One single thread links Umo Eno, self-styled pastor governor of Akwa Ibom State, his predecessor, Emmanuel Udom and Felix Houphouet-Boigny. It is the religious bigotry and senselessness behind the Akwa Ibom International Worship Centre and the Basilica of Our Lady of Peace in Yamoussoukro, Cote d’Ivoire. While Eno and Udom constructed a worship centre said to have gulped a frighteningly high N32 billion, Houphouet-Boigny also constructed a monumental architectural edifice in his Yamoussoukro village worth $300 million between 1985 and 1989. Yamoussoukro was regarded as a provincial town that boasted only a mere 220,000 inhabitants and characterized by low-density and under-utilized infrastructure. Like Eno’s Nigeria which is undergoing its major economic somersault, the 1980s when Houphouet-Boigny commissioned the construction of the Basilica was when Côte d’Ivoire sunk into a devastating recession. The Ivorian economic malaise was aggravated by falling market value of cocoa and coffee, the mainstay of the Ivorian economy.

The Basilica itself was an eye-popping spectacle of Ivorian post-independence era. Houphouet-Boigny apparently wanted to deploy its magnificence to solidify the impression of Côte d’Ivoire’s presence on the international political stage, post-independence from French colonial rule. The edifice however attracted huge flagellations from Africans and Africanists who negatively profiled Houphouet-Boigny as an “Agbelesefuja.” Highly venerated thespian, Nollywood actor and a man bountifully endowed with Yoruba proverbs, axioms and language, Adedeji Aderemi, popularly known as Olofa Ina – one with a fire-spitting sword – who died last week, shed light on the concept of Agbelesefuja or what the Yoruba call “atiro b’elesin dogba”. According to Aderemi, he is the one who, buffeted by a huge self complex, tries to impress others by doing the unthinkable. Literally, the “atiro b’elesin dogba” is a man who sees a horse rider he envies and tries to equal his height while seated on the horse. To satisfy the complex of equalizing the one who sits atop the horse who he wants to best will entail huge inconveniences of standing on the toes.

Houphouet-Boigny, affectionately called Papa or Le Vieux – the Old One – by his people, was Ivorian president from 1960 to 1993 when he passed on. From being a tribal chief, he became a medical aide, union leader and thereafter, got elected to the French Parliament. In France, he served in many ministerial positions and at independence in 1960, became Ivorian first president. So, Houphouet-Boigny’s Basilica was seen from the prism of neo-coloniality and decoloniality, the one who wanted to best colonial heritage by acting as the “atiro b’elesin dogba.” First, Houphouet-Boigny maintained close ties with Ivory Coast’s former colonizer, France and maintained an open policy towards immigration to his country, which was labeled the ‘Ivorian Miracle’. Second, from 1983, he attempted to make his Yamoussoukro village, rather than Yaounde, the Ivorian capital by bringing a lot of capital projects therein. Also, like the Agbelesefuja, he got a Lebanese-Ivorian architect, Pierre Fakhoury, to design an unexampled church tower in his configured Ivorian new capital as a challenging modern heritage that would rival St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. The major challenges were that his Ivory Coast had Catholics who were a minority and the monument church got sparsely filled up on Sundays.

When the Pope consecrated his Basilica in 1990, the cost of the building was judged extreme wastage and sickening. The West Africa magazine put it at $200 million and in a banner headline in 1990 when it was being inaugurated, said, Pope Paul Consecrates a Controversial $200 million Basilica. Other analysts estimated the controversial Basilica to be worth up to $300 million. Though Houphouet-Boigny officially claimed that the Basilica was privately funded by himself, the world knew it was proceeds of diverted state funds. To worsen matters, the edifice was handed over to the Vatican as gift in 1992.

Counterpoising the affluence of the Basilica, Houphouet-Boigny’s Ivory Coast was known to be an ‘impoverished’ African country that did not deserve such an elephantine and elephant project. Indeed, Le Figaro, a French language weekly newsmagazine published in Paris and France, argued that “Africa had too many economic problems, and the last thing the continent needed was a basilica like Our Lady of Peace” which it said was grossly “reviled by many as an insult to Africa’s poor.”

The architecture of the Yamoussoukro had what Leonhard von Reinersdorff, in his “Relations Around Monumental Architecture in Post-Independence Côte d’Ivoire: Explored Through the Basilica of Our Lady of Peace in Yamoussoukro” described as “a grand dome (which) hovers over the greenery of the Ivorian forest at Yamoussoukro…offering room for 7 000 seated and 11 000 standing worshippers in the sanctuary as well as 150 000 people in an oval piazza.” According to von Reinersdorff, “the Basilica of Our Lady of Peace is one of the largest churches in the world but virtually unknown to many people.

Houphouet-Boigny’s twin aggrandizements set the tone for unflattering, condescending rhetoric that structured hard-hitting criticisms and disdain for the edifice in the western media. They also attracted unpalatable descriptions of his self-service. To them, in von Reinersdorff’s words, Yamoussoukro was “a ghost town, a capital in name alone.” Reinersdorff even quoted the Economist as calling Yamoussoukro an “an overgrown village”, “a near-deserted, forest-surrounded town of empty six-lane highways that (lead) nowhere” thus carving Houphouet-Boigny capital city in the image of a peripheral city that was conquered by nature. The West Africa magazine equally described the Basilica in very condescending epithets, especially when the Pope came to commission it. It said of it, Pope Paul Consecrates a Controversial $200 million Basilica. Beauty or Beast? The Time magazine on its own desecrated the humongous edifice as “The Basilica in the Bush” which it said was “a replica” and a “brash imitation of the Vatican’s holy shrine,” thus questioning its originality, authenticity and value of its artistic independence, caricaturing it as “a gigantic white parachute”, a “giant pearl gray dirigible” “a sandy-beige concrete behemoth” and a “ridiculous white elephant monument to Christianity”.

