who did the test, we will not need more than N5bn to carry out these repairs.”
According to him, an advanced integrity assessment contract was awarded to Messrs Borini Prono and Company, which brought a report showing that the visual underwater inspection, the non-destructive tests and coring campaign carried out on the Third Mainland Bridge confirmed the adequacy of pile concrete quality.

'I was dead for over a week' - First Lady Patience Jonathan

Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor praying during thanksgiving for the First Lady in Abuja yesterday

Our First Lady said yesterday February 17th during a praise and thanksgiving ceremony she hosted at the presidential villa, that she 'died' but was miraculously resurrected after undergoing series of operations within a week.  She narrated a lot about her ordeal. See it below

“I remember when Chief (Olusegun) Obasanjo was the President of the country, I was close to his late wife, Stella. We worshipped together in this chapel. It was a painful moment for me that time when she died and her corpse was brought here. That was how my corpse would have been brought here. It was not an easy experience for me. I actually died; I passed out for more than a week. My intestine and tummy were opened.

“I am not Lazarus but my experience was similar to his own. My doctors said all hope was lost.

“A black doctor in London who is with us in this service was flown in when the situation became critical. It was God himself in His infinite mercy that said I would return to Nigeria. God woke me up after seven days.

“I know that some people somehow leaked the information that I was dead. They are people that I trust and rely on; to them, I was dead and I would never return to the country alive. Some of them even sold my things off.

“I won’t say everything here. It is the Lord’s doing that I returned alive. When God says yes, nobody can say no.

“People are always afraid of operation but in my own case, while my travail lasted, I was begging for it after the third operation because I was going to the theater every day.

“It was God who saw me through. I did eight or nine operations within one month. It was not an easy one.”

“The day I came back, I said God I have nothing to say, I offer myself to you. I will be doing things that will touch the lives of the less-privileged.

“God gave me second chance because I reached there. He knew I have not completed the assignments He gave me, that was why I was sent back," she said.

Photos from Dare Art Alade's 'Love Like A Movie' Concert

Darey's show last night was incredible. The best show I've seen in Nigeria...hands down. I wouldn't know how to describe it even if I tried. But here's something I can tell you for sure. The success of the show had nothing to do with Kim Kardashian. It was all Darey, his wife and Soul Music. Kim K was there for like two seconds and took the next flight back home. She appeared at the beginning of the show, said a few words and vamoosed. Some people who paid to see her didn't get the chance.

She did the red carpet for several minutes, joined us at the pre-dinner event for like 10/15 minutes, did the photo-up with guests for a few minutes, then appeared on stage at the beginning of the show for like 20 seconds. That was it! Hope they didn't pay her more than N2, 000...lol. I was so annoyed.

But like I said, the show itself was a phenomenal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Swimming Exercise Benefits

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Swimming exercise is one of the very best kinds of workout that you can include in your day-to-day schedule. Swimming exercise uses every muscle in the body and many individuals discover it pleasurable and something to look forward to every day. If you have been searching for an exercise that is both enjoyable and helpful in getting you healthier, the swimming exercise is the ideal choice.
Including the swimming exercise in your everyday routine can become an essential tool to looking more youthful and getting fitter. It is a great conveniences to find an exercise that will have you breaking out of the everyday gym routine and still getting all the health advantages in. Swimming is a great exercise that can be done by all ages and all body types.
Swimming exercise can be done in a health and fitness center that is equipped with a swimming pool for swimming all year long. Those who take pleasure in a swimming workout in their very own pool should look at a gym membership for those days when the weather does not enable swimming outside. An indoor pool in the health club will allow you to keep in your swimming exercise routine even when there is snow and ice on the ground.
The neighborhood YMCA is a great place that often has an indoor swimming pool for members and guests to utilize for their swimming exercise. The swimming pools are normally Olympic size and will enable you to obtain an excellent workout swimming laps. Using different swimming movements may allow you to concentrate on specific muscles in your body. There are some strokes in swimming that will have you using just about every muscle and possibly give you one of the most calorie burning workouts that you may ever have. Even though it appears that swimming is a recreation, it truly can be one of the most fullfilled total body workouts that you may ever have.

Here are some added benefits of the swimming exercise.

