World AIDS Day: From a person with AIDS to just living with HIV

The result

One morning thirteen years ago on the 13^th, he walked into the clinic almost sure that the news he did not want to accept might be the truth, will be the news he will hear.

For years, he took the test but always asked that he never be informed of the result, the burdens of many enforced and reinforced beliefs militating against the workings of a rational mind until a time he could not escape the truth of what it might be.

That first result was yet tentative, like the first urine sample of a doping test is, he had to wait another week for the confirmation of what had been learnt. On the 20^th of the month, a day that seems to have gained a coincidence of significances in a lifetime, it was crunch time.

The power of hope

When his pastor asked of what might be going through his mind, he averred that he was ready for what the result might be, life had to go on from knowing the truth about the present.

The nurse holding the paper of the confirmation was distraught and literally crying, it was hard enough that he was there to receive news that they usually advice be received in the company of friends or confidant, he was alone, absorbing the news and comforting the nurse.

As he left the clinic, he was handed a pamphlet that was to identify with those who had that result, the covered the emotions of anger, despair, denial, depression, pity and much else, but it did not include the word that would have mattered the most to anyone with such a diagnosis – Hope!

Without hope, there can never have been another day, yet he put it behind him and continued life as if it mattered little. He returned to university, embarked on new journeys, made new friends, even found love, the love of a sort that was trouble and fun, crazy and really crazy, but love it was.

Daringly stupid

Years passed and he fell into the delusion of being inviolable and beyond vulnerable, yet coursing in his veins was a sentence of death, one that was coming and that which others began to see. He, however, lived in denial and his health began to deteriorate and rapidly so.

Soon, he sought succour in alternative medicine and the possibility of a miracle, he was seeking a health jackpot to spring him out of the grip of death. He became desperate and grasping, as pain took a hold that was indescribable.

Then like a slap in the face, his reality dawned and he when to see his doctor, she did not give the signs a second look, before a referral, then another referral and by the third within a week, he was in hospital a very sick man given just five weeks to live if the medicine did not take.

From PWA to PLWHIV anew

At that point, he was a Person With AIDS, his immune system so seriously compromised, it was the miracle of medicine that brought him back from the brink, the same manifestation of complications due to HIV that killed Fela Anikulapo-Kuti some 12 years before.

He recovered and recovered well to tell the tale of facing death square in the face and returning to dance in the land of the living.

Many lessons learnt:

• ·         Always go for check-ups.
• ·         Take the results of your check-ups seriously if you must go on treatment, do it as soon as it is recommended.
• ·         Own your condition, your situation and your decisions.
• ·         Medicine knows a lot more about these things, avail yourself of the science and the knowledge fully.
• ·         Never stop your medication without medical advice, you are not cured until medicine gives the final verdict – your pastor is NOT your doctor.
• ·         The medicine contains the virus and allows your immune system to recover so that you are not beaten by opportunistic infections.
• ·         There is always help for your condition, social, emotional, obviously medical and much else, despite the stigma that associates with being a Person Living With HIV.
• ·         Seek therapy at any opportunity, it works.
• ·         Things might be difficult after an HIV diagnosis, but it is not the end of life, see it as the beginning of a new life, knowing your vulnerabilities and gaining new strengths.
• ·         Your friends are closer than you think they are.

And finally, until you’re dead, you’re still living and if you are still living, you’re here to say once again – Happy World Aids Day!

World AIDS Day 2014

Today is World AIDS Day 2014.

Know your bodies

The stats may not be fully known, but the estimates are in the millions of those who have gone by reason of AIDS. Big names, somebodies, 'any bodies', nobodies, the first two probably knowing and finding some respite maybe in medicine to arrest the rampaging HIV that presents AIDS.

The 'any bodies' are those who probably do not know that they have HIV and might well learn that they have it when they have developed AIDS. Yet not all hope is lost, people with medical intervention have come back from the life-threatening claws of AIDS to live lives just affected by HIV.

The nobodies however are those who have despite knowledge of their conditions neither have access to treatments, monitoring or drugs to arrest HIV and eventually succumb to AIDS.

Knowledge is progress

My view of the World AIDS Day is for the 'any bodies' and nobodies to become somebodies, people who know their status because they have access to be tested regularly. Who when tested have the counselling and information to make informed choices and if found to be HIV positive have access to medical expertise and drugs to live productive lives.

Being infected with HIV does not have to be a life sentence, it is a manageable condition with easy to use medication and a wealth of support and expertise that means no one has to suffer alone.

