#Discipline #nakupenda SHE WAS 8 YEARS OLD WHEN THEY FORCED HER TO MARRY AN 80-YEAR-OLD MAN AND THIS HAPPENED She was only eight. She still played with dolls, still chased butterflies barefoot in the dusty yard, still slept with her head on her mother’s lap. Her name was Amina, and all she ever wanted was to go to school, eat sweets, and laugh with her younger brother. But one morning, her mother pulled her aside, eyes red, voice trembling. "You are to be married next week." Amina blinked. Married? She thought it meant putting on a pretty dress and playing bride, the way she did with her friends. She didn’t understand why her mother cried harder when she smiled and asked if there would be cake. Her father didn’t explain. He only said, “This will save us all.” The man—Alhaji Umar—was 80 years old, rich, with hands that shook and breath that smelled of bitterness. He had four wives already. The youngest was 40. Now he wanted a fifth, and he wanted Amina. Because her father owed him. Because her father was drowning in debt. Because no one in the village would dare refuse Alhaji Umar. The night before the wedding, Amina asked her mother if she’d be allowed to go back to school afterward. Her mother didn’t answer. She just held her tighter. And when the drums began the next morning, when the guests gathered to dance and eat and celebrate what they thought was a blessing, Amina sat in the middle of the room in a white dress too big for her tiny frame, not knowing she was being led into a nightmare. The marriage was celebrated with loud music. But the silence in Amina’s heart was louder. She didn’t cry during the ceremony. She didn’t cry when she was taken to his house. But she cried when he locked the room that night. She cried when he touched her tiny hand and called her his "new beginning." He didn’t hurt her—not yet. But his eyes did. They looked at her like she wasn’t a child. Like she was property. Days turned into weeks. She didn’t go to school again. She cleaned the house. She sat beside his bed. She listened when he ranted about how none of his sons respected him. She became a shadow in a palace she never asked for. And the worst part? No one came for her. Not her father. Not her mother. They had vanished into the silence of guilt. But one night, when the wind howled and the rain slapped the windows, Amina heard someone at the door. A stranger. Wet, tired, breathing heavily. He said he was Alhaji Umar’s grandson. A university student back from abroad. “Who are you?” he asked, staring at her with confusion. “Why are you wearing a wedding necklace?” “I’m his wife,” she whispered. The boy’s face went pale. That night changed everything. TO BE CONTINUED...

*Hello everyone,* If you are testing, keep testing. If you are onboarding the waitlist, keep onboarding. If you are not participating. Continue still. If you are sleeping here, continue. If you are working hard. Don't stop. Everyone, please keep doing what you are doing best. *Launch is eminent.* The way, I love to think about it is, Nakupenda will become a Unicorn ( Unicorn in business) within 4 years. Who are they that will be there with us? Fantastic evening! #Discipline #nakupenda #mybrotherHUSTLEOOH

*What we asked you to do!* *Your job:* For the next 50 days. 1. Sign up on the website free. 2. Interact with the website 3. Interact with people on the website and use all the features as much as possible. 4. Find faults on the platform 5. Report those faults 6. Find what is not working and 7. Suggest what you think can be done better. [04/06, 8:46 am] +234 803 254 5417: *What we promised*👇👇👇👇 *Your compensation:* Depending on your level of seriousness and work ethics. 1. The company will pay $20 (N30,000) - $230 (N345,000) for the first year subscription for you. This premium entry will help you generate millions in revenue. 2. We will train you on how to use the platform to generate money for you when we launch. And give you preference to have your links spread across the globe first before big influencers come in. 3. The Company will assign 1% of global profit to be shared by this team. *Kindly note:* 1. We will only reward hard work and honesty. 2. Dishonest or lazy persons will be kicked out of the program. 3. We will require a full KYC of all volunteers. 4. Only volunteers who do their job faithfully will be drafted for rewards #nakupenda #Discipline

#Thanksgiving is the Key. #Keep giving God thanks because it can open all closed doors.* #Discipline