Swimming exercise can help add variety to an exercise routine. A successful exercise routine must include a lot of various exercise types to stay clear of adaptation. Swimming is a good option for a few times a week together with weight training, running, aerobics, bike riding and many various other exercises. Varying your workouts is a terrific way to make exercise enjoyable and something to look forward to each day.
With all the exercises that are around for you to include in your routine, it is a good idea to keep learning different ways to train different muscle groups. Swimming exercise is enjoyable and is much less destructive or damaging on their joints compared to heavy weight training. Many physicians often recommend the swimming exercise as means to workout for patients dealing with or recovering from an injury.
Seniors may also benefit from adding the swimming exercise into their workout routine as a way to add exercise to help with the symptoms of arthritis or other types of ailments. Water aerobics is yet another way type of swimming exercise that could be incorporated into an exercise routine for some added calorie burning.
Summary
Swimming exercise is great total body workout that can add additional calorie burning and health benefits to your exercise plan.

Married Men Drink Less, Women More

A new study finds that where drinking is concerned, marriage seems to be more beneficial to men than women: it reveals that compared to their single or divorced counterparts, married men tend to consume fewer alcoholic drinks whereas married women tend to consume more.

The researchers propose the reason is the effect married couples have on each other: wives' drinking habits rub off on their husbands, and vice versa.

Led by Corinne Reczek, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Cincinnati (UC), they are presenting their findings at the American Sociological Association's 107th Annual Meeting, in Denver, Colorado, on Sunday.

Previous research has found generally after marriage, people tend to curb their drinking habits, but this is the first to take an in-depth look at the effect of marriage on the drinking habits of men and women separately.

Supported in part by the National Institutes of Aging, Reczek and her team brought together the results of a large long-term survey, and two studies that had conducted in-depth interviews with married and divorced men and women.

The Wisconsin Longitudinal Study survey provided long-term data on 10,317 men and women who graduated high school in 1957. The Marital Quality Over the Life Course Project provided 60 in-depth interviews with 30 heterosexual couples conducted between 2003 and 2006, and another 60 in-depth interviews conducted between 2007 and 2010 with married and divorced men and women came from the Relationships and Health Habits Over the Life Course Study.

The researchers' main measure of alcohol consumption was number of alcoholic drinks the participants said they drank per month.

The survey data showed that compared with single, divorced and widowed men, married men reported consuming the lowest number of alcoholic drinks. The researchers said one reason was because their wives drank less.

In contrast, married women consumed more alcoholic drinks compared to their long-term divorced and recently-widowed counterparts, which the researchers attribute to the influence of their husbands' bigger drinking habits.

The survey also revealed that after a divorce, men were more likely to turn to alcohol than women.

Recently divorced men also reported drinking a lot more on average than men who were in long-term marriages.

Comparing men and women, the researchers found in each marital status category, whether single, divorced, married or widowed, men tended on average to consume more alcohol than women.

Plus, the percentage in each category that reported having at least one alcohol-related problem was higher for men than for women.

And although married women appear to drink more, it is their long-term divorced and recently-divorced counterparts who are more likely to report at least one drinking-related problem.

Reczek and colleagues call for further studies to look more closely at these patterns in different racial and ethnic groups, and to investigate how widowhood shapes alcohol use as the years go by.

FG presents National Honours, money & plots of land to Super Eagles

President Jonathan at a special reception held in honour of the Super Eagles in Abuja this evening rewarded the Super Eagles with National Honours, millions of Naira and plots of land in Abuja.

Coach Stephen Keshi - Commander of the Order of Niger. N10million. Plot of land in Abuja
Asst Coach Daniel Amokachi - Officer of the Order of Niger. N5m. Plot of land in Abuja
Asst Coach Ike Shorumu - Officer of the Order of Niger. N5m. Plot of land in Abuja
Captain Joseph Yobo - Officer of the Order of Niger. N5million. Plot of land in Abuja
Super Eagles players - Member of the Order of Niger. N5million. Plot of land in Abuja
Technical crew - N2 million

Billionaire businessmen Tony Elumelu and Jim Ovia donated half a million dollars each to the Super Eagles, while Dangote donated N5m to each player and technical crew of the Super Eagles.