Beyond this, we need to move beyond the stigma of HIV and AIDS. All sorts of circumstances might have brought on the disease by commission, omission, happenstance or accident, there is no need to be judged or be judgemental.

Knowing the truth

We also need to move the management of HIV/AIDS out of the domain of desperation where charlatans, snake-oil merchants and so-called faith healers prey on the vulnerable for profit and fame.

HIV/AIDS is a medical condition, first and foremost; any assumed or considered change to that condition must always be assessed fully from a medical perspective. This is regardless of whether the person believes they are healed or they believe progression of the disease has been halted.

It is pertinent that HIV/AIDS remains under the supervision of qualified medical personnel.

Know your life

And so, on this World AIDS Day, this is what I advise.

• ·         Know your status and renew this knowledge at least every year. Get TESTED regardless.
• ·         If your status indicates being HIV positive, seek immediate medical intervention, you might be put on ARVs and these drugs are usually free.
• ·         Do not for the fear of the knowledge of your status allow HIV to waste you away, there is abundant help for you to have a useful life.
• ·         If you have exposed yourself in unsafe activity, enquire if you can have access to PrEP, this like the morning after pill.
• ·         We are all sexual beings, it is a natural human need. Do not be embarrassed about your sexual life that you deny yourself opportunities to live longer after you have discovered you have a sexually transmitted infection, no matter how minor it looks, seek help and remedy.
• ·         Learn more about HIV/AIDS and know how to keep your health and yourself safe.

The AIDS Ribbon is courtesy of PhotoBucket

World AIDS Day 2013: Eleven years with HIV

Knowledge and discovery

We sat down to talk about living with HIV for over a decade and what it means for life and the pursuit of happiness.

He had known many people affected by HIV, but rarely met anyone who had succumbed to AIDS except for stories of people and the haunting pictures that accompanied the dying days of the famous in the early days of AIDS.

His arrival in the UK allowed him to explore a nature he knew he had from well before the age of 10, when he had his full sexual encounter with someone 6 years older.

Freedom for expression

In secondary school and later he found someone who shared a same sex inclination, and they found places and time to fulfil their passions, a situation that can be inhibited by the homophobia now being codified in the legal framework in Nigeria.

Apart from the occasional threats of blackmail, there were few with whom there was a sense of fulfilled sexual companionship, it was almost transactional.

The UK signalled freedom, the freedom to explore his sexuality without fear, and that was soon realised in a number of trysts; some lasted weeks, others lasted months until he found a soul mate that ushered in a relationship that lasted seven years.

Testing for inconvenience

He took a few sexual risks and went for check-ups that sometimes presented embarrassing results not helped by the kind of engagements and unsettling discussions with sexual health workers; this discouraged the prompt take-up of free services.

He took the HIV test up to three times a year, but he extracted an undertaking that they do not inform him of the results. He guessed the outcomes presented no need for the clinic to contact him urgently for a follow-up.

In September 2002, he went in for a sexual health check-up and by that time, he had decided he was ready for whatever the results were. By then, he was almost certain that the result will be positive and was already working on how to live life with such a prospect.

Knowledge and adjustment

The first result indicated a positive, but they took another test to be sure and that returned a positive, he had become a person living with HIV, and he adjusted his life to accommodate that reality by seeking out those with a similar health situation.

Many years passed with almost a sense of invincibility bordering of fatalism, much as he had a useful relationship, they both sought out multiple partners and yet for all they liked to do, they were almost teetotal, never did drugs but liked their sex along with the companionship, the travel and many other exciting things partners did for fun.

His HIV positive partner had long been on anti-retroviral (ARV) medication, but he paid no attention to what some others began to observe as failing health, probably the virus ravaging his body, rampaging through his veins and organs, untrammelled and unmanaged until 2009 when a rapid deterioration in health presented a life-threatening condition.

You have AIDS

Towards the end of that year, he was close to becoming an unusual AIDS statistic in Western Europe where medicine had already arrested the view of HIV being a terminal and precipitous condition that rapidly brought the scythe of the Grim Reaper to harvest another soul.

The intervention was late but just in time for medicine and medication to delay the possibility of impending death due to a seriously weakened immune system.

He had dabbled with a reckless carelessness to life, but mercifully, he won a new lease of life moving him out of the terrain of a person suffering AIDS back to just being a person living with HIV.

Life living with HIV

Within 8 weeks of taking on first-line treatment, the HIV virus had become undetectable in his bloodstream though it has taken much longer for his immune system to recover and move him out of the danger zone of opportunistic infections.