Fast-forward to Nigeria, about twenty years after the Pope commissioned the Yamoussoukro Basilica. A similar edifice was constructed by Akwa Ibom State. The construction of the church, named Akwa Ibom International Worship Centre, began with the former governor of the state, Udom Emmanuel and was inaugurated in May, 2023. The current governor, Eno is thus the inheritor of a Houphouet-Boigny heritage of waste, indiscretion and callous governmental insouciance. Outrage was sparked when Eno, in a tweet a few weeks back, said “As our people converge on this sacred Altar to pray in unity for the continuous peace and progress of Akwa Ibom State, Dear God Almighty, please hearken to their supplication and may our State continue to grow beyond leaps and bounds!” He spoke like one of those pastoral conmen who use the name of God to hoodwink unsuspecting Nigerians going through troublous times.

Constructed with taxpayers’ sweats to the tune of about N32 billion, many feel that in a state ravaged by squalor, hunger, underdevelopment and gross lack, were Nigeria a country where there was repercussion for governmental mis-judgment and profligacy, all those behind the construction of this wastage should be made to cough out every farthing, the product of their greed and indiscretion. It is benumbing to imagine a state spending this much to construct a church auditorium despite its huge unemployment ranking among states in Nigeria, without any regard for its oil-rich status.

In 2019, the Atheists Society of Nigeria (ASN) sued the Akwa Ibom State Government to court on the wastefulness of the church project. It demanded an explanation on how then Governor Udom would source its funding. Udom’s reply, similar to any of those pastoral hoodwinker’s, was that Akwa-Ibom had “found favour in the eyes of the Lord, and it’s instructive to note that religious bodies, non-profit organizations and even individuals from all over the world heeded our call for support to actualize this dream.” Parodying Houphouet-Boigny, Udom said that the church was privately funded. In a Nigeria where governmental purses and budgets are opaque, it may be a herculean task putting a lie to his bunkum. He had said, “Today we stand tall to say that we have secured the bulk of funds needed for the construction of the 8,500 capacity international worship centre which is located in Uyo. Government’s contribution is a very negligible percentage.”

The N32 billion Akwa Ibom International Worship Centre is a reflection of the poverty of wisdom that plagues Nigerian leaders. Another wastage was birthed last year in Kaduna State. It was the reconstruction of the popular Zaria Central Mosque. Though it wasn’t overtly penciled to be done with state funds, this same paucity of thinking was behind the over N2billion raised for the mosque’s reconstruction in October last year. The 150-year old mosque, located in the Zazzau Emirate council of Zaria, collapsed in August last year with many casualties. Of the amount donated, BUA chairman, Abdulsamad Rabiu, was said to have donated the sum of N2 billion. The fundraise also had in attendance the state governor, Uba Sani; Emir of Zazzau, Ahmed Nuhu Bamali; Sultan of Sokoto, Alh. Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III; former Vice President Namadi Sambo; former governors of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai and Ramalan Yero; Etsu Nupe, Alh. Yahaya Abubakar and Minister of Police Affairs, Ibrahim Gaidam, who all donated various sums of money. This money could have been used to educate the growing number of out-of-school children in Kaduna State.

Aside unemployment, prostitution, cultism, vandalism, political thuggery, hooliganism that buffet Akwa-Ibom, the state is battling an age-long affliction of its citizens being the most sought after candidates for menial jobs of gatemen and house-helps in Nigeria. It is an engaging oxymoron that while Udom and Eno were busy engaged in a church saturnalia with Akwa-Ibom’s N32 bilion, thousands of Akwa Ibom young boys and girls were pining away as house-helps. Created as one of Nigeria's 36 states in 1987, with a population of over 5 million people and more than 10 million people in the Diaspora, the state is ranked to be currently the highest oil and gas producing state in the country. Yet, this wealth notwithstanding, a recent eye-opening report by data technology company, StatiSense, in unveiling the Multidimensional Poverty Index (2022) report of the National Bureau of Statistics, (NBS) ranked Akwa Ibom, Rivers, and Cross River states as the hardest hit by multidimensional poverty, with 5.08 million, 4.4 million, and 3.44 million people respectively living in excruciating poverty. 

A pure waste of resources it is expending scarce money to fund religious worship centres, Christianity, especially Pentecostal churches’ prayer warlords, have taken this menace to the level of the profoundly absurd. While companies are winding up and vacating Nigeria due to bad government, churches are filling the space by purchasing those factory halls and converting them into church auditoriums.

The problem is that Akwa-Ibom, like virtually all Nigerian states and the government at the centre, is under siege, having been bereft of straight-thinking leadership. The N32 billion expended on the Worship Centre could jolly well have been voted to deal with the menace of poverty in the state, as well as a massive job creation projects for the youth. The truth is that the N32 billion voted for the construction of the church would effectively take 32,000 Akwa Ibom persons out of poverty. Like the skewed thoughts behind the construction of gargantuan auditoriums by Pentecostal churches along expressways, inside the Akwa Ibom Worship Centre, prayers would be offered to God for jobs by the unemployed. Yet, the cost of constructing that auditorium could have provided jobs for thousands. Alternatively, the N32 billion would conveniently construct hundreds of kilometers of roads that would benefit the people immensely.

The truth is that governments have no business constructing religious worship centres or sending people on pilgrimage anywhere. The only plausible explanation for the Udom-Eno tabernacle is same Houphouet-Boigny’s reversed mentality affliction. God does not reside inside those huge Basilicas but in the hearts of His people. Except for the billions that must have been stolen by some smart politicians on the pretext of building a house for God, that worship centre has zero economic or existential impact for the suffering people of Akwa-Ibom. If the charlatans behind the Akwa Ibom International Worship Centre were pro-people, they could have selected 32,000 Akwa-Ibom house-helps in slavish captivity in many homes scattered across Nigeria and lifted them into becoming globally-competitive persons. Rather, inside the Akwa-Ibom Basilica, the people would pray for victory over their enemies. They should have known that Udo Emmanuel and Umo Eno are their Number One enemies.

