RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Key Donbass city fully liberated – Moscow

The Russian troops have completely liberated the strategic Donbass city of Artyomovsk, the scene of a grueling battle for many months, the Russian Defense Ministry confirmed in the early hours of Sunday. 

The operation in the city known to Ukrainians as Bakhmut was executed by the “offensive actions” of the private military company Wagner Group with artillery and air support from regular Russian forces, the MOD said.

The statement from the MOD came hours after Wagner chief Evgeny Prigozhin announced on social media that his fighters had taken complete control of the city.

Ukraine has denied that the city had fallen to the Russians. Deputy Defense Minister Anna Malyar claimed that the statements about the capture of Artyomovsk were “premature.”

A salt mining city with a pre-conflict population of 72,000, Artyomovsk has become the stage of a bloody battle for many months as Russian forces nearly encircled it and were methodically pushing the Ukrainian army from its western suburbs. The city itself has been largely destroyed during the fighting.

Prigozhin warned earlier this month that his soldiers were taking heavy casualties due to ammunition shortages. He later said that the situation with supplies had improved and that Wagner troops were clearing the last pockets of Ukrainian resistance. 

** Putin congratulates troops on battlefield success

Russian President Vladimir Putin has congratulated members of the Wagner private military company and regular soldiers with liberating the Donbass city of Artyomovsk, also known as Bakhmut, from the Ukrainian army, the Kremlin said in the early hours of Sunday.

Wagner chief Evgeny Prigozhin said on Saturday that his soldiers had taken full control of the city.

The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed the capture of Artyomovsk several hours later.

According to the MOD, the operation was completed with the assault by the Wagner fighters who had artillery and air support from regular troops.

Ukraine, meanwhile, has claimed that the fighting for the city is not over.

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Russia claimed on Saturday to have fully captured the smashed eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, which would mark an end to the longest and bloodiest battle of the 15-month war.

The assault on the largely levelled city was led by troops from the Wagner Group of mercenaries, whose leader Yevgeny Prigozhin said earlier in the day that his troops had finally pushed the Ukrainians out of the last built-up area inside the city.

Taking Bakhmut - which Russia refers to by its Soviet-era name of Artyomovsk - would represent Moscow's first big victory in the conflict in more than 10 months.

"As a result of offensive actions by Wagner assault units, supported by artillery and aviation of the Southern Group of Forces, the liberation of Artyomovsk has been completed," the Russian defence ministry said in a one-line statement.

Kyiv denied Prigozhin's claim earlier on Saturday, but did not have an immediate response to the defence ministry's statement.

Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated troops on capturing the city and said those who had distinguished themselves would be given awards, domestic Russian news agencies reported.

The claims came after a week in which Ukrainian forces have made their most rapid gains for six months on Bakhmut's northern and southern flanks.

Prigozhin, who has repeatedly denounced Russia's regular military for abandoning ground captured earlier by his men, said his own forces would pull out of Bakhmut in five days to rest, handing the ruins over to the regular military.

"Today, at 12 noon, Bakhmut was completely taken," Prigozhin said in a video in which he appeared in combat fatigues in front of a line of fighters holding Russian flags and Wagner banners. "We completely took the whole city, from house to house."

Ukrainian military spokesperson Serhiy Cherevatyi, reacting to Prigozhin's comments before Russia's announcement, had told Reuters: "This is not true. Our units are fighting in Bakhmut."

SPLIT BETWEEN WAGNER, RUSSIAN FORCES

Whether the Ukrainian forces have left Bakhmut or not, they have been slowly pulling back inside it, to clusters of buildings on the city's western edge.

Meanwhile, to the north and south, they have seized swathes of territory from Russian troops.

Russia has acknowledged losing some ground around Bakhmut in the past week, while denying assertions by Prigozhin that the flanks around the city guarded by regular troops have collapsed.

Kyiv says its aim in Bakhmut has been to draw Russian forces from elsewhere on the front into the city, to inflict high casualties there and weaken Moscow's defensive line elsewhere ahead of a planned major counteroffensive.

The battle for Bakhmut has revealed a deepening split between Wagner, a mercenary force that has recruited thousands of convicts from Russian prisons, and the regular Russian military. For two weeks, Prigozhin has been issuing daily video and audio messages denouncing Russia's military leadership, often in expletive-laden rants.

In Saturday's video he said that because of the "whims" of Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov, "five times more guys died than they should have". He thanked Putin "that he gave us this chance and great honour to defend our motherland".

Moscow has long claimed that capturing Bakhmut would be a stepping stone towards advancing deeper into the Donbas region it claims to have annexed from Ukraine. It has made it the principal target of a massive offensive that failed to capture any significant ground elsewhere.

Prigozhin has acknowledged that Bakhmut, formerly a city of 70,000 people, has little strategic significance, despite its huge symbolic importance because of the scale of losses in Europe's bloodiest ground battle since World War Two.

KYIV PREPARES COUNTEROFFENSIVE

Saturday's claims came as Kyiv prepared its counteroffensive, the next major phase in the war after six months during which it kept its forces on the defensive while weathering Russia's big offensive.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy attended the G7 summit of major industrial powers in Japan on Saturday, winning pledges of support including a signal from Washington that it would now back the training of Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16 warplanes. Previously, sending combat aircraft had been a taboo.

En route to Japan, Zelenskiy stopped at an Arab summit in Saudi Arabia.

The Vatican said on Saturday that Pope Francis had asked Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, head of the Italian bishops' conference, to carry out a peace mission to try to help end the war.

RT/Reuters

Sudan's army and paramilitary RSF sign seven-day ceasefire

Sudan's warring factions signed an agreement late on Saturday for a seven-day ceasefire as fighting that has plunged the country into chaos and displaced more than a million entered its sixth week.