Now, four years down the line, he is much wiser and informed about HIV/AIDS issues, he has considered getting involved in activism and advocacy for the many with his kind of background who find it difficult to talk about sexuality and status considering the stigma that follows revealing such a condition to family and friends.

Know and act

I thought he had an interesting story to share about the need to know your status and the greater need to engage promptly the sexual health services that will provide better medical outcomes with timely intervention before HIV results in AIDS.

He has decided to start with sharing part of that long story of living with HIV and AIDS over the last 11 years on World AIDS Day, 2013.

Thank you.

You, Me and HIV – AVERT.org

World AIDS Day

HIV Test FAQs – AVERT.org

Living with HIV – Learning you are HIV Positive – AVERT.org

List of HIV/AIDS Medications

Europe: HIV Testing Week - Get Tested

Some important links

The First European HIV Testing Week – 22^nd of November – 29^th of November, 2013.

HIV Testing Information – Avert.org

Why test – European HIV Testing Week

Management of HIV/AIDS – Wikipedia

Summary of new recommendations for the management of HIV/AIDS – WHO [PDF]

We love sex

There are some facts we need to get out of the way from the onset.

We are sexual beings; we are programmed to desire and find some satisfaction with sex.

Whether sex leads to procreation or is used for pleasure, practiced in search of a thrill or done to fulfil fantasies, sex or the lack of it defines a quadrant of our lives.

We have as human beings adopted higher moral and social values concerning sex to first establish consent, per adventure, maybe even a relationship regardless of the pairing of genders to express ourselves sexually.

Our weaknesses

Much as we strive to maintain norms, we have foibles or weaknesses driven by sexual appetite, some that we curtail, and others to which we yield.

We love or we lust, we are faithful or we cheat, we abstain, or we indulge; it is very easy to find aversion to sex or the fondness for sex defining what we believe and do.

That is why sexual health is of the paramount importance regardless of how we find or ignore sexual expression.

It is for that reason that we have the first European HIV Testing Week from the 22nd of November until the 29th of November.

The world is wild our there

For whether we trust ourselves or lay that responsibility on others, we know where we have been imperfect and inadvertently taken risks in search of many things including thrills.

Unsafe sex giving more feeling and heightened excitement, that chance encounter in a nondescript place with a stranger, being on the down-low because low down it is just so good.

The other day, your prudish reserve got a swerve, your saintly halo gave way to regret, guilt and remorse, you swore and vowed, yet found yourself still where you thought you had forsaken.

Inhibitions that lost their moorings in a moment of crazy and wanton abandon, decidedly or involuntarily.

Maybe none of this resonates but if you do have sex and you can only vouch for what you do, your trust in others is no defence for exposure you open yourself to when you find a willing partner.

Test to know

Testing brings many benefits, knowledge of what your status is with the peace of mind that comes with being told you are fine or the early detection allowing for prompt intervention and favourable outcomes for your health and wellbeing. (Avert.org)

Having HIV is no more the death sentence it once was if it is put under management with medical expertise and antiretrovirals (ARVs). The medicines are efficacious and potent, this matter is not one to procrastinate such that the virus ravages the body to the point that complications result in AIDS as the body yields to opportunistic infections bringing the threat of death.

Get your test done, now

All this avoidable with knowledge garnered from testing and using the free services for diagnosis, treatment, medication, therapy and support networks.

The at-risk groups identified in need of urgent action are men who have sex with men (MSM), migrant populations and ethnic minorities.

Living in Europe we cannot afford to be ignorant of what the options are for controlling and managing the HIV epidemic starting with ourselves, and that is why you should schedule a test today.

Thank you.

The UK: My Serious Concerns About HIV Home-Testing Kits

Deep concerns about this

On reading a news item HIV Home-Testing Kits: Law Change Proposed, I found myself seriously concerned about this development that there is need for a debate as what this means for the UK.

As it stands, The HIV Testing Kits and Services Regulations 1992 prohibits the sale or supply of kits to members of the public who are not in the business of providing services as regulated under the following laws - the National Health Service Act 1977(1), or the National Health Service (Scotland) Act 1978(2) or the Health and Personal Social Services Order (Northern Ireland) Order 1972(3).

Fundamentally, I think it is a good thing that HIV testing be regulated and kept within the ambit of the law where the usage of kits will have a proper chain of custody from purveyor to deploying the tests for whosoever might need it whilst guaranteeing the elements of anonymity, privacy, secrecy and confidentiality having made the person fully aware of the implications of taking an HIV test.