Understanding the Basic Fundamentals of Bountiful Harvests

Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest ~ John 4:35.

Introduction

It’s a new year, and a new season of our lives! I seize this moment therefore to say happy new year to all my reading audience, and I pray that God’s mercy will accompany you all the way through, in Jesus name. Amen.

Meanwhile, good understanding is a major pathway to favour (Proverbs 13:15). In all spheres of life, whatever you don't understand well doesn’t work well for you. Hence, we must understand the basics of converting the opportunities of the new year into tangible blessings.

It was good understanding that gave Solomon the incredible stability he enjoyed in his reign (1Kings 3:9). Abigail, the wife of Nabal, also had it and his children were spared from the wrath of David the anointed (1Samuel 25:3). Happily, all those who cherish the commandments of God enjoy a free bestowal of good understanding (Psalm 111:10).

Every new year is a new beginning, offering a new set of opportunities for fresh starts to be the best for God and to fulfill the assignments of our lives, excellently.

Nevertheless, instead of struggling and fighting with the present, we must jump-start our new year expectations through positive actions. We must start well by piling its foundation with strong and virile structures of wisdom.

Now, it’s very clear in my spirit that this is our year of bountiful harvests (2Corinthians 9:6-8)! We all need abundant harvests to be able to do and be fulfilled in the work of the Lord, and to live out His promises in bringing His Word to our hurting world (Zechariah 1:17).

God delights in causing us to blossom and flourish (Psalms 35:27). His passionate plan is to increase us on every side, to the end that even the blessed shall see us and call us blessed (Psalm 115:23-14)!

Increase is good, and it is a gift from God (Psalm 85:12). Bountiful harvest is a sure part of His unfailing promises to all believers today (Amos 9:13)! It’s a certain destiny of the righteous, which is empowered by God Himself (Psalm 92:12-13; Proverbs 10:22).

The devil may not like it, but that’s more than too late in the day for him! Right in the middle of any hopeless situation, God shows up to give His people bountiful harvests (Genesis 26:1-13). Once He’s involved, His favour performs it!

Understanding Bountiful Harvest

Ordinarily, harvest is a process of gathering the results, benefits and/or consequences of our earlier actions (Exodus 23:16). It’s the gathering of fruits resulting from things that individuals, families or nations have sown.

There are many actions a farmer takes prior to harvest. Some of these actions actually take place before planting (e.g. tilling, harrowing, ridging, etc.) and some after the seed had been planted (e.g. weeding, pruning etc.). It’s after all these that any meaningful harvest can be expected.

Planting seeds and, thereafter, harvesting the crop is the way things work here on earth (Genesis 8:22)! And, this is true in the spiritual realm as well as in the physical realm.

At this stage, it’s imperative that we understand the main thrust of this discourse, and the best way to go is to see what Jesus Christ meant when He spoke of the harvest: seed-sowing and its desired results.

In John 4:34-38, He mentioned “harvest” (v35), “reaping” (v36-38), “fruit” (v36) and “eternal life” (v36). Thus, we can safely confirm that the “harvest” is the “reaping” of “fruit”, and its most important form is the harvest of souls, bringing the lost to the Saviour so they might receive eternal life.

Jesus further spoke about this in Matthew 9:37-38, where He clearly laid it out that the harvest is plentiful, precious, perplexed and perishing. Thus, He commanded that we should make harvest our urgent priority.

Meanwhile, in our practical day-to-day dealings, each of us is a real walking warehouse of seeds! Everything we have is either enough (your harvest), or it’s the seed you must sow in order to produce your more-than-enough harvest (Luke 8:15). Albeit, the seed could be good or bad.

For example, an individual walking in sin, unforgiveness, bitterness, disobedience, rivalry, disrespect for the anointing,  etcetera, and speaking negative words, is sowing bad seeds.

Contrariwise, obeying the Word of God and living right by faith, preaching the gospel to the lost, walking in love, showing mercy, treating others with respect, speaking kind words of encouragement, giving to support just and righteous causes, etc, is sowing good seeds.

To use the more common agribusiness language, a “bountiful harvest” is a “bumper harvest”, arising from a bounteous yield of the seed planted.

Notably, bounteous yields occur when an improved seedling, is sown on a well-watered fertile ground, and it’s well-managed, properly shielded from pests and rodents, with other environmental factors, like sunlight and good ventilation in its favour.

We harvest the fruits of whatever we sow, and the more we plant, the larger our harvest will be, good or bad. However, quite happily, the sacrifice of Jesus on our behalf makes a huge difference in this critical details of our lives (1John 4:9-10)!

Anyone can now receive pardon for sins, and not reap the harvests of death and failure he deserves, if he repents and believes the gospel (Galatians 3:13; 1John 1:9). Afterward, he must start to sow rightly for his desirable harvests!

Perhaps, hitherto, you have toiled all day and night, and have nothing to show because of the activities of toiling demons around your harvest field. Just trust God that His undercurrent favour will fix your situations this year.

Even if you haven’t been sowing towards your desired harvest, it’s not yet too late! For as long as there’s life, it’s never too late to do what is right, and to start planting towards your desired harvest.

The wise course of action is start giving what you would like to receive (Luke 6:38). Gather your seeds, go to the field, prepare the ground and plant again! Someone said, “the best time to plant a tree was 20years ago, the second best time is now” (anonymous).

Begin to sow, consistently! The widow woman in 2Kings 4:1-7 had only one pot of oil, it was her seed. As long as she had extra pots, the oil kept flowing! Be cheerful as you believe God for your own bounteous harvests. Be patient also: some precious seeds take time to mature.

