Travels blog

History Akwa Ibom State was created on the 23rd of September 1987 by the then Military Administration of General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida.  The creation of the State brought to fruition years of prolonged struggle by the people that occupied the mainland part of the former Cross River State. For many, the creation of the State was a mark of justice, having been left out in earlier state creation exercises despite leading in the struggle for state creation in Nigeria, through the Ibibio Union, - a foremost Socio-Cultural organization that served as a unifying platform for the people of this part of Nigeria.  In 1948, Ibibio Union, formed in 1928, transformed from a mere cultural association to a goal-driven institution which promoted and championed the cause of state creation in Nigeria. However, when in 1967 the 12 state structure was established following the creation of states by the General Yakubu Gowon administration, the Mainland part of Calabar Province in ...

Cross River State is a coastal state in South Eastern Nigeria, named after the Cross River, which passes through the state. Located in the Niger Delta, Cross River State occupies 20,156 square kilometers. It shares boundaries with Benue State to the north, Enugu and Abia States to the west, to the east by the Cameroon Republic and to the south by Akwa-Ibom and the Atlantic Ocean. During the European scramble for Africa, Queen Victoria signed a Treaty of Protection with the King and Chiefs of Akwa Akpa, known to Europeans as Old Calabar on 10 September 1884. This enabled the United Kingdom to exercise control over the entire territory around Calabar, including Bakassi. The territory subsequently became de facto part of Nigeria, although the border was never permanently delineated. However, documents released by the Cameroonians, in parity with that of the British and Germans, clearly places Bakassi under Cameroonian Territory as a consequence of colonial-era Anglo-German agreements....

The instability created in Europe by the First World War (1914-18) set the stage for another international conflict–World War II–which broke out two decades later and would prove even more devastating. Rising to power in an economically and politically unstable Germany, Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist (Nazi Party) rearmed the nation and signed strategic treaties with Italy and Japan to further his ambitions of world domination. Hitler’s invasion of Poland in September 1939 drove Great Britain and France to declare war on Germany, and World War II had begun. Over the next six years, the conflict would take more lives and destroy more land and property around the globe than any previous war. Among the estimated, 45-60 million people killed were 6 million Jews murdered in Nazi concentration camps as part of Hitler’s diabolical “Final Solution,” now known as the Holocaust. Leading up to World War II The devastation of the Great War (as World War I was known at th...

In Saba, the local church distributed bicycles among youth in need. M embers of the Mount Scenery Seventh-day Adventist Church on the Caribbean island of Saba recently distributed 33 new bicycles to a group of children and young people from communities in need during a special event. The new bicycles, complete with helmets, gloves, lights, and water-bottle holders, were distributed as part of a project proposed by church members responding to the Dutch government’s recent anti-poverty initiative. Saba is officially a “public body” of The Netherlands. A boy gets safety instructions during the special event that saw 33 young people on the Caribbean island of Saba receive the gift of a new bicycle on March 10, 2019. [Photo: Mount Scenery Adventist church] Before the children and young people received their new bikes on March 10, 2019, they listened to bicycle safety tips and were informed by representatives from the municipality of Saba on cycling activities around the isl...

The experiences of the ill-fated aircraft bring some life lessons for the rest of us. W ould you fly on a Boeing 737 Max 8 today? Given the two recent deadly 737 Max 8 crashes in a span of five months (Lion Air last fall and Ethiopian Airlines this month) and the subsequent global grounding of all of Boeing’s 737 Max fleet, you can understand why passengers are rethinking their travel plans — to the point that Southwest Airlines, which only flies Boeing 737s, reported declining ticket sales over the past few weeks. (To answer my own question — sure, I’d fly a 737 Max 8 today. Because there isn’t a 737 pilot alive who isn’t now thoroughly updated and practiced on the precise safety measures to be taken should the plane “go erratic” again. In fact, this is probably the safest time ever to be a passenger on one of those 737 Max planes. But that’s just me.) Naturally, the immense human tragedy of 346 deaths from these two crashes rightfully overshadows all the chatter about the a...

E verything that finite humans must deal with,  from our belief about God to our estimation of a  five-minute break, has room for more than one opinion, more than one conviction, more than one belief. That includes global warming and climate change: everybody does not agree on climate change and global warming. That’s why, along with established facts laid out in this spread, we’ve included the fine print that says where to go to find out more.—Editors. Hurricanes Higher temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean’s hurricane zone, combined with human-induced emissions that trap heat in the atmosphere, produce conditions more likely to fuel larger and more devastating storms. Initial flooding and tide surges are often accompanied by torrential rains that “stall” over large geographic areas: Acidic Oceans The acidity of the surface of ocean water since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution (1760-1840) has increased by approximately 30 percent.  Flooding F...

Caring for the planet by being conscientious consumers N ot long ago I had my very first shift at the Edinburgh sustainable food store. My dad says that the store looks just like the health food shop that my grandpa used to run in Paisley, near Glasgow, back in the 1960s. In a region not famed for its cuisine (deep-fried Mars bars anyone?), trying to sell health food in the west of Scotland was something of an uphill struggle. Faced with the difficulties of running a shop that wouldn’t open on Sabbaths, my grandfather eventually sold the shop, bought a farm, and moved on to run a plant nursery. Back then it seemed as if the earth’s resources were limitless. North Sea oil had been discovered and everybody was going to be rich. Significant works such as Rachel Carson’s  Silent Spring  were not yet significant enough, and the ecology movement was yet to really get started. The only people who seemed to care about these things—well, their hair was too long, and there was...