One-sided views

My concerns are even more palpable when the foremost HIV/AIDS charity, the Terrence Higgins Trust celebrates this news on their Facebook Page having lobbied for this change in the law which in terms includes a possible conflict of interest by reason of the fact that they also provide HIV Postal Tests by blood sampling leveraging mobile telephony tools to provide results to gay men and Africans living in the UK.

The following quotes in that news story seem to have really good intentions but leave many questions unanswered:

“I hope that by removing the ban on self-testing kits people will be able to choose the right time and right surroundings to take a test and, if positive, help them get the best treatment available.” Public Health Minister Anna Soubry.

“People deserve to have a choice about how and where they test for HIV and proper regulation will make self-testing a safe and supported option for many more people across the country.” Lisa Power, policy director at Terrence Higgins Trust.

“We know that some people are already buying poor quality self-testing kits online from overseas which is why we have campaigned for a change in the law.” Deborah Jack, chief executive of the National AIDS Trust.

Hardly addresses the matter fully

I can relate to the sentiments expressed by these three significant HIV/AIDS specialists but offering choices and options is just half the story, I see nothing in these statements that provide safeguards against misuse or abuse when it becomes open-season for the unregulated and the public to acquire HIV test kits and use without restraint to elicit information that would have been protected in a more professional and organised setting.

Last year, Bisi Alimi, the renowned HIV/AIDS activist and human rights campaigner touched on a significant element of self-testing that goes beyond choice and control in this piece for the Guardian - An HIV home testing kit won't give you emotional support.

If we were to be honest with ourselves, the HIV home testing kit is not the equivalent of a pregnancy test, the results of both might well be life-changing but the beyond teenaged pregnancies and pregnancies by reason of the violation of the person, society is more accepting of the news of someone expecting, it is something you announce to as many as are close to you and well-wishers, it is not something you do for an HIV test result that proves positive for the many issues that it brings into the life and the immediate community of that person.

An unsatisfactory response

I engaged a number of activists, support workers and specialists in this field on Twitter before I decided to post a comment on the Terrence Higgins Trust – Facebook Page about my concerns, which appear below.

They did respond but I found their answers unsatisfactory laden with bloated organisational speak rather than the expected nimble adaptation responsive to the serious and real concerns that should be their core competence.

I posted a second comment, clarifying the fact that I am not against self-testing per se, but if there are no safeguards against the abuse people who might be coerced, compelled or put under duress by those with influence to take such tests outside a properly regulated framework, the consequences can be dire for those concerns.

It is not enough to say there are laws that safeguard abuse and protect the abused, if there are no immediate means to prevent and challenge overreach by the unscrupulous engaged in unconscionable activity, the damage would have been done long before redress can be sought, if ever it gets to that stage, by which time criminality has gained the edge of impunity just because those we have expected to ensure protection have prioritised choice and control over the duty of care, concern and compassion to play around with HIV infection and detection rate statistics at the expense of real people.

Safeguards or nothing

The law might well be abrogated, but we must not allow for this to be done without ensuring that the least, the powerless, the defenseless, the vulnerable, the helpless, the unfortunate and the disabled are adequately protected to pre-empt egress and abuse – that in the least should be the prime directive of any self-respecting HIV/AIDS organisation in the UK that considers humanity and human rights above all else and it is not too much to expect the Terrence Higgins Trust to be the greatest advocate to safeguard and protect before control and choice.

My Facebook Comment to the Terrence Higgins Trust

Akin Akintayo >> I think there are serious social and cultural ramifications for having HIV Home-Testing Kits beyond the idea that this puts control in the hands of people to determine how and where they want to be tested.

Having a HIV diagnosis is best managed in a professional setting, whilst it might be likely that those who discover their status might seek medical attention, there is no guarantee that they will, if they do not sink into mental depression and other issues in tying to handle the result outside of counselling environments.

An HIV self-test is in no way equivalent to a pregnancy test, the social ramifications of having a pregnancy test are hardly grave apart from in socially compromised settings like in teenaged pregnancies or those resulting from abuse.

In other settings, just as virginity tests are abused to violate women, I could see instances where these tests are administered under duress by those with influence over the tested, the consequences of which might be dire and grave.

I worry that this drive is being aimed at statistics rather when this is fundamentally beyond numbers to people and the way they exist within their communities along with the social dynamics that run within those communities.