The ceasefire will take effect at 9:45 p.m. Khartoum time (1945 GMT) on Monday, the sponsors of the talks, the United States and Saudi Arabia, said in a joint statement.

Numerous previous ceasefire agreements were violated. However, this agreement will be enforced by a U.S.-Saudi and international-supported monitoring mechanism, the statement said without providing details.

The agreement also calls for distributing humanitarian assistance, restoring essential services and withdrawing forces from hospitals and essential public facilities.

"It is past time to silence the guns and allow unhindered humanitarian access. I implore both sides to uphold this agreement — the eyes of the world are watching," U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.

The fighting between Sudan's army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has led to a collapse of order. Stocks of food, cash and essentials are rapidly dwindling, and mass looting has hit banks, embassies, aid warehouses and even churches.

Aid groups have said they are unable to provide sufficient assistance in Khartoum, the capital, in the absence of safe passage and security guarantees for staff.

AIR STRIKES

Air strikes were reported on Saturday by eyewitnesses in southern Omdurman and northern Bahri, the two cities that lie across the Nile from Khartoum, forming Sudan's "triple capital". Some of the strikes took place near the state broadcaster in Omdurman, the eyewitnesses said.

"We faced heavy artillery fire early this morning, the whole house was shaking," Sanaa Hassan, a 33-year-old living in the al-Salha neighbourhood of Omdurman, told Reuters by phone.

"It was terrifying, everyone was lying under their beds. What's happening is a nightmare," she said.

The RSF is embedded in residential districts, drawing almost continual air strikes by the regular armed forces.

Eyewitnesses in Khartoum said that the situation was relatively calm, although sporadic gunshots could be heard.

The conflict, which began on April 15, has displaced almost 1.1 million people internally and into neighbouring countries. Some 705 people have been killed and at least 5,287 injured, according to the World Health Organization.

In recent days ground fighting has flared once again in the Darfur region, in the cities of Nyala and Zalenjei.

Both sides blamed each other in statements late on Friday for sparking the fighting in Nyala, one of the country's largest cities, which had for weeks been relatively calm due to a locally brokered truce.

A local activist told Reuters there were sporadic gun clashes near the city's main market close to army headquarters on Saturday morning. Almost 30 people have died in the two previous days of fighting, according to activists.

The war broke out in Khartoum after disputes over plans for the RSF to be integrated into the army under an internationally backed deal to shift Sudan towards democracy following decades of conflict-ridden autocracy.

Reuters

Turbulent anger of Obidients landed on Lamidi Apapa last week. By the time their anger petered out, Apapa had lost his cap to a God-knows-who. Esu Elegbara, the trickster deity of the Yoruba people, it will seem, lives in caps. Though most of the exploits of Esu exist in myths, Yoruba constructed a pantheon of beliefs that implicate the Esu as divisive and full of tricks. One of such, sauced in mythology, was translated into a very sobering track by ace Yoruba Awurebe musician, Dauda Akanmu Adeeyo, popularly known as Dauda Epo Akara. Famous for his anecdotal offerings affixed to virtually all his songs, Adeeyo got this sobriquet, for which he was more known by than his actual name, while he was a pupil in primary school. His uniforms were always soaked in bean cake oil called Epo Akara.

The Ibadan maestro entitled the track under reference Itan Ore Meji – the tale of two friends – in a parent album he called My Mother. Like Epo Akara, in 1987, Donald Cosentino, a lecturer in the Folklore and Mythology Programme of the University of California, Los Angeles, wrote an article for The Journal of American Folklore which he entitled Who Is That Fellow in the Many-Colored Cap? Transformations of Eshu in Old and New World Mythologies(Vol. 100, No. 397. Jul. - Sep., 1987). In it, he also situated the Esu as author of dissent, “an exponent of ceaseless rearrangements” and a dissembler. Esu, said Cosentino, is a counterpart to Ifa, who the Yoruba see as the Lord of Divination and through whom sacrifices and propitiations are made to God for peace in the world.

Epo Akara and Cosentino’s narratives are not dissimilar. The two of them began this folklore thus: There existed two friends who were so fond of each other and inseparable. They were objects of discussions by the whole village. In fact, sang Epo Akara, won ki ja, won kii ta – they never had a word of disagreement since they began their friendship from their infancy. So, one day, Esu swore to cause irreparable discord between them. The object he cast for that dissention was a cap. So the Esu sowed a multicolored cap, something in the mould of Dolly Parton’s coat of many colours. The colours, says Cosentino, have been “variously described as red and white; red, white and blue; or red, white, green, and black.”

Epo Akara, however, put the colours of the cap as white and black. So the Esu transformed himself into an irresistibly dressed, handsome young man in dainty Aso Oke and Sanyan cap. As the two friends sat in a foyer chattering, Esu walked between them and in the words of Cosentino, “put his pipe at the nape of his neck and hung his staff over his back.” As Esu walked past the two friends, in the rendering of the Awurebe musician, the first friend called the attention of his pal to the cap, which he said was black. Once he had money, the friend remarked, it would be his delight to buy it – bi mo ri’ru e, ma ra’kan, Balarabi, Wali Muhanmonda. The friend fired back, insisting that the cap was white and insulted the other friend by asking if he was blind – ab’oju re o ri’ran? Then, a very deadly brawl ensued between the duo as they came to blows.

While Epo Akara insisted that, having achieved his dissembling aim, Esu transformed himself into who he was and settled the quarrel, Consentino argued that the tiff came to a halt when the disputants were brought to court. In court, the scholar said, Esu confessed to his trick, boasting that "sowing dissension is my great delight." In the rendering of the Folklore and Mythology scholar, Esu then fled. As he fled, Esu lit fire along the way, mixing up all the possessions of fleeing townsfolk. He also tested and exposed friendships along the way, thereby creating and destroying wealth. He then laughed at the ignorance of the people about his innate destructive nature.

