True Life…Hilarious…Creative...THE 6TH FLOOR…Addictive…Reader’s discretion is strongly advised…Also available on www.realtymag.blogspot.com

                                                 FANNING THE FLAME   (1)

                              By Olumide T. Agunbiade

I was busy checking my mail on my laptop at about 10am on that day when he entered my office on the sixth floor of a 10 storey building at Ikeja and settled his bulk on a couch beside me.

He looked every inch a comfortable man. He was around 65 years old and had a belly on him that could have been mistaken in the dark for a pregnancy. He was tall dark and shy handsome, he wore a buba and sokoto a white cap and a white pair of shoes that shone even in the office.

Once he had settled himself, taken a quick look around, he turned his attention to me. I turned off my radio set as he said: “Hello! I’m Akande Raymond.’’

I was aware that is small dark eyes were staring at my clean shirt and trouser that had cost five thousand naira three months ago. His small dark eyes also took in the wristwatch in my hand and the cash beside my laptop.

A…Recap…Of...The…Latest…NEWS…Around…The…World

By Olumide T. Agunbiade          

POLITICS 

50 oil firms got N232b illegally

Fifty oil marketers fraudulently collected N232 billion from the Federal Government of Nigeria as fuel subsidy, says Finance Minister Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. According to her, a forensic investigation carried out by the government revealed the subsidy fraud and the government has recovered only N29 billion through debt swap.

George Osborne, Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, told the House of Commons that austerity would continue until 2018, longer than he had hoped. The government is struggling with stubbornly high debt and a very weak economy.Mr. Osborne announced further cuts to benefits, but he surprised markets by reducing corporation tax by one percentage point, to 21%.

Pier Luigi Bersani won a clear victory in a contest for the leadership of Italy’s recent-left Democratic Party. Meanwhile Silvio Berlusconi’s disintegrating centre-right party could not agree on a programme, or on who will lead it in an election that is expected in the spring.

Ukraine’s prime minister, Mykola Azarov, and his cabinet resigned, just ahead of talks with the IMF over financial assistance. It was unclear whom the President, Viktor Yanukovych, would appoint to lead a new government.

Borut Pahor, a former prime minister of Slovenia, won the country’s presidential run-off election against Danilo Turk, the incumbent. During and after the election, Slovenians took to the streets to denounce the political elite and alleged government corruption.

Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, opened her campaign for re-election next September. Delegates from her Christian Democratic Union elected her to a seventh term as a party leader with a record 98% of the vote.

Plans to create a banking union in the euro zone ran into trouble after Germany warned against moving too quickly. Another meeting is to be held on December 12^th, just before the next European summit.

THE CHALLENGE OF CHILD RIGHTS ISSUE

By Olumide T. Agunbiade

15-year-old Hannah who lives in Akoka area of Lagos State, Nigeria did not grow up like every other child. She has been a maid since she was nine, has cane scars all over her body and had been abandoned by her parents since she was five.

Paul, 10, happens to see his parents only on Sundays even though they live under the same roof. His parent leaves for work very early in the morning before he wakes up and returns when he is asleep. Also, Empress and her brother, John was born with rare form of dwarfism. Their parents abandoned them in an institution for children with disabilities because people were always staring and laughing at them.

Many children with good start in life which encompasses adequate nutrition, health care, hygienic environment and proper upbringing may not understand the pathetic stories of Peter, Empress, Hannah and Paul like those that are suffering from similar or worse disabilities or have been subjected to any form of abuse and neglect as a child.

For years, Psychiatrists, have known that children who are abused or neglected run a high risk of developing mental problems later in life. From anxiety, depression to substance abuse and suicide.

The connection is not surprising, but it raises a crucial scientific question: Does the abuse cause biological changes that may increase the risk for these problems?

Over the past decade or so, researchers at McGill University in Montreal, led by Michael Meaney, have shown that affectionate mothering alters the expression of genes in animals, allowing them to dampen their Physiological response to stress.

Now, for the first time, they have direct evidence that the same system is at work in humans. In a study of people who committed suicide published in 2009 in the journal ‘Nature Neuroscience,’ researchers in Montreal reported that people who were abused or neglected as children showed genetic alteration that likely made them more biologically sensitive to stress.