Beyond home-testing, it just fills one with trepidation that some on discovering their status outside of medical supervision might also find ways to self-medicate by importing medicines from abroad and yet not know the progression of the disease in their system - their hubris in having such control might make them even greater vectors of the disease to the unwary - that will be unacceptable.

I will say again that THT should concentrate on persuading people to go for tests where they will have control, privacy, confidentiality and full protection of the law away from undue coercion and duress exacted by those who have undue influence over the lives of the people who need to test.

It is the harder part of your job, but at the same time it is the noblest part of your charitable activities if you chart this course.

Thank you.

Their response

Terrence Higgins Trust >> Thanks for your comment, Akin. We will continue encouraging people to test for HIV in the way that is most appropriate for them - GUM, community clinics, home sampling and - once established and properly regulated - self-testing. We believe all of these approaches have a role to play, and people have the right to decide for themselves how they want to test.

My second comment – awaiting a response

Akin Akintayo >> I appreciate the seemingly overarching view that "people have the right to decide for themselves how they want to test" the issue is how have you mitigated for the possible abuse, misuse, duress and coercion that I highlighted in my original comment and how will such people be protected?

Fundamentally, I am not against self-testing, per se, but I see no considered and detailed safeguards that makes this direction safe for those it might be imposed upon who will not have ready access to the essential legal protections in the immediacy of when they are abused.

There are social consequences and they must not be ignored to the point that whatever course is taken appears dogmatic.

World AIDS Day: Banish the Ignorance

On HIV/AIDS

Today is World AIDS Day and it is important that we review where the discourse is going with regards to how it affects us either directly or indirectly.

Much as we reflect on and remember the many who have lost their lives to the disease prominent amongst whom is Fela Anikulapo-Kuti of Nigeria who we celebrate as a seer and keen observer of social issues that remain relevant today, there are people who live with HIV/AIDS and even many more who do not know that they have the virus.

How come this?

It is against this background that an article that was sent to me this morning written by a correspondent of the Nigerian Vanguard newspaper incensed me.

I have no reason to question the credentials of Dr. Nwokocha who apparently is the medical director of Hosanna Medical Centre in Lagos but I have great persuasion to question his reasoning.

On World AIDS Day, one will expect that news organs in Nigeria will find ways to educate the populace on the issues surrounding sexual health and the cause of the statistical disaster that suggested that there were up to 3.3 million diagnosed cases of HIV of which there were 220,000 deaths in 2009 and counting.

Predominantly heterosexual in Africa

Much as it is lazy and weak to moralise and get obsessed with the issue of HIV/AIDS and sexuality, the demographic in Africa is radically different from that which we find in the West, because it’s prevalence is driven by a heterosexual population in the former.

Obviously, the absence of the homosexual population from this data can be accounted for because of the cultural stigmas and homophobia driven by political opportunists and religious dogma – none of which helps any of the affected people regardless of their sexuality.

A medical emergency ignored

It goes without saying that there is a medical emergency to tackle amongst those who know they are infected but do not reveal their status, those who are infected and do not know they are and the innocent ones who by reason of being in diverse relationships with the other groups risk falling into either knowledge of their status or dying of brief but unexplained illnesses.

Amongst women, beyond maternal mortality there is also the risk of the transference of the infection from mother to child one would expect Dr. Nwokocha to be a very busy man.

Errors unforgivable

Looking at the article, I have to wonder if the horridness of the copy is journalistic incompetence compounded by medical quackery of the order that should call into review the medical nous Dr. Nwokocha has.

The introduction talks of “heterogenous sex” when heterosexual sex is intended and HIV/AIDS where HIV is Human immunodeficiency virus but referred to as “Human Imuno Deficiency Syndrome Virus” infections/AIDS, whilst hepatitis is spelt as “haptetis”.

The syndrome is related to AIDS and it quite different from HIV, which is different from other sexually transmitted infections of which there are viruses, bacteria, fungi, parasites and protozoa. The learned doctor goes on about bacteria as if his knowledge is stunted.

Bad Medical School

Then he veers into the causes of homosexuality with unfounded and fantastic claims that reads like mumbo-jumbo of quack snake-oil merchants that stand at street corners fleecing the gullible with confidence tricks.

It begs the question what aspect of medical school he missed that his blinding ignorance reinforced by our obsequiousness to lettered idiots allows him to profess knowledge where he evidently has none.

As human knowledge has progressed in technology, medicine and other elements of human endeavour, we have changed and adapted to use the knowledge to advance humanity.