Nigeria’s Labour Party, (LP) it will seem, is where Esu Elegbara has made his temporary home now. Last week, the party’s internal tiff reached a cancerous level at the Presidential Election Petition Court in Abuja. In the glare of the whole world, the timely intervention of police officers prevented miffed supporters of Peter Obi from skewering the flesh of the party’s Acting National Chairman, Apapa. Apapa and Julius Abure, hitherto suspended national chairman of the party, were embroiled in a leadership tussle. This led to blood-baiting hounds, suspected to be sympathetic to the Abure faction of the party, pouncing on Apapa. The wolves had prevented Apapa from addressing the press and shoved him dangerously off television cameras. In the process, one of them took off Apapa’s cap. He later took possession of it.

Speaking at a press conference after the attack, the 73-year old Apapa rained curses on the person who removed his cap. He had said: "My cap is here as you can see it. It was not burnt, and the boy who removed my cap will suffer it in his life. I saw him, he's a young chap. He'll never grow old by God's grace. He deserves it, you know why? I didn't use cutlass on him."

Were Apapa’s curses of Janus colour and texture as that of Adedara Arunralojaoba, Ijesaland’s – domiciled in Osun State – most evocative musician who sang Adamo music during his lifetime? Janus, you know, is the Egyptian binary god with two faces.  Some installments away, I narrated this Adamo musician’s encounter with another musician, Ayinla Omowura, in Ilesa in the 1970s. Omowura’s drums began to get torn in subsequence as he set out to sing at a live gig where he and Adedara had been invited. In the words of Arunralojaoba, on arriving the bandstand to take over the evening belt of entertainment of invited audience, Omowura had been drunk to stupor with his assumed musical superiority. Speaking to Dele Adeyanju, a renowned broadcaster, in an interview, the Adamo musician had attributed the torn drums to God fighting his battle for him and not any traditional African spiritual attack. Adedara was known to have at one time been a member of the Ogboni fraternity. So, were the torn drums God’s own way of fighting for Adedara against his adversary, or the scenario was a product of metaphysical invocation?

The removal of Apapa’s cap reminds me of the same violence and indignity suffered by Bola Ige, ex-governor of old Oyo State, in the hands of sponsored miscreants like those hooligans in the LP. It was at the height of the intra-party sabre-rattling of the Alliance for Democracy (AD). At a ceremony held on Saturday December 15, 2001 where Olusegun Obasanjo’s late wife, Stella, was conferred with a chieftaincy title by the Ooni of Ife, wolves suspected to be in the herd of Iyiola Omisore, erstwhile Deputy Governor of Osun State, pounced on Ige in similar cavalier but blood-baiting manner Apapa was to witness almost 22 years after. They seized the cap of the man, known as Arole Awolowo – Obafemi Awolowo’s heir – caps which, unlike Apapa’s, he was never to set eyes upon again.

Five days before this, an attempt to impeach Omisore was held at the Osun State House of Assembly. Odunayo Olagbaju, believed to be one of Omisore’s Rottweilers, was at the forefront of the disruption of the impeachment proceedings. Allegations were rife that Olagbaju was also the coordinator of the violent seizure of Ige’s cap. Four days after the attack on Ige, Olagbaju was mysteriously assassinated in Ile-Ife. Exactly four days after Olagbaju’s assassination, Ige was also taken out in what appeared like cult-like revenge killings. Today, Omisore is Southwest progressives’ highest-ranking national official, representing the Yorubaland which venerated Ige as an avatar.

Beyond their ethno-cultural implications as significant aspect of dressing and fashion, caps also have mythic qualities among the Yoruba especially. Aside caps’ aesthetic and symbolic elaboration of the body, they are also seen as weapon in the hands of Esu. The cap perhaps gained that relevance due to the renowned place that the head has in African epistemology. The head receives special aesthetic attention as a result of its spiritual and biological importance. Among the Yoruba, the head, called Ori, is a site of spiritual intuition and destiny. It is as well a harbinger of a man’s reflective spark of human consciousness. It is an Orisa, or god, of its own and is not only venerated but worshipped. To acquire a balanced character – iwa-pele – the Yoruba believe that the individual, working in tandem with this Orisa, can achieve this desirable personality. When he does, the individual then receives an alignment with his Ori, the divine self. People whose destinies are skewed are advised to worship their Ori whose variant among the Igbo is chi. So, when a cap, the decorative ornament of the head, is rudely removed as was done to Ige and Apapa, Yoruba see it as bad omen, symbolizing a rude yank-off of the human person.

Immediately after the seizure of Ige’s cap, some knowledgeable elders in sorcery and witchcraft opined that there existed causality between the cap’s removal and his eventual killing. For a people who use metaphysics as human agency to explain what the common eyes cannot penetrate, when Ige eventually died, the narrative of the connect between the removed cap and his death took front burner. So, in the seizure of Apapa’s cap, was Esu Elegbara on the usual roller-coaster of his famous trickster prowess, or does the act just symbolize a fatality to either Apapa, the Labour Party or the boy who bit the bullet by removing the cap?

The chief accusation against Apapa is that he is the Esu Elegbara in the Labour Party who this destructive god lent his heart for a fee. As Epo Akara and Cosentino narrated in their works, could Apapa be the modern or Nigeria’s political party version of the trickster deity, who is sowing dissention in the party? Ask those who are ranged against him to explain why, they will tell you that Apapa has received humongous bribe from the All Progressives Congress (APC) to act as the Judas within the party. On an Arise television interview last week, Apapa asked those who leveled such allegations to provide evidence. Again, in his insular trickery, I saw Esu Elegbara laughing rambunctiously. Do those who give bribes leave traces? Should those who also leveled such allegation against this old man sincerely do this without providing evidence? Are they themselves the Esu, being on the payroll of Abure, to ensure that Apapa is fought to a standstill?

