Her name was Amara.
She was 13 years old.
The kind of child teachers remember.
Always early to class.
Always neat.
Always smiling.
Always surrounded by friends.
Then something changed.
Not suddenly.
Quietly.
The first sign was not the rash.
The first sign was tiredness.
The kind of tiredness that makes a child come home from school, drop her bag by the door, and go straight to bed.
Her mother was not worried.
Neither would most parents be.
School can be stressful.
Children get tired.
Life goes on.
Then came the fever.
Not a severe fever.
Just enough to make her forehead warm.
Just enough to cause headaches.
Just enough to make her complain that her body hurt.
In many Nigerian homes, the first thought is malaria.
So she was treated for malaria.
The fever improved.
Then it returned.
She was treated again.
Then again.
Soon, the family knew something was wrong.
But they did not know what.
Weeks passed.
The fever stayed.
The tiredness stayed.
Then the joint pains arrived.
First her fingers.
Then her wrists.
Then her knees.
Some mornings, buttoning her school shirt became difficult because her fingers felt stiff.
Some afternoons, she limped slightly while walking home.
People had explanations.
“She’s growing.”
“Maybe she needs vitamins.”
“Children complain too much.”
The symptoms kept speaking.
But nobody understood the language.
By March, Amara was no longer the same girl.
The child who once answered every question in class now struggled to stay awake during lessons.
The child who once played after school now preferred lying quietly on the couch.
The child who once smiled easily now looked exhausted.
Then one Sunday morning, while helping her prepare for church, her mother noticed something unusual.
A faint reddish rash stretched across both cheeks and over the bridge of her nose.
It wasn’t painful.
It wasn’t itchy.
It looked harmless.
Almost beautiful.
Like a butterfly had gently rested on her face.
Her mother stared at it for a few seconds.
Then suddenly she said,
“Is this not that rash that Dr. Sina mentioned during one webinar one time?”
She paused.
Trying to remember.
“Lup… Lup…”
Then she laughed nervously.
“Abeg, God forbid.”
But diseases do not disappear because we reject their names.
Sometimes they continue their work quietly while everyone is looking elsewhere.
Weeks later,
Amara’s legs began to swell.
Her slippers became tighter.
Her school socks left marks on her skin.
Then her urine became unusually foamy.
That was when the family returned to the hospital.
This time, the doctors looked deeper.
Blood tests.
Urine tests.
Kidney function tests.
More questions.
More investigations.
Then finally, the answer arrived.
Lupus.
An autoimmune disease where the body’s defense system mistakenly attacks its own organs and tissues.
The skin.
The joints.
The kidneys.
The blood.
The heart.
The lungs.
Even the brain.
And that is what makes lupus so dangerous.
Not because it is the most common disease.
But because it rarely introduces itself properly.
It enters like malaria.
It behaves like typhoid.
It imitates arthritis.
It disguises itself as kidney disease.
It hides behind symptoms that seem ordinary.
And while everyone is trying to figure it out, damage may already be happening.
The reality is that there are many children and adults living with lupus across Nigeria and Africa.
Some know.
Many do not.
Many spend months moving from one hospital to another.
Many receive multiple treatments before the correct diagnosis is made.
Many are told they are lazy.
Or exaggerating.
Or simply stressed.
Until the disease becomes impossible to ignore.
That is why awareness matters.
Not because every fever is lupus.
Not because every rash is lupus.
But because persistent symptoms deserve attention.
A child who keeps having unexplained fever.
A child who is constantly tired.
A child with recurring joint pains.
A child with unusual rashes.
A child with swelling of the legs.
A child with persistently foamy urine.
That child deserves a closer look.
That child deserves to be heard.
That child deserves more than another round of malaria medication.
Today, on Children’s Day, I am thinking about children like Amara.
Children whose illnesses are often invisible before they become serious.
Children whose symptoms are trying to tell a story long before a diagnosis arrives.
Children who deserve adults willing to listen.
Because sometimes awareness does not save a statistic.
Sometimes it saves a child.
And every child deserves the chance to be a child before becoming a patient.