Friends and brethren, as you sow this year, you will reap bountiful harvests. You will have more than enough, with blessings on top of blessings. Your land will yield luxuriantly, and the trees will be loaded with fruits long after the normal time!

Please believe it, our season of bountiful harvests is here! There shall be no lack in your life again. You shall eat your fill, live safely and God shall fulfill all your godly desires (Leviticus 26:3-5).

Indeed, the Living Water of Mercy from the springs of heaven has watered this year for us. Our in-gatherings shall be large, multifaceted and very generous in quantity. Our carts shall overflow with abundance, and the hills clothed with gladness (Psalm 65:11-13).

There shall be shouts of great joy, broad laughters and great songs of thanksgiving flowing from your abode. The One who knows the end from the beginning will carry you through! You won’t miss it, in Jesus Name. Happy First Sunday!

____________________

Bishop Taiwo Akinola,

Rhema Christian Church,

Otta, Ogun State, Nigeria.

Connect with Bishop Akinola via these channels:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bishopakinola

SMS/WhatsApp: +234 802 318 4987

Let Your peace flow in us like a river.
Lord God Almighty, we want to thank you this morning for Your everlasting love.
We want to thank You, Father, that it is You and no one else, who is God.
For our God is love and You love us with an everlasting love.

Lord, we are so grateful that it pleased You to give to us, not another spirit, but Your Holy Spirit, the Most Wonderful Person in the Universe.
Spirit of the living God, You are our most precious diadem.
You are the crowning glory of the manifestation of the love of God in our lives.
You are the confirmation that we are accepted in the beloved.
You are God with us and in us.
You are our hope of glory.

We thank You and we bless You because You are the One inscribing the word of God, not on tables of stone but on the tables of our hearts and minds.
We ask You, precious Holy Spirit, that You give us the grace to bear Your fruit.
We know that by Your fruit in us shall men know that we belong to Jesus.
Therefore, we ask that you give us the heart that will bear your fruit and let your fruit remain in us.
To the praise and glory of Your Name.

Love

O God who has prepared good things for those that love Him, pour into our hearts the Spirit of filial affection; so that loving You in all things and above all things we may obtain Your promises which exceed all desires, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

We profoundly adore You, O Lord our God.
We humbly beseech You to fill our hearts with Your Divine Love – your first and most necessary Fruit – so that we may be enabled to love You, our God, above all things for Your own sake.

May we also love our neighbour for the love of You.

May the precious Fruit of love continue to grow and ripen daily in our hearts till it attains maturity and perfection in your blessed kingdom, where the God of love and the love of God reign forever more. Amen.

Let our love be without dissimulation.
Because we love You, Lord, let us hate evil.
Let us love righteousness and hate wickedness.
Let us not love worthlessness, O Lord.
Let us not love the world and the things of this world.
But let us love You, Lord, passionately and fervently.
Let our love for You be the guiding principle of our lives.
Let us be known, O God, as sons of love.
Let all those who love Your Name rejoice in You.
Let us love you Lord and keep Your commandments.

Joy

Father, we thank You that in Your presence is fullness of joy, and at Your right hand are pleasures for evermore.
We are here this morning, O Lord, to joy and rejoice in You.
Let our joy, O Lord, be full.
Let our joy be fulfilled in ourselves.
Let us ever shout for joy.
Let us rejoice in the Lord always, knowing that while weeping may endure for a night, joy always comes in the morning.

Father, we ask that You and You alone be our exceeding joy.
We rejoice in You this morning with joy inexpressible and full of glory.
Father, the city of our God is beautiful in its loftiness.
It is the joy of the whole earth.

Restore to us this morning, the joy of Your salvation.
Let us draw water with joy from Your well of salvation.
Increase, O God, our joy in the Lord.
Let us come to Zion with singing, with everlasting joy on our heads.
Make us hear joy and gladness once again.
We have sown in tears, O Lord, cause us to reap with joy.
Give us this morning, the joy of the harvest O God.
Make us an eternal excellence, a joy of many generations.

Give us beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning.
The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.
That we may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord.
That the Name of the Lord our God may be glorified.

And we will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated; we will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations.

Peace

Father, the heritage of Your sons is Your peace.
Lord Jesus, on Your departure to the cross, You left us Your peace.

You said:
Peace, I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

Let Your peace permanently banish all fear from our hearts.
Let Your peace flow in us like a river.
Let it flow from the city of God.
Let it flow and remove all worries and concerns from us.
Let us be anxious for nothing for he who has You has nothing to fear.
Yea, though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
we will fear no evil; for You are with us.

Father, we ask this morning that You establish us as sons of peace.
You say: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”

Enable us to speak Your peace to every situation and circumstance before us.
Let us speak Your peace to every storm and let peace be established.
We are asking specifically for Your peace that surpasses all understanding.
The peace that mounts guard and garrison in our hearts.
The peace that You gift to those whose hearts are stayed on You.

Lord, we speak that peace right now to our homes.
We decree Your peace to our families.
We ask that Your peace be established in our marriages.
Let Your peace descend on this nation Nigeria.
Let it confound those who say we cannot peacefully establish a righteous government.
Let all our enemies be at peace with us.

Longsuffering/Patience

Patience is the Siamese twin brother of faith.
It is through faith and patience that we inherit the promises of God.

The testing of our faith produces patience.

Help us Lord to endure to the end.
Let us not give up or give in at the last minute at the edge of victory.

Your word says those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.
They shall mount up with wings as eagles.
They shall run and not be weary.
They shall walk and not faint.

Renew our strength, Lord.
Give us the grace to endure hardship as good soldiers of Jesus Christ.

Father those who trust in You, wait for You.
Those who believe in You do not make haste.
Give us the grace to wait for Isaac so we do not end up with Ishmael.