Precedent is however on the side of those who accuse Apapa of acting the script of the APC. Nigerian politics is so enmeshed in indignity and amorality that virtually all those who engage in it possess scarred souls like the devil’s. They even tell you that politics and morality are in perpetual enmity. If you observe, the highest fusillade of attacks, both judicial and verbal, from the APC to any party, is towards the Labour Party. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its commissars receive scant attention of that party. It must believe that that party is already mortally wounded. APC, peopled by a commune of scavengers, vultures and deadly hit-men, will logically rent an Apapa for a dissembling assignment. If I must hanker a guess, it must be because the LP poses the greatest social threat to the legitimacy that APC needs, not necessarily during the current judicial process but after it. Thus, employing an Esu Elegbara within the fold of the LP for this dirty job is a politically wise decision for a party whose men, in the name of politics, will kill their mother and rope their father for the murder without batting an eyelid.

Esu Elegbara seems to be on the trail of the Labour Party and is not relenting yet. At the tail end of last week, until the clarification given by the court, the Federal High Court in Kano was reported to have declared the votes polled by the Abia State governor-elect, Alex Otti, Labour Party’s only state governor in the last general election, as wasted. It however reportedly refrained from nullifying the certificate of return issued by INEC to the governor-elect. A newspaper later on published the clarification of the court, stating that it denied annulling the election of the governor-elect.

If you think it is only in LP that Esu Elegbara wrecks its havocs, you are mistaken. In the PDP, he began his life-sworn disruption and destruction, as they say, as a pre-election cancer. By the time Atiku Abubakar and his party realized that Esu was in cahoots with the party, Elegbara had destroyed all the cells within the body of the party, finally and permanently retiring the Adamawa-born politician from his serial quest for the Nigerian presidency.

Elegbara, it will seem, is on his way to the APC as we speak. From reports, the party is on its way to a political liaison with Musa Rabiu Kwankwaso, New Nigerian People’s Party (NPP’s) presidential candidate. President-elect, Bola Tinubu, was reported to have met the NPP boss for political talks in Paris last Monday. There is the need for enough senators to complete the circus of a pliable National Assembly. I imagine the mind of Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, Kano State governor, at the moment. The Nigerian politician, in pursuing his persuasion that politics and morality are not friends, devised what is labeled a “no permanent friends, no permanent foes” lexicographic feature of politics. But, must politicians be indistinguishable from serial adulterers? Esu Elegbara must be somewhere now, devising his next trickery. Will he wear Ganduje like an apparel?

Soji Adesida takes a rude bow

April 28 was a particularly bad day for the Adesida royal dynasty of Akure. That day, their son, Anthony Adesoji Adesida, a.k.a. Stag, was killed during a brawl in the state capital. A Prince and Pastor, he had sought armistice between two feuding personalities at the venue of a party. One of them, consumed by a deadly anger, had shoved him off violently. Stag hit his avuncular head on the naked, coarse floor. As his head made jangling crack on the irreverent concrete cement floor, little did aghast onlookers know that the amiable, personable and affectionate Adesida had just a few minutes left to keep a reunion appointment with his Creator. He was 65 years old.

Soji Adesida is dead. The news reverberated round the ancient city of his birth, Akure and Ibadan, where he nested as place of domicile and work for decades of his life. In those decades, he cultivated a commune of friends who, today, are still mourning his departure. He sowed imperishable seeds of affection in their lives.

Adesida’s Akureness was what I first encountered. He had been told of his Akure brother who was in a seeming adulterous liaison with the pen and was causing some uproar in the public sphere, he told me. So, when we met, Adesida was all over me. His dotting brotherhood reminded me of Baba Saliu. In a panegyric for this friend of his, my musical god, Ayinla Omowura, had lauded Saliu’s father who he said, whenever he saw him, it was a case of a human being intoxicating the other like the searing laceration that liquor gives the stomach – bi Baba Saliu ba ti ri wa, eniyan pa ni, o j’oti…  

Each time Stag read my piece, he proudly and exhilaratingly announced that his Akure brother had penned “the wonder.” In a piece I did last year on Polaris Bank, he tackled a staff of the bank who had a dissenting opinion from mine. He eventually linked her up with me so that I could impugn her stand. Such was the texture Stag was made of. You could imagine how downcast I was to be told that such a wonderful brother had been killed.

This Friday, Akure will stand still for one of its own as Stag is lifted down the vault of a rude earth that would be unconscionable enough to demand to swallow the remains of such an affable man. We will however erect a cenotaph for this great Akure son in our hearts. On it, we will engrave this epitaph: Here lies a man who lived and died Akure.

Rest in peace, brother.

Every purpose is established by counsel: and with good advice make war ~ Proverbs 20:18.

Introduction

Starting right, going great and finishing excellently is God’s plan for every marital union. Nevertheless, the holy union can be fulfilling only when and where God's purposes are fully tracked, clearly understood and lovingly embraced.

Every marital union established on earth is assigned to a clear agenda from heaven, and in order to excel in it, couples must choose never to settle for ordinary relationships, but rather strive to glorify God through a kingdom-focused togetherness, till the end of time.

In normal godly Christian homes, the man is incomplete without his wife, neither is the woman. Jesus Christ said they both become “one flesh” (Matthew 19:5-6). Thus, there should be a willing, working and winning together in marital relationships to fulfill destiny!

This may entail some tough, critical and intelligent choices — physical, emotional and spiritual — but that’s the irreducible minimum if you desire to excel in your marital journey.

Understanding The Divine Destiny for Marital Unions

Basically, destiny refers to God's appointed and ordained purpose for your life. It is what God has predetermined you to be, and to become in His divine agenda (Ephesians 1:11).

