Opinion

Manhood Disappearance: Myth Or Reality

Published

2 years ago

October 13, 2023

Last Sunday, a woman went to church in one of the satellite towns in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, to testify and thank God that her 14-year old son’s manhood was “stolen” but it had “returned”. According to her, the boy and his younger sisters were returning home from school when a certain strange looking man approached them, asking for directions to an address he had. The boy directed him on how to get to the address. The man thanked him, shook hands with him and left. “Immediately the man waka comot, my son notice say his tin don disappear. He and his sisters begin shout, dey tell people wetin just happen. The people begin to dey look for the man but him don waka,” she narrated. Asked by the pastor what happened next, she said as more people gathered some started praying for him. They escorted the children home. She wanted to take the boy to the hospital but the people, including some of their neighbours stopped her saying that the disappearance of genital organs is a witchcraft attack and that it could only be battled spiritually. Fortunately, their prayer was answered and the disappeared manhood reappeared though it looked smaller in size.
This is the kind of ridiculous story that has been making the rounds in many parts of the FCT and the neighbouring states for many weeks now, making the people live in fear. Some, like the man who was lynched by some irate youths in Gwagwalada, area of the FCT, have paid the ultimate price for the so called mysterious occurrences. On Friday, a disturbing motion picture which captured an alleged manhood thief being subjected to torture and dehumanisation by mob, including some security operatives surfaced online. In the video, the alleged thief who was accused of stealing two manhoods, was heard saying he is innocent of the allegations but his accusers and torturers did not budge. To ward off the witch or neutralise whatever charm or evil power that is used in stealing this vital organ, some men now go about with charcoal, needles or alligator pepper in their pockets.
Meanwhile, the police command of some of the affected states have maintained that based on their investigations, there is nothing like manhood theft rather it is a tactic used by some criminal minded people to cause chaos in public places and steal from the people. According to the FCT Commissioner of Police, CP Haruna Garba, the allegations are unfounded and some of the people who claimed to have lost their genital organs were proved wrong after some medical examinations and tests confirmed that their organs were intact and working perfectly.Perhaps the state police commands should do more than just warning against spreading false information regarding alleged organ disappearance or dishing out threats to the would-be perpetrators. They should dig deeper to know the modus operandi of these criminals, fish them out and ascertain the reasons for the act and nip it in the bud before it turns to something else.
Knowing how irrational some Nigerians can be when it comes to ethnicity and religion, it is advisable that the police and other relevant authorities act fast to stop these wild claims before they result in situations that will be difficult to handle. As some medical experts have posited, it is difficult to believe that a person’s organ will disappear without a cut. There is no credible scientific evidence or verifiable information to support such a claim as a real phenomenon whether in Nigeria or anywhere else. It might just be a matter of the mind or as someone jokingly put it, the harsh economic situation in the country is making some people lose sensation and they raise false alarms of their organs being stolen. But the truth is that the current economic realities in the country are taking a toll on the people’s health. Recently, a doctor friend of mine told me that she was invited by her town’s union in Abuja to give them a health talk on “fall and die”.
According to her, the leaders and members of the union were worried about the rate at which their members slump and die. That is the unfortunate situation in the country currently. People are concerned about how to put food on their families’ tables and pay their numerous bills and hardly pay attention to their health until it becomes critical. Just last week, two people collapsed at the Senate wing of the National Assembly on the same day. While a ministerial nominee from Kaduna State, Balarabe Abbas Lawal, came down unexpectedly during his screening but was revived, the Tribune Newspaper correspondent, Tijani Adeyemi, who was covering the proceedings, also collapsed, but unfortunately could not make it.The Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, during a condolence visit on the Senate Press Corp at the National Assembly complex over Adeyemi’s death talked about the need for people to prioritise their health even when they struggle to make ends meet. He hinted on his intention to partner with journalists to have a routine health check culture.
What better way to make journalists and the generality of the citizens cater for their health and avoid heart attacks and other medical emergencies that lead to “fall and die” than to have all Nigerians enrol with the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) or any other health insurance of their choice.The chief executive officer, NOI Polls Legal Department, Dr Chike Nwangwu, told newsmen in Abuja a few days back that according to a recent survey conducted by his organisation, 17 per cent of the country’s population has health insurance coverage.What that means is that about 83 percent of Nigerians pay their health bills out of their pockets.Health insurance is a fundamental component of a comprehensive healthcare strategy. It not only provides financial protection but also promotes access to timely and quality healthcare, contributing to overall health and wellness.
It plays a significant role in safeguarding individual families from the financial burdens associated with healthcare expenses. Because it covers preventive services, it encourages individuals to seek timely medical attention and preventive measures, among other benefits. Unfortunately, the emergence of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) which was hailed as the only realistic way of getting the generality of Nigerian citizens to have access to good, standardised healthcare is still bedevilled with a lot of challenges decades after inception. Not even the repealing of the NHIS act by the National Health Insurance Authority Act (2022) has made much impact and difference.
Therefore, it is high time the law makers, government and other stakeholders looked into the issues of corruption, low enrolment, poor funding, lack of awareness, trust deficit, poor quality of service and many other challenges facing the NHIA so that more Nigerians can take advantage of the benefits of the scheme and better, healthier lives. The federal government should also take urgent steps towards addressing the current terrible economic situation in Nigeria so that Nigerians will have quality lives and the urge of making money through raising false alarms on missing organs will be reduced The citizens should also learn to deal with the situations in life with wisdom, discernment and reasonable thinking. If anyone claims that his organ is stolen, can we be patient enough to analyse the situation and ascertain the truth before taking it out on one another? Sometimes one wonders if these barbaric acts can ever make Nigeria better.