Let our patience and longsuffering come with joy.
Let us be longsuffering with joyfulness and not with grumbling and complaining.

Give us the grace to suffer persecution for the cross of Christ.
Give us the grace to suffer shame for the Name of Christ.
Give us the grace to suffer reproach because we trust in the living God.

CONTINUED

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; www.femiaribisala.com 

“When she actually found out our ages and things like that, it broke her heart,” Jennifer Flewellen’s son Julian, now 17, tells PEOPLE

It's a miracle — and it all started with a joke.

As Jennifer Flewellen, of Niles, Michigan, lay motionless in a hospital bed last year, stuck in a nearly five-year coma caused by a car crash, her mother Peggy Means told her a joke. Then the impossible happened: Flewellen, 41, laughed.

"When she woke up, it scared me at first because she was laughing and she had never done that," Means tells PEOPLE. "Every dream came true. Today's the day I said, 'That door that was closed, that kept us apart, had just opened. We were back.'"

The August 2022 breakthrough was just the first step in a long battle for Flewellen, who is working hard to regain her speech and mobility after being in a cocoon state where time ceased as her brain slowly healed.  

“She woke up, but she didn't completely. She couldn't speak, but she was nodding,” Means, 60, says. “She would still sleep a lot right at first, but then as the months would go by, she would get stronger and be more awake.”

“This is so rare,” Ralph Wang, her physician at Michigan’s Mary Free Bed Rehabilitation Hospital, tells PEOPLE. “Not just waking up, but making progress. Maybe 1-3% of patients wake up and make progress this far out.”

The feisty mom reached another big goal in October when she was able to participate in a senior night football celebration with youngest son Julian, 17, at a Niles High School football game.

“She was my biggest supporter,” says Julian, who was 11 when his mom fell into a coma. “So to have my biggest supporter back on the sidelines cheering me on, it was a surreal moment."

After news hit about her attending her son's football game, Flewellen was able to secure additional therapy through Mary Free Bed, a local rehabilitation hospital.

In a PEOPLE video interview with her mom from the rehabilitation hospital, an animated Flewellen, who can only string a few words together, nods yes and no to questions and sits up almost straight in a portable hospital bed.

Flewellen's nightmare-turned-miracle began with a typical morning on Monday, Sept. 25, 2017. Then a 35-year-old wife and mother of three young boys in the small town of Niles, Flewellen had just dropped off her three sons at school and was heading to work at Bittersweet Pet Resorts.

It was the last typical morning she would have.  At 8:23 a.m., she hit a utility pole, according to a news report from local radio station WSJM. (Neither speed nor alcohol appeared to be factors in the crash that left her unresponsive.)

Flewellen remained in a coma for almost five years, during which time her mom Peggy — who only recently retired from her job — stayed by her side, visiting almost every day in the chance that her daughter would one day respond to her.

When it finally happened, Means recorded the moment and quickly sent the video to family and friends. The next day, Julian and his brothers went to the hospital.

“I told her I was Juju and her eyes lit up like, 'Wow, it's my Juju bean,'" Julian says, noting his nickname. “But when she actually found out our ages and things like that, it broke her heart. She started to cry.”

Julian says it wasn’t easy for his mom to learn he was a junior and that his brothers Skylar, now 21, and Daeton, 19, had already graduated from high school.

“We've talked about the time that she's missed, and we try not to, because it makes her upset,” Julian says. “But my grandma always tells her, 'You can't sit here and be sad because being sad is not going to get you moving forward.'"

Although Flewellen wasn't aware of her mom's near-daily visits, Means says that her during her daughter's recovery, she played her an audio book about a woman who had been in a coma and described it as a euphoric, peaceful and calming place.

“Jenn cried and said that’s how she felt, so that was nice to know,” Means says. “There were times I wanted to believe she knew I was there, but something just told me this was what I’ve got to do.”

At first, most friends and family didn’t believe Means when she said her daughter had come out of the coma. Worse, she says, were the hospital staff who didn't think Flewellen would progress much past simply waking up.

“I asked for therapy and they thought I was crazy, but she got speech therapy,” says the persistent mom. 
“You have to be a strong advocate,” she adds.

At first Flewellen couldn’t make a sound, but with the help of a little whistle, she was able to bring air up.

Next were vowels. Last Christmas, while her daughter was still living at the hospital, Means gave Flewellen a kitty named Huey “because it was vowels,” Means says with a smile as her daughter also grins.

This is just the beginning of Flewellen's new, post-coma life. Even though she still needs assistance in "almost everything," Dr. Wang says she's already exceeded expectations.

“If she can take a few steps, feed herself and communicate more, those would be huge wins,” Wang says. “Both she and her mom are wonderfully driven. In six months, if she was a 10 before, if we can get her to a four or five. That would be tremendous.”

Means believes her daughter will be walking soon and making up time with her boys.

When she's told that she looks ready to take on the world, Flewellen replies, "I am."

People

Recently, we shared a post about things from life in the '80s that would surprise or maybe even blow the minds of young people (like that teachers/admin could paddle badly-behaving students legally in most places).

Well, members of the BuzzFeed Community chimed in with more terrific examples of things from the '80s young people likely have no idea about, and reading them was like a trip to the past for a Gen X'er like me. Check them out:

1. "There was no caller ID, so calling people you didn't like (like teachers) or even just complete randos to make some lame joke was a regular thing. And you could find your teachers' numbers because they were all printed in a big book that everyone got a copy of."

—axj66

2. "My 17-year-old babysitter would send me — age 10 — to the corner drugstore with a note from 'my mom' giving me permission to buy cigarettes for her. I never got told 'no' by the cashier."