Nothing exists without a divine purpose (Colossians 1:16). And, God always wishes to see us being fulfilled in His Will because He created everything for His pleasure (Revelation 4:11). Hence, there’s a fixed and predetermined purpose of God for every Christian home.

Before the partners met, or had loved each other as a couple, God had sketched out their lives with certain plans He expects them to accomplish together on earth (Jeremiah 29:11). He predestined each home for His peculiar ends.

Without equivocation, the grand purpose of God for everything — organization, institution, animate or inanimate, including your family unit — is to serve and glorify Him (Isaiah 60:6; 1 Peter 2:9).

Additionally, marriage is also intended for partnership, preservation, pleasure, provision and procreation of godly seeds for the enhancement of the human society (Malachi 2:14-15).

God sculpted us into being and fashioned our destinies before we were ever born (Jeremiah 1:4-5; Psalms 139:16). It would be outrageous, utterly foolish and very dangerous, therefore, for any mortal to attempt to contradict what God — the Infinite Wisdom — has already ordained.

However, one gets sad to read of many people in Scriptures who ended up aborting God’s plan for their lives, just because of marital issues. An example of this is showcased in a brief panorama of Samson’s life and his dented destiny.

Samson was a man of clearly defined destiny, a Nazarite, born for a purpose of beginning Israel's deliverance from bondage to the Philistines (Judges 13:1-25)! For twenty years, Samson walked in the authority of his destiny by the sheer strength of the Holy Spirit.

He drove the fear of God into the camp of the Philistines. He also judged Israel and brought hope to the entire nation. But, Samson aborted his destiny by chasing after a harlot, Delilah. Knowingly flirting with danger, he lost it all!

Samson could have lived out his days in dignity, and as a vessel of incredible honour and victories by the operation of the Holy Spirit, but he rather became sensuous and degenerated very fast.

He lost the conqueror’s anointing that had brought him immense honour and respect amongst his people. He ended as one of the most pitiful weaklings and a major tragic figure in biblical history: a conquered conqueror!

He lost all his dreaded strength, and his eyes were gouged out! Though, reminiscent of his glorious destiny, Samson brought down the Philistine temple in his dying day. Yet, he died a most miserable, cataclysmic death, having missed his destiny altogether!

Unfortunately, for similar marital misadventures, Solomon, Lot’s Wife, Vashti and Michal also experienced upturned destinies. Particularly, Solomon died without a successor for his great successes. His incredible wisdom profited many other people greatly, but worthless to himself in that respect.

What could be responsible for these sad incidents? I suspect ignorance played a big role. Outright lack of right information or faulty information could be devastating and very frustrating to anyone, including starry destinies.

Please note that irrespective of your success outside your home, you’re still missing your marital destiny if you are not glorifying God in your household, becoming more and more like Jesus, loving God and being practically involved in demonstrating His love to the world.

Particularly, the Christian homes that desire to enjoy divine distinction must resolve, like Joshua’s household, to serve the Lord together (Joshua 24:15). In fact, it seems like a good wife/husband occasionally evolves as a reward for courageous commitments to the cause of kingdom advancement (Judges 1:12-13).

There must be a definitive enthusiasm for mutual support for the callings of God upon our homes. The entire household must unite to do things that please God, loving Him heartily, and modeling His love to the world through our spiritual activities such as soul-winning, giving, intercessory prayers, etcetera.

Planning To Fulfill Destiny In Marriage

In order to fulfill your marital destiny, you must make a family plan and live according to it (Proverbs 20:18). Marriage plans will provoke marital focus. Even if it doesn’t look perfect, yet it's on the way to fulfilling destiny.

Start with where you are today. Honestly jot down some words to describe your relationship presently — silent, unhappy, disconnected, together on paper, lacking sexual intimacy, confused, frustrated, drifting, or, growing, hopeful, wonderful, fun-filled, energized? Dream up a marital mission with your mate to bring about improvements.

Poor decisions will always lead to wrong choices, and wrong choices will lead to failed homes. Make room for changes in attitude where necessary. Your home is destined to become the home you determine it should be.

Your destiny is greater than your present challenges, so make serious commitments together to stop the matrimonial wandering today. Keep your marital mission on your minds. Determine to pick up your destiny in God, and deliberately resolve to glorify Him in it.

Above all, allow God’s grand plan to steer your marriage and order your everyday steps (Jeremiah 10:23-24). Your lives don’t belong to you anymore, but to the One who predestined you to His Will. With His involvement in your lives, your marriage can still become truly extraordinary.

It’s Now In Your Hand!

In conclusion, please know that your colourful marital destiny is in your hands, right now (Micah 6:8). The level of success that you attain in your marriage, including the degree of happiness you access in it, is in your hands.

See, destiny is an interplay between grace and conscious self-effort. In fact, what we call “fate” is just another word for people's past choices coming to a head (Deuteronomy 30:19-20). It’s the practical wisdom you access from God and your right actions that deliver your joyful consequences (James 1:5)!

Often people delay in doing what they ought to do, waiting until it becomes too late. But, you must swing into action today, seizing this golden moment to make your marriage a wonder!

Accept responsibility for your destiny. If you don’t change direction, you might end up where you are heading. Either through your wrong choices or willful ignorance, your marital successes or failures have been brought on by none other than yourself.

Friends and brethren, it is choice and not a blind chance that determines destiny. Choose to make your home count for God in glorious togetherness (Luke 10:41-42). Determine to live each day together to please God while time remains. You won’t miss it, in Jesus Name. Amen. Happy Sunday!

** Bishop Taiwo Akinola,

Rhema Christian Church,

Otta, Ogun State, Nigeria.

Connect with Bishop Akinola via these channels:

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As a young believer, the Holy Spirit told me something that shattered me. He said heaven is not for me. “There is no food in heaven. There is no sex in heaven. None of the material possessions you crave is in heaven. What would you want to do in such a boring place?” He asked.

