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Caught At the Altar about to marry another Wife, Wayward husband gets busted

Posted by cozzy webtatafo on February 27, 2011 at 2:19am

It was a scene. Everyone was stunned; the unexpected had happened.

As the man and his bride were just about to be joined, at the Ikorodu Registry, his legally married wife stepped in with her lawyer and spoilt the show.

According to Toyin Ajao, who witnessed what happened in late January, Patience Balogun [not her real name] got a phone call from an anonymous caller who claimed that she [Mrs Balogun] had helped her in the past. The faceless caller told Patience that her husband, who had left the house that night on pretext of going to see somebody, was planning to get married to another woman the next day. The caller also gave details of location and time.

After this life shaking call, Mrs Balogun quickly contacted her mother and other family members who advised her to contact a lawyer, with whom she mapped out a strategy of handling the situation.

The action

While the strategy to foil the wedding plans is ongoing, Mr Balogun with his new bride were at the door of the court, waiting to be called in by the judge when his phone rang. It was Mrs. Balogun, his wife. They spoke for a while, and then he signed off with the usual ,“I love you and will see you soon.” Unknowingly to him, Mrs Balogun was downstairs in the compound, with their two daughters, her lawyer, her mother, and a few friends and family, watching him all the while. Shortly after, the ‘couple-to-be’ were called in, but Mrs Balogun and her crew remained outside, waiting for the right moment.

Just as the magistrate was about to pronounce Mr. Balogun and his bride, husband and wife, the lawyer walked in, armed with the first wedding certificate and asked the magistrate to stop the wedding. Mrs. Balogun and the others followed.

After looking at the wedding certificate, the magistrate stopped the wedding with the whole courtroom in disarray. Mrs Balogun, who was visibly furious, walked up to her dazed husband and gave him multiple slaps until he was moved to where she could not reach him. To the amazement of some on-lookers, she made no advances at the disappointed bride, who was quickly taken away from the scene in a car.

“There were lots of people who gave their confused, traditionally tainted and reasonable opinions about the shocking issue. Many felt Mrs. Balogun should have allowed the husband to wed the ‘other woman’ and then sue him for bigamy. Some felt she should have organised for people to beat the hell out of the husband” said Ms. Ajao, a women’s right and gender activist, who was at the magistrate to secure the release of her female friend from prison.

“I really commended the lady for what she did. So many women will not be brave enough to come to the court and stop the wedding, so they will allow their rights to be trampled upon. Some will say he is the man so what can I do. So because he is the man, the woman should just take rubbish. In my opinion, she would have let them get married then sue for bigamy. If my husband does that, I will divorce him and I will sue him for bigamy.”

General Awareness

According to Kate Ibeanusi, the programme officer, at Project Alert, a non-governmental organisation that is focused on protecting women rights said women in Lagos are generally getting more aware of their rights and more willing to enforce them. “I can say women are getting more aware of their rights. Today we have more women who are willing to talk about abuses they face in their marriages and they come to report. But then, some will start up the process, after sometime you won’t see them again and when you call them, they will say, ‘‘actually what happened is that he came and begged me. I think he has changed.’ And we ask them are you sure he has changed? What happens a lot of time is that some months later the same women will come back to us to talk about spousal abuse,” she said.

“The problem really is that a lot of men still have the mentality that women are just pieces of furniture; when you are tired of them you dump them somewhere and go for another one. Generally, we do not intervene in marriages without the consent of the couple. If a woman reports to us, we will call the husband to get his own side of the story then we talk to both of them together, then we will advise them on what to do. We have seen cases where after talking they conclude that they can no longer live together. They will decide on divorce. In cases where there is threat to life, we advise the women to leave the house.” In accordance with African culture, families usually play vital roles in troubled marriages.

Family meetings are usually convened to settle such matters when they arise. However, Ms. Ibeanusi said families are often not able to properly resolve issues of abuse in marriages. “Are families really playing roles well? Or are they busy taking sides? I have a brother. If she has a problem with his wife, it is easy for me to side my brother against his wife and so also her family will take sides with her. So at the end the day, all they will be doing is shifting blames” she said.

According Ben Ode, a lawyer with Project Alert, a man marrying another woman when he is still legally married, is bigamy, and it is a criminal offence with seven years imprisonment as punishment. He though it also applies to church and traditional marriages, the major setback is that it is difficult to prove in court.

When NEXT visited Mrs. Balogun about two weeks after her brave act, she said she has settled with her husband and was no longer willing to talk to the press.