—Lcenvy2500
3. "When CDs first came out, they packaged them in these long cardboard sleeves. I think the stores were trying to reduce theft, because you couldn't just pocket them the way you could a regular CD. Most of the time, after you bought the CD, you just had to rip through the cardboard sleeve, but sometimes, the art was cool, and I tried to preserve it as a keepsake. Wish I still had them!"

—zazupitz
​Note: Theft was probably a concern, but the biggest reason for the long boxes was so they would fit in the bins stores already had that were configured for records.
4. "It's difficult now to believe how little oversight we had from our parents. We'd go out into the woods for an entire day and just do whatever. We all had pocket knives, and nobody was older than 9."

—joannab14
5. "Classrooms often had a single desktop computer, and you and a partner had an assigned time each week when you could use it. Early on, the monitor had a black background with white, green, or amber text and images...though color monitors did come out later in the decade."

"Programs weren’t on the computer itself but on literal floppy discs around five inches square. It was rare to save data beyond high scores on video games and such."

—baobaopanda

6. "I used to sit by my boombox and listen to the radio, ready to click 'record' to put it onto a tape. I spent hours waiting for certain songs because I couldn’t just look them up, and my mom didn’t want us having 'inappropriate CDs.' LOL."

—okthxbye

"Loving a song and waiting for the radio to play it...while having a blank tape ready to hit record! People did this unless they were wealthy and could buy a new tape or album every time they had a favorite song!"

—macram120

7. "Pay phones were everywhere. They were sometimes non-functional and always disgusting — especially when the handset was still warm...ew."

—donwa777

8. "There were 976 phone numbers where people were charged by the minute to listen to some kind of content, such as weather forecasts, horoscopes, fandom hotlines, or adult dialogue. There were ads for them on TV all of the time."

—baobaopanda

"I remember 976-SANTA!"

—kristabinetti

"Miss Cleo!!!"

—zazupitz

9. "There were astronomical long distance charges. I remember I got carried away on what was supposed to be a quick call with a friend out of town in another state, so we were on for, like, a half hour. I had to pay my parents back $15 for it, which was about what I made in four hours work at minimum wage at the time — and this wasn't even the '80s; it was 1998 or '99."

—blinden
10. "TV used to just end at night around 12 or 1 a.m. That's something people born after a certain time can’t comprehend. I remember staying up late and seeing the sign off for mainstream stations which meant no more TV for the night. Then on the weekend, you would get up, see static, and have to wait for the station call sign to come on before cartoons would start."

—omid2
11. "Watching TV was a whole different experience than it is today. Shows aired on set days at set times, and you either had to be in front of the TV (or set your VCR correctly) to catch them. Miss an episode? You better have someone catch you up on what happened or hope that the network reruns it over the summer."

"Also, channels were incredibly limited. Broadcast TV had four networks and local stations. The advent of cable was a massive deal. Your family got a little analog box with red channel numbers, and you could watch niche networks. However, a lot of those basic channels didn’t have their own content yet. For example, Nickelodeon had Canadian imports like Today’s Special and You Can’t Do That on Television and reruns of 1950s black-and-white shows like Dennis the Menace and Donna Reed. That is until Double Dare came along — and everyone daydreamed about how their family would do on that show."

—baobaopanda

12. "If you were meeting a friend, you had to be there on time. If they weren’t there, you had no idea if you were late or if they were late, so you’d have to leave the meeting point to find a pay phone and call their house phone to ask their mom or dad if they’d left yet. If they'd left already, you'd say, 'If (friend's name) calls you, please tell them I’m waiting at the meeting point.' This could go on a few times if you kept missing each other! Much better to be on time."

—lisamcsorleyd
13. "Rudeness was better hidden, as insulting someone meant doing it face to face (which, of course, could provoke a violent reaction)."

"Nowadays, you have a whole bunch of keyboard warriors thinking they're Billy Big Bollocks because they can childishly insult you from afar, and there's not much you can do about it."

—solongandthanksforallthefish1

14. "INDEX CARDS! To do a school paper in 'my day,' you’d take out relevant library books and transcribe quotes onto 3-by-5 cards. Each card had the reference, the page number, etc. Then — and ONLY THEN! — would you map out the paper."

"Man, we worked hard in those days!"

—applesauceandchops

And if the above didn't sound like a big enough pain in the butt, it gets worse:

15. "If you had an important paper to do at school, your teacher might require it to be typed. So you'd draft the whole thing longhand, then sit down at your parents' typewriter (or a library one, if your parents didn't have a typewriter) and painstakingly type the whole thing out. I still remember the distinct smell my parents' IBM electric typewriter made when you turned it on."

—axj66
16. "Maps! There was no GPS...just maps and atlases for cities, counties, states, and national highways."

—bobonbass
17. "You'd ask for directions a lot, and the ones people gave you could be wonky but wonderful ('Go past the Dairy Queen, but if you pass the hair salon, you went too far')."

"If only my GPS directions app could use its satellite technology AND descriptions like 'turn left at the gas station' or 'your destination is on the right, past the tire warehouse' instead of using estimated mileage or compass directions like 'head northwest 56 feet.'"

—zazupitz
18. "Gas stations had attendants. They pumped your gas, washed your windows, and checked your oil. No extra charge. For lots of high schoolers, that was your first job."

—westofillinois
​I remember seeing gas station attendants until at least the early '90s.)

19. "When you had to do a report and poster on another country, you'd go to travel agencies to see if they had brochures on the country for pictures for the poster."

—missrayne
20. "There were no noise-canceling headphones at the time, so whatever you were listening to on your Walkman would be heard by everyone, and if it was too loud, someone might ask you to turn it down."

—stevekubick
21. "We'd call 411 'information' for a telephone number or look it up in the white or yellow pages! Now we just search the internet!"

—macram120

Buzzfeed

Betta Edu, minister of humanitarian affairs, has asked Oluwatoyin Sakirat Madein, the accountant-general of the federation, to transfer N585 million to the bank account of an individual.