The truth of the matter is that Christians are not interested in heaven. The earth is where all our treasures are in.

Jesus asked a man sick for 38 years if he would like to be made whole. Would you believe the man did not even answer “Yes?” So, I ask a similar question to anyone reading this. Do you want to go to heaven? Or would you rather go to Dubai or Paris?

If you say yes to heaven, then you might need to provide the evidence to confirm you are telling the truth and not merely grandstanding. 

Where salvation is concerned, we all answer “No” by our actions and inactions. Paul confesses: “I am carnal, sold under sin. For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do.” (Romans 7:14-15).

“For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice.” (Romans 7:18-19).

Nobody answers yes to salvation. That is why it is a gift of God to a select few. If even only one man had answered yes, it would not have been necessary to send Jesus. Everybody answers “No” to salvation.

Left to man, there would be no salvation. With man, salvation is impossible. But with God, all things are possible. That is why salvation is entirely by grace. Man cannot meet its requirements. Man does not even want it. We do not desire it.

We want lands, we want houses, we want money, we want fame, but we don’t want salvation. Had it not been for the Lord, who is full of compassion and lovingkindness, we would all be condemned.

Isaiah confesses this to God: “You welcome those who cheerfully do good, who follow godly ways. But we are not godly; we are constant sinners and have been all our lives. Therefore, your wrath is heavy on us. How can such as we be saved? We are all infected and impure with sin.” (Isaiah 64:5-6).

Listen to me, if you are not offended by Jesus you will learn a lot from Him. Jesus asked a sick man if he would like to be healed because He knew the man does not desire healing. When a man desires healing, you will know.

When a man is determined to go to heaven, you will know. He will not make excuses for his sins. You will not have to harass him to come to church. You will not have to station a policeman in his bedroom to make him read his Bible.

John warns: “Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God. In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother.” (1 John 3:8-10).

The man who wants to go to heaven sets his face as a flint. When you slap him, he won’t slap you back. When you abuse him, he won’t respond. When you cheat him, he won’t retaliate. It is not even so much that he is a good man as that he would not want anything to jeopardise his salvation.

Just think about it. How can you allow your eternity to be determined by one temporal sexual act of 30 minutes duration? David nearly lost his kingdom because of a sexual transgression. How can you allow eternity to be determined by one foolish act of unrighteousness?

God is the thief in the night, and He has put a gun to your head. He says: “If I hear one sound from you, I will shoot you dead.” Will you make a sound?

“Don’t worry,” says the devil. “He’s just threatening you. I can assure you that He won’t shoot.” “Are you sure?” “I tell you He won’t shoot. Make a sound and see.”

Whatever it takes

We must be determined to do whatever it takes for the sake of salvation.

Paul says: “What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ.” (Philippians 3:7-8).

What things were gain to you that you have counted loss for Christ? What things are gain to you that you are prepared to count as loss for Christ?

A lady phoned me from the United States to ask: “Doctor, since you gave your life to Christ, what have you gained?” I told her she does not understand kingdom dynamics. She was operating in the psychology of the world.

What she needed to ask was: “Since you gave your life to Christ, what have you lost?” Then I would have been able to show her my CV of losses. Many things that were gain to me I have counted them loss for Christ. If I had not, I would not be able to write this.

Those who want to go to heaven are unshaken in their determination. They don’t entertain distractions. Blind Bartimaeus wanted to be healed. Some people told him to keep quiet, but he did not listen to them. Bartimaeus cried out even more until he got Jesus’ attention.

Jesus called the Syro-Phoenician woman who sought healing for her daughter a dog. She did not care. “You can call me a dog, a monkey or even a cow. It does not matter so long as my daughter gets healed.”

Friends of a paralytic removed the roof of a building to get to Jesus. They did not care that they damaged a man’s house. They would do anything to get healing for their friend.

What about you? What price are you prepared to pay for salvation? How valuable is salvation to you?

Salvation is free. Freely have you received. But please don’t get carried away with the freedom, or shall I say the free-ness. Although it is freely given and freely received, you still must work it out.

“Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” (Philippians 2:12).

The salvation of the soul is perfected: “in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.” (2 Corinthians 11:27).

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; www.femiaribisala.com

In this digital age, there are plenty of AI tools at our disposal to enhance our daily lives. Here are ten AI tools to embrace and make your life easier in 2023

In the way that Apple is the first brand that comes to mind when one talks of smartphones, and Heinz is synonymous with ketchup, ChatGPT has certainly done an extraordinary job of making itself the frontrunner in artificial intelligence (AI). At least for now.

ChatGPT is an AI language model that took the world by storm after its developers released GPT3, a significant step up from GPT2 in terms of understanding and capability. Not only has this program made AI a more frequent conversation at the dinner table, but it also represents a milestone in the processing of natural language—anyone who has given this model a try marvelled at how human its conversations and interactions seem.

From generating creative pitches to creating a three-course dinner recipe for six accounting for allergies, the versatile ChatGPT can handle most prompts you key into its search bar, making it a valuable tool for personal and professional use. But why stop at one AI tool when thousands more are in the market? Here are ten other AI tools you should know about in 2023 to make your life easier in this digital era.

1. Decktopus AI

Ever got asked to make a presentation deck for a school project or meeting but don’t know where to start? Or perhaps designing is not your cup of tea, but you still want to impress your audience visually? Decktopus AI has got all your presentation needs covered.

Have your content ready to be keyed into Decktopus, then kick back and let the tool generate visually appealing and engaging presentations that will have your audience’s eyes glued to the screen. With a wide range of templates, elements and content suggestions at your disposal, Decktopus will be your best friend walking into that presentation room.

2. Paperpal

If you’re rushing to get all your great ideas typed out and have no time to spare for the nitty gritty grammatical or punctuation corrections, Paperpal is, well, your pal! This AI tool specialises in proofreading and editing manuscripts and can even suggest ways to enhance the quality of your written content.