#ADIRA #SMARTGIRL #Discipline

#CEO @ jonatexcreation communication. #Electric #Engr. Joe

#Discipline #nakupenda #504 re-evolution

#Godiswonderful #Discipline

FROM ANOTHER PLATFORM By Obi Nwakanma And I hear you, bro. But think about it: from 1970- 1979, the generation of the Igbo who had fought and funded the war, were not talking of marginalization. They took on the task of restoration. I remember the story the late Mbazulike Amaechi told me when I once visited him in Ukpor. At the end of the war, the Igbo business elite who had been in PH, and whose property had been forcibly acquired by the new government in Rivers state went to Asika to intervene. Asika sat with them and urged them to seek the intervention of the courts and make this a seminal case on the defense of Igbo property rights in Nigeria. He did not want to seem to put undue pressure in a very sensitive time on the government of Rivers state. The Igbo were being harassed and stopped from work and resuming their life in PH. Asika encouraged them to seek the legal benefits of Awolowo who was the most powerful politician in government at the time. These Igbo businessmen met Awo, in Lagos, and after he heard them, Awo demanded that they go and pay 1 million pounds into his Chambers account, before he would could take on their plea. The Igbo business men asked Awo where he thought they could get one million pounds, having just come out of a devastating war. He said it was their business and dismissed them. The men later met in ZC Obi’s home, and after rounds and rounds of discussions, they agreed at ZC Obi’s urging, that they would no longer pursue the matter. ZC Obi said, “ let us ge back to work. Let us send our young men back to work. We shall build Aba until it gets into Port Harcourt, and no one will know the difference.” And that was precisely what they set out to do, and were about accomplishing that feat up till 1987. By 1979, the Igbo were powerful enough to ge a serious factor in Nigerian politics. Between 1979-83, the Igbo were not talking about marginalization. They were engaged in restoration . Mbakwe had asked Ihechukwu Madubuike as minister for education, to place as priority the establishment of another federal university in Igbo land. Thus FUTO in 1980. Between he and Jim Nwobodo, they launched an industrial policy that quickly turned the East once more into an active economic belt. They did not wait for the federal government. Imo state University and Anambra state university of Technology were the first state universities to be established under the state laws. I was reading the Imo State University Act that established the charter of the old Imo state university the other day, and I am still utterly impressed by the quality and precision of thought that went into organizing that university under the inimitable MJC Echeruo, one of Igbo lands sharpest minds of the 20th century. The same goes for ASUTHEC. Nwobodo went specifically to Harvard to make Prof Kenneth Dike to return to Enugu and establish ASUTHEC. Now, compare that Igbo, to this generation of the Akalogoli. Mbakwe took Shagari specifically to Ndiegoro, in Aba, wept publicly with dramatic impact , and forced Shagari to promise to establish the ecological fund to deal with places like Ndiegoro in Igbo land. He compelled Shagari to understand that Gas and Petroleum were abundant natural resources from Imo state, and that Imo deserved and must be given new shares/ consideration , if the federal did not want Imo to sue, and even begin to raise questions about the federal government’s s seizure of Eastern Nigerias oil and gas investments, like the PH refinery for which no compensation has even to this day, been paid. Mbakwe pushed the oil issue and said to Shagari that the proposed Petrochemical Plant must be located in Imo, otherwise he would begin to build the Imo Petrochemical Industries himself . The grounds had been cleared by October 1983, and work started at the Imo Petrochemical Plant at Izombe by the time the military struck on Dec. 31, 1983. It was Buhari who later relocated that plant to Eleme. Mbakwe began the first Independent Power company with the Amaraku power station under Alex Emeziem at the Ministry of Utilities. The father of my high school buddy at the Government College Umuahia was the project manager who designed and installed the power station at Amaraku and had begun work at the Izombe Gas power station; all with engineers and technicians from the Imo state ministries of work and public utilities. They did not go to China to sign a contract. They just went to South Korea to procure the parts they designed and which they installed themselves! By 1981/2 most towns in Imo state had electricity under the Imo state Rural Electrification project. Same with the Five Zonal water project under the Mbakwe program. The project manager was Engineer Ebiringa. They did not go to China or America or wait for the federal government. 85% of the Imo Water project had been completed by the time the soldiers struck. There are still giant iron pipes buried underground in almost all the towns in the old Imo state under that project which was designed to give Imo the first constant, clean water of any state of Nigeria. Only a phase of the Owerri water project was completed by the time Mbakwe was kicked out of office, but even so, Owerri had the cleanest, most regular water of any city in Nigeria. Imo organized her public schools. Imo organized a first class public health system. My own father was commissioned under the Health Management board as the government’s Chief Health Statician, to conduct the first broad epidemiological survey of Imo state in 1982. I saw him at work. They were serious and professional men, who took their duties very seriously because they were highly trained. The Imo state civil service was possibly the finest civil service in West Africa; finer than the federal service, because they had a highly selected and well trained pool of civil servants who delivered value to the people. They were not talking about marginalization. You may say what you like today about Jim Nwobodo, but he started the independent satellite newspaper In Enugu, which balanced the story coming out of Lagos. No one was talking about marginalization until Chuba Okadigbo, rightly used that word to decribe the way the federal military government of Nigeria was treating the Igbo, in terms of access to real power. There were not enough Igbo officers represented in the organograms of the military governments, and yes, that word was apt, in that period . But we have taken it too far, and turned it into an excuse for our intellectual and political indolence. The Igbo have waited for their comeuppance on Nigeria, but shit ain’t happening. Nigeria is moving on without us, for better or worse. We must now recalibrate and engage. Let us use the final gas in our tanks, all of us now, between 55-75 years, to complete the work of restoration which the last generation began but which we have abandoned because we dropped the ball. We may weep all we want and complain that Nigeria is unfair, but the universe is indifferent. I dare say, Nigeria actually has no capacity to marginalize the Igbo. We better stop marginalizing ourselves or risk our children and their children inheriting the slave’s mentality!! That’s the danger we court with this story of Igbo marginality, which is actually self imposed, and self indulgent! I pray we rise again!!!! Happy New Month to us all!!! #Discipline

Happy 1st birthday, my little one! You've brought so much joy into our lives. May your first year be filled with endless smiles and adventure, and may this next year be even brighter." #Happybirthday #MAYBOY #Discipline #nakupenda

*Active on Nakupenda* *Day 40* 1. Esther Okeke 2. Adesola Adeniyi 3. Ngọzi Nnabuko 4. Godslove Reuben 5. Okey Chukwukelu 6. Padmoore Oguzie 7. Nnamdi Nnabuko 8. Sarah Okugbe 9. Olorunkemi Riliwan 10. Blessing Ochie 11. Glory Chiazor 12. Chidinma Udih 13. Precious Luke 14. Ezekiel Inyama 15. Josephine Ochus 16. Chinonyerem Ogbonna 17. Imaobong Ogbonna 18. Solomon Utom John 19. Olufaderomi Adediran 20. Gbemisola Awodiya 21. Zayyad Ishiaku 22. Asian Essien 23. Loveth Paul 24. Blessing Nwamoko 25. Ijeoma Jude Emmanuel 26. Emmanuel Ukiwe 27. Jennifer Chinenye 28. Chibuzo Eze 29. Mmesoma Mimi 30. Samuel Thomas 31. Magdalene Joel 32. Ruth Mathias 33. Glory Chiazor 34. Esther Ekpenyong 35. Peaakio Peace Akio #nakupenda #Discipline #kaindiko 😍