For Valentine Sake, Protect What You Love
For many centuries, February 14 has always been set aside in different parts of the world to celebrate Valentine’s Day or Saint Valentine’s Day. Gifts, candies, roses, chocolates, and many other items are often exchanged between loved ones, friends and family to mark the day.
Although there are a lot of folklores about Valentine’s Day, one that stands out is what Wikipedia describes “as the account of the imprisonment of Saint Valentine of Rome for ministering to Christians and his subsequent persecution under the Roman Empire in the third Century.” Another story suggests that a jailed Valentine sent the first greeting card after he fell in love with a young jailor’s daughter who also visited him in prison. Before his death, legend has it that he wrote her a letter signed “From your Valentine,” an expression that is still used till date.
Irrespective of the account one may choose to believe, what is certain is that the story of Valentine’s Day is one that centers around love, sacrifice, giving and sharing. Below are a few notes to watch and act upon in the spirit of this year’s celebration of love.
Reach out to the Needy
Undoubtedly, the outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic around the world has not only greatly limited visitations in a lot of organizations and amongst individuals, but has also hit the incomes of many, making reach out to the needy and the less privileged the least of all the activities on anyone’s mind. There is, however, no better time to extend love and share gifts with the needy than now. Many Foundations and NGOS are in dire need of support to cater for motherless babies, the sick, the homeless and many others living in penury, a situation that has been further aggravated by Covid-19. Items like Foodstuff, Clothing, Shoes, Nose masks, hand sanitizers and even cash transfers will go a long way in putting smiles on people’s faces this season.
Curtail ‘Virtual Distancing’
Virtual Distance is a phenomenon where individuals, though physically close to one another, are disconnected due to excessive usage of digital tools like games, laptops, and mobile phones. This addictive behaviour has limited human interactions and eliminated communications amongst couples, families, and friends which is very essential in nurturing relationships and strengthening intimacy. As social animals,
we are inherently built to interact and crave the contact of others for support and coexistence but the advent of technology and the advancement of communication tools, is robbing us of that. Virtual distancing is not only affecting the relationship between some couples, and parents/children, but also co-workers in office environment. In organizations where processes are fully automated, interactions between co-workers are being affected, with the resultant impact on team bonding and productivity. It is important we begin to take deliberate steps to curtail virtual distancing and do more of one-on-one interactions while keeping a safe distance to avoid contracting Coronavirus.
Spread Love not Hate
The outbreak of Coronavirus is one event that has reminded everyone that the common chord that binds us all is humanity. It became a leveler. It is no respecter of status, age, religion, race, achievements etc. The world for once pushed aside prejudices, hate, and discrimination to fight a common enemy, Covid-19.
More than ever, the world is in dire need of love and a more positive attitude of giving.
Love and compassion must thrive, while prejudices and discrimination must vanish. This season of love must be a time to begin to change our disposition towards how we feel or act towards people around us. We must begin now and beyond the Valentine season of love in the month of February to think beyond tribe, status, race and make the world a better place.
Buy Insurance for a Loved one
The benefits of purchasing an insurance policy, be it Life or non-life, cannot be overemphasized. A life policy helps to assure a better future for loved ones especially when the breadwinner of the family passes on to the great beyond. While many do not like to discuss death, it remains inevitable and a Life Assurance policy would help to ameliorate the financial difficulties, and in the process, secure a happier future for the loved ones left behind.
In this season of Valentine, a very good way to expresses love towards your loved ones would be by purchasing a life assurance policy for them as it ensures the spouses have a quality life, helps make the children’s childhood better, eliminates death related debt and many other benefits.
If you truly love your valued assets, you can protect them from damage resulting from breakages, fire outbreaks, theft, and other forms of losses with the right policies and service offerings being offered by Consolidated Hallmark Group.