By: Calista Ezeaku

Opinion

Agony In Ivory Tower

Published

3 days ago

March 9, 2026

The Tide

Quote: A university that tolerates missing scripts, result manipulation and ‘sorting’ is not merely failing students—it is quietly destroying the moral foundation of education itself.”

The sad cases of missing scripts, compulsory Sorting, inputting of wrong results and other obnoxious practices in some public universities, leave much to be desired. One cannot imagine how a student will be compelled to suffer consequences of the flagrant negligence of a Head of Department, a lecturer, Department staff or an ICT staff.Many academic and non academic staff in several public universities seem to be performing far below standard, thus unproductive to the university system. The unacceptable cases of sorting, missing scripts, missing results, inputting of wrong grades to students, should not be mentioned in a university, not even in any academic community. This is because people who are employed to work in various positions should have cognate work experience and unquestionable competence. They should not be seen as certificate welding illiterates but people who have been proven to be worthy in learning and character, diligent and competent to carry out assigned responsibilities with minimal or no supervision.

The university as a citadel of learning should boast of men of integrity, people who are repositories of applied knowledge and competence to drive the much desired holistic development in a nation that functions on quality teaching and learning. A situation where a student having gone through the crucibles of learning and written a prescribed semester examination or class-based evaluation test, is told that his or her script is missing or that he or she did not participate in that academic exercise, or must sort to pass, is an unpardonable error and a height of callousness. In fact some lecturers and staff of Departments are using the seeming systemic defect (which is their architecture) as an opportunity to extort students. Sometimes it is discovered much to students chagrin that the supposed missing script was later discovered when a ransom was paid.

Since a lecturer, or Head of Department has in their disposal both Yam and the knife and determines who takes what (if they wish to give without strings), students have no alternative but to submit to their importunate demands in order to graduate at record time.Such practices should be unheard of in an institution that should be a vanguard of moral and ethical values and conduct. What people learn in school constitute their behavioural patterns in the society. Where the school as an agency of socialisation cannot drive positive change first in its immediate environment, then the objective of education as a bedrock for the development of society, is inevitably compromised and counter-productive. The German Reformer, Dr. Martins Luther was quoted as saying, “I advise parents not to put their wards or children in any school where the Bible is not being used as a rule of life because such institutions will unnecessarily be corrupt”.

Gleaning from Luther’s sentiment one can deduce that the lack of respect and regard for values as well as the absence of the fear of God is the greatest undoing of most public schools. Another major challenge is that lack of Information, Communication and Technology literacy or compliance on the part of some lecturers and heads of department, may have informed the decision to give students’ scripts to secretaries to compile and input students results thereby making the secretaries the determinants of students’ fate. It is not saying a new thing that some of the secretaries in the process of compiling results have inputted wrong results, omitted names or down graded some students or given unmerited grades to others.Society today is ICT-driven and ICT-literacy enhances efficiency, speed and a reasonable degree of accuracy if the person behind the computer is level headed, articulate, competent, alive to responsibilities and is aware that negligence on his or her part is not only tantamount to a disservice to the university but to the students who may not graduate at record time because of his or her (computer operator’s) gross ineptitude or carelessness.