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6 biggest lies about food busted the yolk is on you

Posted by 9jabook.com webmadam on September 27, 2010 at 12:17am
The other day while I was making bread, I cracked an egg and dumped it right down the drain. Total mistake. (With a baby who still wakes up multiple times a night, I’m still a little sleep deprived.) There was a time, however, when I intentionally washed egg yolks down the drain—and used only the whites—because I thought that egg yolks were bad for my heart. Here are the details of why you should go ahead and eat the yolks, plus highlights of other food myths that just won’t die. Myth 1: Eggs are bad for your heart. The Truth: Eggs do contain a substantial amount of cholesterol in their yolks—about 211 mg per large egg. And yes, cholesterol is the fatty stuff in our blood that contributes to clogged arteries and heart attacks. But labeling eggs as “bad for your heart” is connecting the wrong dots, experts say. “Epidemiologic studies show that most healthy people can eat an egg a day without problems,” says Penny Kris-Etherton, Ph.D., R.D., distinguished professor of nutrition at Penn State University. For most of us the cholesterol we eat doesn’t have a huge impact on raising our blood cholesterol; the body simply compensates by manufacturing less cholesterol itself. Saturated and trans fats have much greater impact on raising blood cholesterol. And a large egg contains only 2 grams of saturated fat and no trans fats. The American Heart Association recommends limiting cholesterol intake to less than 300 mg daily—less than 200 mg if you have a history of heart problems or diabetes or are over 55 (women) or 45 (men). “That works out to less than an egg a day for this population—more like two eggs over the course of the week,” notes Kris-Etherton. Related: Two Dozen Easy, Healthy Egg Recipes Myth 2: High-Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) is worse for you than sugar. The Truth: The idea that high-fructose corn syrup is any more harmful to your health than sugar is “one of those urban myths that sounds right but is basically wrong,” according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a health advocacy group. The composition of high-fructose corn syrup is almost identical to table sugar or sucrose (55 percent fructose, 45 percent glucose and 50:50, respectively). Calorie-wise, HFCS is a dead ringer for sucrose. Studies show that HFCS and sucrose have very similar effects on blood levels of insulin, glucose, triglycerides and satiety hormones. In short, it seems to be no worse—but also no better—than sucrose, or table sugar. This controversy, say researchers, is distracting us from the more important issue: we’re eating too much of all sorts of sugars, from HFCS and sucrose to honey and molasses. The American Heart Association recently recommended that women consume no more than 100 calories a day in added sugars [6 teaspoons]; men, 150 calories [9 teaspoons]. Related: Delicious Desserts with Surprisingly Low Added Sugars Myth 3: A raw-food diet provides enzymes that are essential to healthy digestion. The Truth: “Raw foods are unprocessed so nothing’s taken away; you don’t get the nutrient losses that come with cooking,” says Brenda Davis, R.D., co-author of Becoming Raw: The Essential Guide to Raw Vegan Diets (Book Publishing, 2010). But the claim by some raw-food advocates that eating raw boosts digestion by preserving “vital” plant enzymes, Davis explains, just doesn’t hold water. “Those enzymes are made for the survival of plants; for human health, they are not essential.” What about the claim by some raw-foodistas that our bodies have a limited lifetime supply of enzymes—and that by eating more foods with their enzymes intact, we’ll be able to spare our bodies from using up their supply? “The reality is that you don’t really have a finite number of enzymes; you’ll continue to make enzymes as long as you live,” says Davis. Enzymes are so vital to life, she adds, “the human body is actually quite efficient at producing them.” Myth 4: Your body can’t use the protein from beans unless you eat them with rice. The Truth: Proteins—which our bodies need to make everything from new muscle to hormones—are made up of different combinations of 20 amino acids. Thing is, our bodies can make only 11 of these amino acids; we must get the other nine from food. Animal-based protein-rich foods like eggs and meat provide all nine of these “essential” amino acids, but nearly all plant foods are low in at least one. Experts used to say that to get what your body needs to make proteins, you should pair plant-based foods with complementary sets of amino acids—like rice and beans. Now they know that you don’t have to eat those foods at the same meal. “If you get a variety of foods throughout the day, they all go into the ‘basket’ of amino acids that are available for the body to use,” says Winston J. Craig, Ph.D., R.D., nutrition department chair at Andrews University in Berrien Springs, Michigan. Related: Cheap, Quick Dinners Using Canned Beans. Myth 5: Microwaving zaps nutrients. The Truth: This is misguided thinking, says Carol Byrd-Bredbenner, Ph.D., R.D., professor of nutrition at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Whether you’re using a microwave, a charcoal grill or a solar-heated stove, “it’s the heat and the amount of time you’re cooking that affect nutrient losses, not the cooking method,” she says. “The longer and hotter you cook a food, the more you’ll lose certain heat- and water-sensitive nutrients, especially vitamin C and thiamin [a B vitamin].” Because microwave cooking often cooks foods more quickly, it can actually help to minimize nutrient losses. Related: How to Cook 20 Vegetables Myth 6: Radiation from microwaves creates dangerous compounds in your food. The Truth: “Radiation” might connote images of nuclear plants, but it simply refers to energy that travels in waves and spreads out as it goes. Microwaves, radio waves and the energy waves that we perceive as visual light all are forms of radiation. So, too, are X-rays and gamma rays—which do pose health concerns. But the microwaves used to cook foods are many, many times weaker than X-rays and gamma rays, says Robert Brackett, Ph.D., director of the National Center for Food Safety and Technology at the Illinois Institute of Technology. And the types of changes that occur in microwaved food as it cooks are “from heat generated inside the food, not the microwaves themselves,” says Brackett. “Microwave cooking is really no different from any other cooking method that applies heat to food.” That said, microwaving in some plastics may leach compounds into your food, so take care to use only microwave-safe containers. What food myth are you sick of hearing people defend?
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