The instruction for the payment is contained in a leaked letter dated December 20, 2023.

The letter, signed by the minister, was titled: “Mandate for Payment of Grant for Vulnerable Groups in Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Lagos and Ogun States Respectively”.

In the letter, Edu instructed the accountant-general to transfer N585,189,500 to the UBA account of one Oniyelu Bridget Mojisola.

According to the document, N219,429,750 was earmarked as “2023 Grant for Vulnerable Groups in Akwa Ibom state”, N73,828,750 was budgeted for Cross River state, N219,462,250  for Lagos state, and N72,468,750 for Ogun state.

The minister said the payment should be deducted from the account of the national investment office.

“I hereby approve the payment of the cumulative sum of N585,189,500. These are payments for programmes and activities of the Renewed Hope grant for Vulnerable Groups,” the letter reads.

“This payment should be made from the National Social Investment Office account with account number: 0020208461037 to the project accountant’s details listed above.”

The letter has elicited varied reactions on the social media as many Nigerians questioned the rationale behind the minister’s instruction of transferring the funds to a private bank account.

‘FRAUDULENT INTENTION’

The public sector financial regulations of 2009 prohibits the payment of public funds to the account of a private individual.

Section 713 of the law states that: “Personal money shall in no circumstances be paid into a government bank account, nor shall any public money be paid into a private bank account. An officer who pays public money into a private account is deemed to have done so with fraudulent intention.”

‘N585m FUND FOLLOWED DUE PROCESS’

In a statement on Friday, Rasheed Zubair, media adviser to the minister, said the N585 million fund for vulnerable groups followed “due process”.

Zubair said Bridget, whose bank account was stated to receive the payment, is the project accountant for grants for vulnerable groups scheme.

The media adviser said it is “legal in civil service” for a project accountant to receive payments, use funds legally and retire all receipts as evidence of the project.

He added that the circulation of the document on social media is another attempt to blackmail the minister.

“It is glaring that the same sponsored disgruntled elements in the past few days have been trying to smear the Honourable Minister, Betta Edu, and stain her integrity because she alerted the Federal Government attention to the ongoing N44.8 Billion Fraud in NSIPA,” the statement reads.

“These elements have been trying to link her to a phantom fraud and are behind this latest misadventure.

“However, this latest vile effort of theirs is another infantile blackmail doomed for evisceration. For the avoidance of doubt, the said N585,198,500.00 was approved, and it is meant for the implementation of grants to vulnerable groups in Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Ogun, and Lagos states.”

The Cable

Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has proposed N356.95 billion to the federal government as budget for 2024.

This is contained in the 2024 government-owned entities’ (GOE’s) budget proposal seen by TheCable on Friday.

According to the proposed budget of N356,951,441,648, the agency plans to spend N11,070,000,000 on long service awards, N13,617,615,408 on welfare packages as well as N4,599,450,000 on the purchase of computers while networking/communications or information technology infrastructure takes N3,715,524,465.10.

Also, the revenue agency budgeted N5,550,000,000 to purchase motor vehicles and N1,350,000,000.00 to maintain vehicles and transport equipment.

On power supply, FIRS will spend N2,480,840,000 on purchasing power generating set, N2,700,000,000 on fueling plant/generator, and N1,260,000,000.00 on electricity charges in one year.

FIRS also earmarked N15,222,000,000 on local grants and contributions to government-owned companies and N180,000,000 as grants to foreign international organisations.

Also included in the budget is N10,200,415,000 earmarked for local (N7,500,415,000) and international (N2,700,000,000) training.

In the budget, FIRS plans to spend N4,500,000,000.00 on local travel and transport, while international travel and transport is expected to gulp N1,350,000,000.00.

The Cable

Suspected terrorists killed 14 people in a rampage that began in a nightclub and proceeded into the surrounding neighborhood in northeastern Yobe state, residents said on Friday, two months after another attack in the state killed 40 people.

The Boko Haram and splinter Islamic West Africa Province have waged an insurgency in Nigeria's northeast for more than one decade and continue to carry out sporadic attacks against civilians and the military.

Ali Musa, a resident from the Kwari community in Yobe told Reuters by phone that the gunmen arrived around 1:00 a.m. (0000 GMT) at a nightclub and started to shoot sporadically, killing seven people there.

The armed men then went on to burn several houses and vehicles, killing five more people. Another two people were killed following an explosion, said another resident Joseph Inuwa.

Inuwa said one of the people killed was the local pastor of the Church of Christ in Nigeria, who was shot dead while he tried to escape.

"As I'm speaking to you many other people are hospitalized at Gaidam Specialist Hospital," Inuwa said.

Yobe police spokesperson Dungus Abdulkarim did not respond to calls and messages to his phone.

President Bola Tinubu has yet to disclose how he would tackle insurgency in the north and widespread insecurity in other parts of Nigeria.

Reuters

At least eight traders were killed while several others were injured when a group of terrorists attacked a convoy of vehicles conveying traders to a local market in Katsina State, north-west Nigeria.

The traders were going to Yantumaki weekly market in Danmusa Local Government Area when the terrorists opened fire on them Friday morning.

Eight of the traders died instantly while the wounded ones are receiving medical attention at a local hospital, the chairman of the drivers union in the area, Kabiru Dangaye, said.

Many federal, state and local highways in the North-west have become death traps as terrorists waylay travellers especially in Zamfara, Katsina and Sokoto states.

In many local communities in the sub-region, motorists now drive in a convoy, sometimes with military or police escort, to avoid being attacked.

“Our drivers waited for hours as usual for other drivers and traders to come from neighbouring communities before they began the journey,” Dangaye said. “We had about 25 vehicles then called the soldiers to come and escort us as usual. The soldiers drove in their vehicle.”