Gift yourself and your loved ones the gift of peace and rest of mind with well-tailored products and service offerings in General Insurance, Micro Life Assurance, Healthcare Management,
To sum up, in this month of love, it is important we spread love in the most impactful way by deciding to take steps today that will touch the lives of those that cannot repay us. In doing this, the celebration of true love, as exhibited by Saint Valentine, will not be in vain. After all, love, they say is the most powerful magic – you do not need to have any special power to do something remarkable.
‘ When violence breaks out between groups fighting turf wars, lives are not just affected. Businesses suffer. When businesses suffer, capital investment and FDI vote with their feet
The current situation in Nigeria’s largest economy, Lagos, bears a striking resemblance to the early years of America’s organised crime scene. In the late 1920s, the five crime families of New York -- the Bonano, Colombo, Gambino, Genovese, and Luchese, before the rise of the drug racketeering trade, decided to divide the monopoly of local labour industries they had, acting in tune with union leaders and political representatives who were their puppets.
Organised crime in New York has traditionally had a stranglehold on the waste disposal industry. Manhattan garbage was Gambino. Brooklyn was Genovese. In both boroughs, mobsters, who collected fees from the union, would order union workers to go on pay strikes, and then force politicians to yield to the workers’ demands and raise their wages. When that happened, the mob would then collect more fees from the union. Taxpayers would end up paying way too much for garbage removal, and most of the extra money actually went to the mob.
Times have changed, and these days a waste disposer can work without being a member of a union. But back in the day the mafia was ready to kill anyone who worked in their sector without being a member of their union. In so many ways, this bears striking resemblance with the Lagos state government’s penchant of mob rule. One of their major foot soldiers, the Lagos state chapter of the National Union of Road Transport Workers has consistently been the go to tool for maximum resource extraction, thus creating a mutually beneficial relationship that allows the state government to shirk its responsibility of providing jobs for its brimming population.
But that is not where the comparison ends.
New York inadvertently empowered these mobs to the point that they became kingmakers in their own right. The Lagos state government has more directly empowered crime bosses in the NURTW to create an alternate economy for themselves and determine the outcome of elections in the state.
It is important to point out Lagos’s position as Nigeria’s most populous and richest state as a result of its status as the country’s former capital ( it was capital for 87 years), and as a result, Lagos remains the first choice for businesses because of its ports and labour. The city’s cardinal sin rests largely on its inability to provide basic amenities for the nearly 22 million people it claims to tax. Near daily fights break out in different parts of the state, with untold consequences for the economic health of the state.
The violence between rival factions of the NURTW in Obalende last Thursday is yet another day at the office for many Lagosians, but it is another thing holding its economy to ransom. Lagos Island houses nearly all the headquarters of major corporations in the country, as well as the state’s division of military installations. When violence breaks out between groups fighting turf wars, lives are not just affected. Businesses suffer. When businesses suffer, capital investment and FDI vote with their feet by seeking saner climes where the cost of doing business is not so high as to threaten lives and property. The Third Mainland Bridge is the most important of three bridges connecting the mainland with the island. Imagine for one second that the bridge is totally shut for half a day. The impact on businesses would be profound. The ENDSARS protests last year which converted the Lekki Toll Gate as it’s spiritual headquarters made the Lekki Concession Company ( in charge of the toll gate) lose a ton of money. The Punch recently noted that the Lekki- Ikoyi Link Bridge was expected to generate about N10 million daily, or nothing less than N300 million monthly, while the Admiralty Circle Plaza along the Lekki- Epe Expressway was expected to generate nothing less than N16.6m a day, which grosses about N500 million monthly. Just before the Lekki Toll Gate Massacre, the state government said it lost about N234 million in terms of revenue.
With the continuing violence that breaks out in important central business districts in the city, the government’s pitches for capital investment and economic opportunities will not just take a hit, for all intents and purposes, it speaks to a paradox of a curious symbiotic relationship that works just fine for the government. However, not the people it might look to convince to stay, or come in and take the places of those who got tired of waiting for the silencing of the guns.