Happy Children’s Day.
🚨 DÜNYA KUPASI TARİHİNDE GÖRÜLMEMİŞ OLAY!
▪️ ABD, turnuvaya katılım hakkı kazanan bir milli takımın ülkede konaklamasını reddeden ilk Dünya Kupası ev sahibi oldu.
▪️ ABD yönetimi, İran'ın üç grup maçı da kendi sınırları içinde oynanacak olmasına rağmen, turnuva boyunca takımı topraklarında istemediğini FIFA'ya resmen bildirdi.
▪️ İran Milli Takımı tüm Dünya Kupası kampını, antrenmanlarını ve konaklamasını Meksika'nın Tijuana şehrinde yapacak.
▪️ Maç günleri sınırı geçerek Los Angeles veya Seattle'da sahaya çıkacaklar ve aynı gece Meksika'ya geri dönecekler. ABD'de sabit kamp yok, otel yok, tek bir gece konaklamak bile yok.
▪️ Futbol tarihinde hiçbir milli takım, bir Dünya Kupası'nda böyle bir lojistik zorlukla mücadele etmemişti.
My neighbor used to behave like owning a car made him chairman of the street 😭
Every morning without fail, he’d stand outside polishing that black Corolla like it was a Range Rover. The man even had different towels for the tires and body 💀
Meanwhile I was managing one old motorcycle that sounded like pure suffering whenever I started it 😂
Anytime I passed, he must talk.
���Ah ah, bros… this your bike still dey alive?” 😭
Even his children started laughing anytime they heard the engine from afar. The bike had become a community announcement 😭
One evening, rain fell heavily and NEPA took light. Everywhere was dark and unusually quiet.
Let's discuss.
What if the state government decides to ask every landlord to value their properties, which would be certified by selected valuers, and peg the total annual rent to be received from each property at no more than 5% of the property value, subject to review every three years?
Thoughts on this?
I went to my brother’s school this morning to pay his school fees 200k
Tell me why the vice principal said I should add 2k for POS charges. I asked her how a school collecting that kind of money doesn’t have a proper working POS
She said their POS wasn’t working and the one available belonged to a teacher. I told her respectfully that I wasn’t paying any extra charges.
The argument got so serious that the school owner had to step in, After I explained everything, the man was visibly disappointed.
After payment, I requested for receipt and this woman suddenly said, The receipt paper has finished, I will give it to your brother later.
LATER KE? 🤣🤣🤣🤣
I said, Madam, I’m not leaving this school without my receipt. 200k is not beans in this economy.
That was how receipt paper magically appeared
Then she looked at me and said, You’re just fine for nothing.
I told her, We all know that there's no sense but at least even pretend to have some sense.
In 2023, A Fr@udster named Kelvin Enofe, Reportedly Created a Social Media Account with IK Ogbona Real Name & Pictures.
He used the account to Defraud an American woman of $70k in a sophisticated romantic Scam, The victim found out she was being scammed & hired a private investigator firm to help her recover her funds,
they tracked kelvin and revealed his identity to the Nigeria Police Force who then arrested him, IK Ogbona was totally unaware of the scam until the arrest was made public, Kevin is Currently in the police custody awaiting trial.
Message sent to Rufai
This is in Lekki picture taken on top of my neighbor's fence....so they use ladders to climb over d fence!!! Most of them are on HARD DRUGS!!
There is something very important that u & ur very resourceful team shuld bring to d Public eye, becos if NOT nipped on d bud , its like a Time bomb - culd erupt anytime ! Constituting a MAJOR ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARD TO D CITIZENS OF LAGOS STATE & HUGE SECURITY THREAT TO D LIVES OF LAWFUL CITIZENS!!. D Location is gradually becoming a SLUM & Breeding ground for miscreants & hardened CRIMINALS ON HARD DRUGS...Within d city, our very eyes in lekki phase One axis!! Lagos State Task force, Ministry of Environment led by Commissioner Tokunbo Wahab & HC.Physical planning must RISE TO THIS MENACE & EVACUATE D MISCREANTS!!...