It is not a mental disorder

In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association declassified homosexuality as a mental disorder and this new knowledge has progressively been accepted by other mental health organisations until it was fully declassified by the World Health Organisation in 1990.

It would then seem, if a doctor were to overturn this body of expert medical knowledge and study, he might well be vying for the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine after having had his thinking and hypotheses peer reviewed by the best in the field or else he is just plain ignorant.

We can have all sorts of moral debates on the issue of sexuality but I would contend that if the Wright Brothers who invented flying were to see the aircraft we put in the air today, they would not be remiss in considering the art and science of flying today as witchcraft.

An irresponsible doctor

The biggest danger posed by Dr. Nwokocha’s assertions is in offering uneasy comfort to heterosexuals in Nigeria who are most affected by HIV/AIDS and consequently everyone else by suggesting homosexuals and so-called homosexual behaviour are the vectors for sexually transmitted infections.

That is at first utterly irresponsible and reckless but you are left to wonder why those with the means flee Nigeria for medical treatment when charlatans like Dr. Nwokocha are allowed to touch living things where rats will find better succour in the gutter than visit his medical centre for cheese.

It goes without saying that people might find certain sexual conduct abhorrent but for supposedly educated people to use that platform to foist reprehensible views that have no academic quality portraying some moral justification to promote stigmatisation and persecution is beneath contempt.

Reconsidering World AIDS Day

I am saddened that the Nigerian Vanguard did not rise to any standard of responsible and educative journalism and to have given the likes of Dr. Nwokocha a World AIDS Day forum to postulate atrocious fallacy in the face of more pressing HIV/AIDS issues in Nigeria just shows how we embrace ignorance over useful knowledge and what we need to see better for ourselves and those around us.

This World AIDS Day should have us reflect and give no space to stigma, prejudice and negative propaganda, there are people out there, suffering and dying, when you begin to single out people and groups, how long will be before you get to the woman, the child, the neighbour, the relation, the family and finally ourselves?

Let us do the needful and the rightful, get tested and support every initiative to understand and appreciate how humanity great and small is affected by HIV/AIDS – Dr. Nwokocha’s kind of thinking has no place in this better world.

The flaw of the covenant

Bringing reason to bear

Rarely, does one find oneself so utterly impressed by the legal exposition of a matter of contemporary import as one that I read this evening.

Funmi Iyanda, the broadcaster, columnist, journalist and articulate blogger based in Nigeria leads the home end of reason against the developing assault on the female populace of Nigeria by male chauvinistic pigs masquerading as the law, the rule, the norm and the sanction for a harmonious society.

These are exemplified in assailing ladies in seemingly “indecent” states of dress on the streets of Lagos, the barring of ladies from church for wearing trousers and other supposedly “uncomely” wear, the compulsory testing for pregnancy where a positive result prevents an academically capable student from graduation and the attribution of HIV/AIDS testing mainly to sexual immorality.

Many have debunked these splenetic acts of unwarranted prejudice and malicious abuse of authority in the name of the law, religion and upholding societal morals.

In fact, it is sad, that many have been cajoled and subsumed into accepting the unacceptable as those in authority exceed the limits of rationality in what is becoming an embarrassing ego rush that should elicit a complete U-turn very soon.

Bringing the law to bear

Chidi Anselm Odinkalu, a renowned civil rights lawyer with a knack for well-structured legal arguments that completely ridicules indefensible bigoted and prejudicial edicts, comes to the rescue with this opinion piece at allAfrica.com with the title Nigeria: In the Name of the Father?

This is a must-read, and as Funmi Iyanda says in her blog, when the rational speak up, we have hope that things would definitely turn out right.

In all that this learned gentleman expounded with global case law, putative references in the Nigerian constitution and other treaties or agreements Nigeria is signatory to; he contends that a university cannot operate under the premise that “clearly discriminates against women, feeds public prejudice and discrimination against women and persons living with HIV-AIDS, fulfills no rational public policy or purpose, and is plainly egregious in its illegality.”

That is a very strong rebuke which goes on appeal to the Christian compassion of organisations that portend to lift society, that they should know “People who are living with HIV must be treated with compassion and understanding. They must not be condemned to 'economic death' by the denial of equal opportunity. The same must be said for single mothers.”

This, if anything should bring the Covenant University to repentance involving their reflecting on these atrocious playground rules and tempering them with the rational set of values expected of a university of excellence – For which I would gladly join the chorus that ends this sorry saga with - Amen!

Thanks to Funmi Iyanda for the link that inspired this blog.