The meeting point, according to the drivers’ union chairman, was Mai Dabino, one of the communities in the Danmusa area.

Dangaye said the convoy passed Sabon Garin Nasarawa and Mahuta before it ran into an ambush around Makera.

“The terrorists were in four groups and it was when the leading vehicle reached the second to the last group that they (terrorists) began shooting. When the soldiers driving in the back, aimed to move faster to the front, another set of terrorists began shooting at them. The soldiers engaged them but because they were too many and separated, the terrorists had upper hand over the soldiers,” he said.

Dangaye said a distress call was made to the Community Watch Corps who “came with more soldiers” to help the traders.

Usman Abdulmuminu, a resident of Maidabino, said most of those killed were from his community.

“One of them was my best friend, Buhari. The communities are in mourning because aside those who lost their lives, several others are still nursing serious wounds that may lead to death,” he said.

Police spokesperson in Katsina State, Abubakar Sadik, could not be reached on his regular phone number at the time of this report. An SMS sent to him about the attack was also not responded to.

This is the second time in a month that local traders are targeted in the state. Eight traders were killed last month by the terrorists in the same state.

Many states in the northwestern part of Nigeria have witnessed terrorist activities for over a decade which have led to the death of thousands of people.

PT

US, Europe embark on new diplomatic push to quell Gaza war

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Europe's senior diplomat Josep Borrell began a new diplomatic push on Friday to stop spillover from the Gaza war into Israeli-occupied West Bank, Lebanon and Red Sea shipping lanes.

Their Middle East visits came three months since Hamas militants from Gaza attacked Israel, triggering an offensive that has devastated the enclave, uprooted 90% of its population, and killed 22,600 people, according to Palestinian officials.

Israel, which says it has killed 8,000 militants since the deaths of 1,200 people in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, has announced a more targeted approach under global pressure to limit civilian casualties.

But Gazans said Israeli planes and tanks had intensified attacks overnight on densely populated Al-Maghazi, Al-Bureij and Al-Nusseirat in the centre of the coastal strip.

Some 162 people were killed in the past 24 hours, Palestinian officials said earlier.

In addition to these, Palestinian officials later said that in the south, where hundreds of thousands of Gazans have moved in response to Israeli warnings, at least 22 people were killed by Israeli strikes on Khan Younis.

One Palestinian health official said these included at least 10 people killed and several wounded by an Israeli air strike on a house belonging to Al-Bayouk family.

Four others were killed in an air strike on a street in Al-Nusseirat, Palestinian officials said, while another three died and seven were injured in Israeli shelling on a house in central Gaza's Deir Al-Balah, the Palestinian Red Crescent said.

Separately, medics reported that two more people were killed and others injured in the same central Gaza town after what residents described as fresh Israeli air strikes after dark.

"The Israeli government claims democracy and humanity, but is inhumane," Abdel Razek Abu Sinjar said as he cried over the shrouded bodies of his wife and children killed in a strike on his house in Rafah on the border with Egypt.

In Jabalia in northern Gaza, people picked their way through ruined streets filled with sewage and garbage, video showed. Hunger and deadly diseasesare spreading.

WEST BANK DEATHS MOUNT TOO

The military said it had struck more than 100 targets in Gaza in the past 24 hours, killing gunmen who tried to attack a tank in Al-Bureij and others in Khan Younis, where Hamas' military wing said it had killed some troops.

The war in Hamas-run Gaza has stoked violence in the West Bank, which is governed by its rival Fatah and is another territory where Palestinian hopes for statehood have been dashed since the last U.S.-mediated talks on a solution to the decades-long conflict in 2014.

The Palestinian health ministry said a 17-year-old was killed and four other Palestinians wounded by Israeli army gunfire in the West Bank town of Beit Rima. Israel's military said troops shot at Palestinians who threw petrol bombs.

Some 300 Palestinians have died there since the war erupted, the United Nations says.

Blinken is due to visit the West Bank during a week-long tour starting on Friday in Turkey, which has offered to mediate. He will also visit Israel, Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

"It is in no one's interest, not Israel's, not the region's, not the world's, for this conflict to spread beyond Gaza," State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said.

Borrell, the EU foreign policy chief, was due in Lebanon.

IRANIAN BACKING

Hamas, which is sworn to Israel's destruction, is backed by Iran. Other Iranian-backed militants have hit U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria and struck Israel from Lebanon in what they call revenge for Israel's avowed attempt to eliminate the Palestinian Islamist movement.

The U.S. offered up to $10 million for information on Hamas sponsors or anything leading to the disruption of the group's financial mechanisms.

Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh said the U.S. should focus on ending aggression towards Palestinians and occupation of their land. "We hope that Mr. Blinken learned lessons from the past three months and realized the extent of the mistakes the U.S. has made by blindly supporting the Zionist occupation and believing its lies, which resulted in unprecedented massacres and war crimes against our people in Gaza," he said in a speech.

The leader of Lebanon's powerful Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, Hassan Nasrallah, said on Friday the militia had conducted around 670 military operations on the border with Israel since Oct. 8, destroying many Israeli military vehicles.

The Iran-aligned Houthis who control much of Yemen have fired on commercial vessels in the Red Sea since Nov. 19, forcing them to take longer routes in a blow to global trade.

Israel has listed 175 soldiers as killed in action since its offensive began.

Defence Minister Yoav Gallant has said the next phase would include raids in the north to demolish tunnels and a focus in the south on rescuing some 132 Israeli hostages remaining.

A 25th hostage had been declared dead, a government spokesperson said on Friday.

The World Health Organization said hospitals and other medical infrastructure in Gaza have been attacked nearly 600 times since the conflict erupted. Some 613 people have died within facilities and more than 770 wounded, it said.

France and Jordan air-dropped seven tonnes of aid for a field hospital in Khan Younis.

Reuters