Whether you are a student or a professional blogger, Paperpal will polish your piece until it shines. As if the functions aren’t enough, you can download the Paperpal Microsoft Word plugin and edit from within Word itself.

3. Consensus

A big criticism that ChatGPT has received is that it tends to create inaccurate or non-existent citations and links when giving information. Consensus AI easily fixes this problem by helping you locate published papers relevant to your topic.

This tool is a godsend for researchers; simply key in the topic you are working on, and you can read the conclusion of each relevant paper and the paper itself if needed. However, Consensus is limited to several subject areas, such as social policy, medicine, mental health and economics.

4. Dall-E 2

The hard truth is that not all of us are artistically talented, but with a dash of Dall-E 2, we could be! Dall-E 2 is an AI model that converts text descriptions into images. The more specific you are with your prompt, the closer the final image will be to your desire.

Users can go as far as to suggest the art form and style that they would like the image to be generated in, and Dall-E 2 will deliver in a matter of seconds. This is a handy AI tool for anyone who wants to create art but lacks the capability or for designers to source inspiration—unless you ask it to depict hands.

5. Stable Diffusion 2

Think of Stable Diffusion 2 as Dall-E 2’s big brother. This image-editing tool not only generates images based on text prompts but also gives users control over details such as resolution, colours, details, and more. For image enthusiasts who are more obsessed with image editing than generating, this AI tool will take your images to the next level.

6. Lumen5

Since we’ve covered image-related AI, it’s only fitting to introduce a video-related AI. Lumen5 is a program that can transform written content into captivating videos. The AI analyses the text and inputs appropriate visuals and animations to produce professional-looking videos that you can share on just about any platform.

If you aren’t satisfied with the output, simply browse through the enormous Lumen5 library to replace clips or text until you think it is ready to be exported. Jumping on the Lumen5 train will ease the pressure on content creators and businesses to churn out videos!

7. Soundraw

Now, what about music? If YouTube has ever served you a copyright strike, you know how difficult it is to source free, great-sounding bops for videos. Enter Soundraw, an AI platform that allows you to create royalty-free original music.

After choosing the genre, speed, and length of your desired music, Soundraw will do all the work for you and compose unique tracks to accompany your video. No more copyright strikes!

8. Fireflies

Virtual meetings have become more frequent since the pandemic, and there are complementary AI tools that can make meetings more efficient and organised. Fireflies AI plugs into video conferencing tools and can perform myriad actions such as meeting transcription, summaries, conversation analyses and more.

With its AI-powered search, you can review an hour-long meeting in just a few seconds and locate the key points you need. Say goodbye to long nights of sifting through meeting minutes and hello to Fireflies AI!

9. Krisp

Also another plugin for video conferencing tools, Krisp primarily serves to remove background noise so you can maintain undistracted communication even when a baby is crying just next door.

The Krisp team is also working on new features such as a live timer so you know how long you’ve been speaking for and whether you should wrap things up soon, as well as a tone detector to alert you should you start sounding tired.

10. Deep Nostalgia

This AI tool will breathe life into static photographs through animation. Deep Nostalgia adds subtle movements and expressions to your images, making them appear realistic. This is a great tool to try out if you have some old photos lying around and would like to revive cherished moments.

Readers digest

A common misconception tells us that we fail to reach our maximum potential because we only use 10% of our brain. This statistic is often repeated, but that doesn't make it true. In fact, functional magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, reveals that the majority of our brain is in use even during very simple tasks. The truth is that achieving our highest potential and entering the ranks of the ultra-successful has much more to do with how we are using our brain rather than how much of our brain we are using.

So many people never learn how to use their brain in a way that unleashes its full potential. Instead of engaging with what matters most in the moment, they unknowingly focus their attention on activities that hinder, rather than help their business performance.

Fortunately, you can change this natural tendency. Training your brain for success doesn't need to be hard. The key involves discovering how to hone your mental energy on the task at hand.

Eliminating unhealthy internal monologues

When it comes to unlocking your brain's total capacity, unhealthy internal monologues are your biggest enemy. Technically, you can call them dialogues. You are, in fact, talking to someone: yourself.

During these unhealthy dialogues, we tell ourselves that we cannot do something, even if or when we have no evidence to support that position. We belittle ourselves, our abilities, our relationships or the people around us. You probably are not even aware of the vast majority of these conversations. To many, they sound like a constant buzz in the background of your brain.

During important interviews or crucial negotiations, your mind brings memories of insecurities, past injustices, personal losses and mistakes to the surface. All the while, it directs you to smile, look relaxed, portray confidence and avoid stepping into future blunders. All of that effort eats up valuable mental energy.

If you could put an end to the conflict caused by that internal noise, the extra energy and thinking capacity could be devoted to decision-making and strategic thinking, giving you a higher chance of success. Everything would be easier. Freeing up and tapping into that abundant energy is how elite entrepreneurs achieve unprecedented levels of success.

Picture a successful entrepreneur stepping into an elevator that will take him to a critical business meeting. Years of strategic work and planning culminated in the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for him to stand in that specific room surrounded by those specific people. Yet, instead of feeling excited, he is distressed. His mind is racing, but not with thoughts that will help him. The stress of the moment renders him overwhelmed, worried and anxious. How much stronger would his chances of success be if his mind was focused on reassuring, calming and empowering thoughts rather than "what-ifs" and worst-case scenarios?

Learning to unleash your brain's full capacity

I want you to start thinking differently about what it takes to be successful. Rather than allowing your mind to work against you with unwarranted thoughts and self-criticism, learn to utilize its full capacity on every task. By limiting or doing away with detrimental thought processes, you free up the mental resources you need, empowering greater success without expending additional effort.