The ICT era makes the carrying of hard copy of results obsolete as lecturers through the Heads of Department can log on to the central server of the Exams and Records (if any) or ICT unit and input students’ results directly. By so doing the incessant cases where result on spread sheet is different from the one published online, more often than not, caused by abject negligence, will be avoided. The process will also end the intermediary services of some staff in the universities’ Information, Communication and Technology Department which has become a money spinner-a lucrative source of income to many of them. In fact some ICT staff reserved the power to award grades to students depending on students’ degree of compliance to terms and conditions. They can dubiously make or unmake a student. The university community should be considered too lofty to have careless, negligent, immoral and academic or professionally deficient people as academic or non-academic staff.

The Governing Councils and Senates of universities should be proactive in addressing the menace of missing Script, inputting of wrong results and sorting. This is necessary to end the slogan “Education is scam” so the system can produce quality students who are truly found worthy in learning and in character by operators who exemplify diligence, moral and ethical values. The much-needed reform must begin within the institutions themselves, because the future of any society is shaped in its classrooms.

By: Igbiki Benibo

Opinion

Strength of Emotional Equality

Published

3 days ago

March 9, 2026

The Tide

Quote: “Love thrives not when one gives more, but when both give fully — not in competition, not in performance, but in partnership.”

In every healthy relationship, there exists an invisible balance. It is not measured in grand gestures, expensive gifts, or public displays of affection. It is measured in something quieter and far more significant: emotional equality. When couples stand on equal emotional grounds, love becomes less of a negotiation and more of a partnership. Emotional equality does not mean both individuals express love in identical ways. It does not require matching personalities or mirroring temperaments. Rather, it speaks to balance — a shared willingness to invest, to communicate, to be vulnerable, and to grow. It is the difference between two people walking side by side and one person constantly trying to catch up.

In many relationships, imbalance begins subtly. One partner initiates most conversations. One apologizes more frequently. One carries the emotional labor — remembering important dates, managing conflicts, sensing tension, and attempting reconciliation. Over time, this uneven distribution of emotional effort breeds exhaustion. The partner who gives more begins to feel unseen. The one who gives less may grow comfortable in emotional passivity. Love, in such a space, starts to tilt — slowly at first, then significantly. Resentment can creep in quietly, disguising itself as patience. Silence may replace honest dialogue. What once felt effortless begins to feel heavy.

When couples stand on equal emotional grounds, responsibility is shared. Both people are accountable for the health of the relationship. If conflict arises, neither hides behind silence nor dominates through control. Instead, they engage. They listen. They speak honestly without weaponizing words. Equality creates safety — and safety strengthens intimacy. It allows both individuals to express needs without fear of ridicule or rejection. One of the most overlooked aspects of emotional equality is vulnerability. True connection requires courage. It demands that both partners risk being misunderstood. But when vulnerability is one-sided, it becomes exposure rather than intimacy. If one person consistently opens up while the other remains guarded, trust cannot fully deepen.

Equality ensures that emotional risks are mutual. Where one shares fears, the other shares too. Where one admits weakness, the other responds with openness rather than judgment. In such a space, authenticity flourishes. Another crucial element is validation. In emotionally balanced relationships, both partners feel heard. Their concerns are not dismissed as “overreactions.” Their feelings are not minimized or compared. When couples operate on equal emotional ground, they acknowledge each other’s experiences as legitimate. They may not always agree, but they always respect. Validation does not mean surrendering one’s viewpoint; it means recognizing that another’s emotional reality matters.

Equality also protects individuality. Contrary to popular belief, healthy love does not erase personal identity — it enhances it. When both partners are emotionally secure, they do not feel threatened by each other’s independence. Personal ambitions are encouraged, not resented. Friendships are respected, not restricted. Growth is celebrated, not feared. Standing on equal emotional grounds means neither person shrinks to accommodate the other. Instead, both expand, knowing the relationship is strong enough to hold their evolution. Power dynamics often expose emotional inequality. When one partner controls communication — appearing and disappearing unpredictably, withholding affection, or using silence as leverage — imbalance emerges.

Emotional dominance weakens intimacy. It creates anxiety instead of assurance. But when couples share emotional power, there is consistency. There is clarity. There is no need to decode affection because it is offered freely and intentionally. It is important to understand that equality does not imply perfection. Couples will still disagree. They will face stress, miscommunication, and moments of frustration. However, when emotional footing is equal, conflict does not threaten the foundation. Instead, it becomes an opportunity for understanding. Both partners approach challenges as teammates rather than opponents. They choose resolution over ego and repair over pride.

