Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can.
John Wesley
...I’ll live by this, so help me God🙏
In 2018, while working as a community mobiliser on a sexual and reproductive health and rights project in Kano State, we regularly engaged women in rural communities. During one of those sessions, a woman said to us:
“Malama, don Allah, kamar yadda kuke tara mata kuna koya mana abubuwa, don Allah ku dinga tara mazajenmu kuna nuna musu muhimmancin zuwa asibiti da neman magani. Saboda sau da yawa za ki ga muna fama da infection ko sanyi. Idan mun je asibiti an ba mu magani, ana ce mana mu gaya wa mazajenmu su zo su karɓi magani, saboda idan mun warke su ba su warke ba, za su iya sake sa mana cutar. Amma mazajenmu sai su ƙi zuwa asibiti, su ce wai muna tona musu asiri. Wani ma zai iya sakin matarsa saboda ta gaya masa ya je asibiti. Ita kuma idan an sake ta, wani lokacin samun wani mijin yana zama da wahala, saboda ana cewa ba ta iya rufa wa mijinta asiri.”
In translation, she was saying:
“Please, just as you gather women and educate us, we would appreciate it if you also engaged our husbands and taught them the importance of going to the hospital and receiving treatment for sexually transmitted infections. Many times, we suffer from infections and, when we go to the hospital, we are treated and advised to bring our husbands for treatment too, because if we recover while they remain untreated, they may infect us again. But when we ask our husbands to go to the hospital, some become offended and accuse us of exposing their shame. In some cases, a man may even divorce his wife for asking him to seek treatment. A woman divorced under such circumstances may also struggle to remarry because she becomes stigmatised and accused of being unable to conceal her husband’s shame.”
This was in 2018, and in 2026, you are promoting the dangerous idea that a “good wife” is one who hears but pretends not to hear, sees but pretends not to see and remains silent regardless of what her husband does, all in the name of preserving the dignity of marriage.
Who raised you guys to think like this?
Since when did “matar rufin asiri” come to mean a woman who must ignore persistent betrayal, silence herself and protect a grown man from the consequences of his own choices? Do you not realise that protecting the privacy of a marriage is not the same as concealing misconduct or tolerating repeated infidelity or sacrificing one’s dignity, health and peace to preserve a man’s public image.
Islam does not normalise zina or present infidelity as an ordinary male weakness that women must tolerate. It, in contrast, treats sexual immorality as a grave offence. So what makes anyone think it is acceptable to normalise cheating, or gaslight women into enabling wayward partners who behave as though infidelity is their birthright, and then condemn every woman who chooses to walk away because she cannot continue living with a man alleged to be a chronic womaniser?
Why should the responsibility for a man’s discipline, loyalty and sexual conduct be transferred to his wife? Why should she be praised for pretending not to see what threatens her emotional and physical well-being, while he is excused from accountability?
Please do not use this mindset to raise your daughters, whether you have them now or may have them in the future. This thinking is one of the reasons many women are suffering and dying in silence, are repeatedly infected with life-threatening sexually transmitted infections because they are taught that their chastity is synonymous with overlooking their husband’s inadequacies. You’re suggesting women should remain trapped in harmful marriages because society tells them that marriage is “for better or worse” and that a woman’s virtue is measured by how much humiliation, betrayal and danger she can endure without speaking.
A woman who truly loves you and wants the best for you in both worlds would never turn deaf ears or a blind eye to wrongdoing by pretending not to see it.
Ka je ka nema ilimi.
Madina has followed up on so many stories about insecurity, she has gone to the frontlines and risked herself by asking powerful people dangerous questions. What we won’t do, is downplay her amazing work as a journalist.
It's selfish to enter someone's life, see that they're a loving, cheerful, and good person, and decide to ruin their present because you haven't dealt with your own issues. Leave people alone if you have no intention of showing up with sincerity.
I’ve been in Jos for like 5 days now and I have a lot to say.
Firstly, I never knew a people could be this nice and kind and respectful.
I almost felt sick because I never knew people could still be like that.
Lagos has fried my brain. People call you Sir while offering every service to you.
From the suya guy to the super market attendant to the local restaurant to every single person.
I’ve never seen this before in my life. In Lagos, the way I know the food in a restaurant would be good is if the woman is rude.
I never trust the food of a polite food seller in Lagos.
But I’m here where everyone treats you with respect.
Then things are cheaper. The uber that will normally cost 10 million naira here in Lagos is 2,500 here.
I’ve never seen life lived like this before. I see clear road everywhere.
I’m not scared of holding my phone carelessly.
Hotel is cheap with free WiFi. Omo. Jos na place.
I was born with sickle cell disease.
I had Crisis after crisis, constant pain, multiple organ damage by age 28. Doctors said I wouldn’t see 35.
During one brutal episode, I prayed like never before while hooked up to morphine. The pain vanished overnight.
Follow up tests showed my hemoglobin was normal. No sickle cells. Geneticists ran every test, markers for the disease had disappeared. I haven’t had a crisis in 4 years.
My hematologist calls me the walking miracle file.
You have to believe that there is God.
Dear Ifeanyi,
Happy Wedding Anniversary.
Thirty-one years is no meager attainment.
You have carried our life together with uncommon grace — steady through every season, wise in every provision, unshaken when the winds were anything but gentle.
I am grateful for the woman you are. @IAdefarasin
With love,
’Deolu.
My friend went home for her friend’s wedding, she came back home after the wedding very late at night so tired and hungry.
On getting home, her 69 year old father had made amala and efo riro down for her.