Think of your brain as a computer. When your laptop slows down and the little colorful wheel starts spinning, you don't type harder on the keyboard; instead, you focus on fixing the computer's problem. The computer may be bogged down because it is storing too much information, running too many programs, fighting a virus or dealing with a corrupt file. Whatever the case may be, years of experience have taught you that if you don't respond to the malfunction, the computer's sluggish performance makes you waste your time. To get things running optimally, most people need expert help learning how to offload superfluous files, delete corrupted ones, shut down unnecessary programs, fix bugs and get rid of any problematic viruses or malware.

How does this translate to your brain's potential? You must minimize the thoughts and emotions working against your mind to optimize its performance. Harnessing the entire capacity of your brain makes you faster, sharper, and smarter.

Every day as a business leader, you complete a wide range of tasks requiring high levels of processing power. You strategize to drive performance, innovate products and processes, motivate teams to overcome challenges and attract business and talent. When your brain is unable to function optimally during these tasks, it stands to reason that your success is limited. To ascend to the highest levels in the business sector, you must first understand that the most powerful ROI is achieved by investing in improving your mind. This investment provides benefits in the business arena, and it also results in a fuller life and improved relationships.

As a business leader, you face technology, market rules and even workplace cultures that are constantly evolving. Still, the most daunting challenges will always be in your own mind. If you seek to excel in life by unlocking your potential, commit to caring for your brain's health and doing everything possible to enhance its functionality.

When unleashing your brain becomes your priority, you achieve heightened mental clarity, enhanced creativity and advanced problem-solving skills. You multiply your potential, seize opportunities and avoid leaving money on the table. If your goal is greater business success, prioritize your most important asset: your brain.

Entrepreneur

President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the appointment of Oluwatoyin Madein as the substantive Accountant-General of the Federation.

Madein’s appointment followed a successful selection process to fill the existing vacancy.

Head of the Civil Service of the Federation (HOCSF), Folasade Yemi-Esan, made this known on Friday in Abuja in a statement by Mohammed Ahmed, the communication director in her office.

Yemi-Esan said the appointment was effective from Thursday, 18 May, adding that the new appointee will assume office immediately.

NAN

The Court of Appeal in Abuja on Friday adjourned indefinitely a suit seeking to stop Bola Tinubu from being sworn-in as president on 29 May.

It comes barely 10 days to the scheduled swearing-in of the president-elect.

Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) won Nigeria’s 25 February presidential election, defeating former vice president Atiku Abubakar of the PDP and Labour Party’s Peter Obi.

But a former presidential candidate of the defunct Hope Democratic Party (HDP), Ambrose Owuru, who claimed he was deprived of his victory in the 2019 election, filed a suit that asked for a court order to stop Tinubu’s inauguration.

He urged the court to order him to be sworn in as president instead of Tinubu to compensate for the injustice of depriving him of his acclaimed victory in 2019.

Owuru, a serial presidential candidate, did not contest the 2023 presidential election. His party has been deregistered by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

He lost at the Federal High Court, and then proceeded to appeal at the Court of Appeal.

After taking the arguments of lawyers to parties in the suit on Friday evening, a three-member panel of the Court of Appeal headed by Jamil Tukur, adjourned indefinitely to deliver judgement.

Tukur said a date for verdict would be sent to parties in the suit.

Buhari, AGF ignored proceedings

At the resumed proceedings on Friday, neither Buhari nor the Attorney-General was represented in court.

Despite being served with a hearing notice, Buhari whose second term as president ends on 29 May, did not file any court papers.

But the electoral umpire’s lawyer, Hassan Halilu, urged the court to dismiss the suit for being frivolous.

Owuru claims to be the adjourned “constitutional winner” of the 2019 presidential election.

Halilu further informed the court that Owuru’s case “is baseless and irritating.”

Tinubu’s lawyer, Adelani Ajibade from the law firm of Wole Olanipekun, argued that Owuru’s suit “is strange and baseless”.

He said the plaintiff’s case is bereft of merit and should be dismissed.

The lawyer informed the court that Owuru’s claim to have won the 2019 had been dismissed by a Supreme Court judgment which nullified his petition filed challenging Buhari’s victory.

Ajibade prayed for a dismissal of the case with N20 million cost to be imposed on Owuru and in favour of the respondents.

PT

Governor Bello Matawalle of Zamfara State has accused the chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Abdulrasheed Bawa, of demanding $2 million bribe from him.

He made the allegation amid the growing rift between the governor and the anti-graft agency.

In a statement on Wednesday, Matawalle called for Bawa’s resignation, saying he had questions to answer on corruption.

But the EFCC Chairman responded that he had nothing to hide and asked Matawalle to petition appropriate authorities if he had any evidence against him.

In an interview with BBC Hausa, Matawalle insisted that Bawa could not be trusted.

“It is not just to always blame governors. It is not only governors who have treasury, the federal government also has. What does the EFCC boss do to them? As he is claiming he has evidence on governors, let him show to the world evidence of those at the federal level.

“If he exits office, people will surely know he is not an honest person. I have evidence against him. Let him vacate office, I am telling you within 10 seconds probably more than 200 people will bring evidences of bribe he collected from them. He knows what he requested from me but I declined.

“He requested a bribe of $2 million from me and I have evidence of this. He knows the house we met, he invited me and told me the conditions. He told me governors were going to his office but I did not. If I don’t have evidence, I won’t say this.”

It would be recalled that the EFCC alleged that Metawalle was being investigated for N70 billion fraud.

Contacted for reaction, Wilson Uwujaren, spokesman of the anti-graft agency, said he had not seen the story so he could not respond.

Told it was on BBC Hausa where Matawalle spoke, he said he could not speak Hausa and asked that the story link be sent for a response, but he had not responded at the time of filing this report.

Daily Trust