Time often reveals whether emotional equality truly exists. In the early stages of love, intensity can disguise imbalance. Enthusiasm feels mutual. Effort appears equal. But as routine settles in and novelty fades, the structure of the relationship becomes clearer. Who still initiates? Who still invests? Who still shows up consistently? Sustainable love requires sustained balance. It is built not merely on attraction, but on deliberate reciprocity. Standing on equal emotional grounds requires intentionality. It demands honest conversations about needs and expectations. It requires both partners to examine their habits — whether they withdraw during tension, avoid accountability, or rely on the other to carry the emotional weight. Emotional maturity is not about avoiding conflict; it is about handling it responsibly and returning, again and again, to shared ground.

Perhaps the greatest benefit of emotional equality is peace. There is no constant anxiety about where one stands. No guessing games about commitment. No fear that affection may suddenly disappear. Instead, there is stability. There is reassurance. There is mutual effort. In a world where relationships often blur the lines between attention and commitment, equality offers clarity. It reminds us that love should not feel like competition or performance. It should feel like partnership. When couples stand on equal emotional grounds, they build something resilient. They build trust that does not fracture easily. They build respect that does not depend on mood. They build a connection rooted not only in passion but in balance. And in that balance, love finds its strength — not in who gives more, but in how both give fully.

By: Sylvia ThankGod-Amadi

Opinion

NDDC: Time To Illuminate Homes

Published

2 weeks ago

March 2, 2026

The Tide

Quote:“Twenty-five years on, the Niger Delta cannot celebrate illuminated streets while families sit in darkness. Development must begin inside the home — where children study, businesses grow, and lives are built — before it glows on the roadside.”

The Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) was established in 2000 with a clear and urgent mandate: to facilitate the rapid, even, and sustainable development of Nigeria’s oil-producing Niger Delta region. The creation of the Commission followed decades of agitation over environmental degradation, infrastructural neglect, and socio-economic marginalization in the region. Its core mandate included the development of roads, bridges, electricity, water supply, health facilities, education, housing, environmental remediation, and economic empowerment initiatives. At inception, expectations were high that the Commission would transform the Niger Delta into a model of regional development. Over the years, the NDDC has indeed implemented numerous projects across the nine Niger Delta states. Roads have been constructed and rehabilitated in several communities, easing transportation challenges.

Schools have been renovated, and new classroom blocks have been provided in underserved areas. Health centres have been built or upgraded, improving access to primary healthcare services. The Commission has also awarded scholarships to students, including foreign postgraduate scholarships, empowering thousands of youths academically.Skills acquisition and youth empowerment programmes have helped many young people gain vocational competencies.Through various interventions, the NDDC has contributed to job creation and local economic stimulation.Solar-powered street lighting projects have been widely implemented in urban and semi-urban communities. These streetlights have improved visibility at night and contributed to enhanced security in some areas. Markets, highways, and public spaces illuminated by solar lights have experienced extended business hours.

For these efforts, the Commission deserves acknowledgment and commendation. However, development must always align with foundational mandates and pressing grassroots realities. A growing concern among residents is that while streets are illuminated, many homes remain in darkness. Rural electrification and household power access remain inconsistent and inadequate across large parts of the region. In riverine and remote communities, families still rely on generators, kerosene lamps, or complete darkness after sunset. The irony of brightly lit streets juxtaposed with powerless homes cannot be ignored. Electricity at the household level directly impacts education, health, and small-scale enterprise. Students cannot effectively study at night without reliable indoor lighting.Families cannot preserve food or power essential appliances without stable electricity.

Micro and small businesses struggle to grow without dependable energy access. While street lighting enhances public aesthetics and security, it does not substitute for domestic electrification. The proverb “charity begins at home” is especially relevant in this context. True community development must first empower households before beautifying public spaces. The Commission’s original mandate emphasizes integrated and sustainable development, not isolated infrastructural gestures. Balanced development requires that energy interventions prioritize homes alongside streets. Solar technology presents a unique opportunity for decentralized household electrification in off-grid communities. Extending solar solutions to individual homes would have a transformative social impact. Home-based solar systems could power lights, fans, small appliances, and communication devices.

Such interventions would reduce poverty, improve living standards, and stimulate grassroots productivity. By broadening its energy focus, the Commission would better reflect the spirit of its founding legislation. This is not a call to abandon street lighting projects, which have their merits. Rather, it is an appeal for balance, inclusivity, and alignment with core developmental objectives. Strategic planning should ensure that rural electrification and household access form a central pillar of ongoing interventions. Community engagement and needs assessments can help determine priority areas for household solar deployment. Twenty-five years after its establishment, the NDDC stands at a reflective moment in its institutional journey. The people of the Niger Delta say: thank you for the efforts so far—but not very much—because true appreciation will come when development begins at home and radiates outward, not merely when streets shine while houses remain in darkness.

By: King Onunwor