Welcome to the Advocates, your Sunday reminder that important conversations are among the necessary tools for a saner society. Today I am pointing my spotlight on the religiosity of Nigerians, Christians and Muslims who holy pass. Raymond's focus is on youth empowerment. As always, discussions around our mental health are always welcome so Eji Mai is saying today that suicide is never an option. Babashola who joins us for the first time today talks about the struggle of new political parties in Nigeria and finally Kingsley is back again and is here to reveal to us who Nigeria's enemy is. As always, your panelists are here to share ideas aimed at provoking thoughts with no holds but, stay with us. Nigeria's religiosity, Islam or Christianity, which one better pass? As a religious people, sharply divided along religious lines, at least that is what we are made to believe, many have queried the impact and influence of religious bodies on the total growth of the nation. Rather than engage in a cycle of blame game, the major question should be, one, in a nation where we claim to be Christians and Muslims, Premium Times reports that in 2016 Nigerians spent over 208 billion naira on alcohol for consumption. This total amount was higher than the budget of undose dates for that year. We have a market so vibrant that major Ghanaian alcohol beverages are selling millions of bottles in Nigeria annually. Yet, both major religions rather frown at alcoholism. Yet, the gods are not to blame. We remain a major market for the sale of condom. Society for Family Health says Nigerians use an estimated 400 million condoms annually. And believe me, we could have sold more but for the fact that many people see condom as a hindrance to total pleasure. You know what I'm talking about.  During Ramadan, a Muslim brother tells someone, ʻmā bimini nūnisi yō mōngbāwē, tīmbāg bāwē tō toa bāmi dōu, mā bāti ejē. That means don't get me angry and I'm fasting. When I'm done fasting, I will destroy you. So what is the essence of the fasting when you are saving the best for the last? When you read both holy books, none of it encourages what is happening in Nigeria presently. I listened to a Muslim cleric speak during a TV interview over the weekend. He says the Qur'an states that before you choose a leader, such a person must be trustworthy, honest and capable. I mean a lot of other qualities. In Titles 1 verse 7 and 8, it describes a leader as someone who is not arrogant, quick tempered, a drunkard, violent or greedy for gain. But someone who is hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy and disciplined. So if both books put such huge demand on leadership, why then are we plagued with successive bad leadership? Why do our leaders who hold fast to their faith continue to work in contravention of the words of God? Our problem in Nigeria is not religion. Our problem is the wrong application of the dictates of our religion. Our problem is that we have turned our back on the foundation of religious beliefs. We have hijacked processes from God. We then turn around and blame the church or the mosque for the failures of our society. We have allowed politicians and our selfish interests falsely divide us along religious lines. But when we have personal needs, we do not care about religion. When you take someone to the hospital, how many of us demand to see a doctor, nurse or even a surgeon that practices our religion? So I ask, if we don't care about religion of, I mean, when we're getting artisans or professionals to provide a service for us, which is more personal to us, why then should we care about religion of our leader and ignore his qualities? Leadership is not about religion. It is about the qualities that God needs to advance his course for a people at a particular time. The hypocrisy of Mr. Bickson. Honestly, let me finish my first thing.   Oh my God! That really caught me. You know the person that really got me thinking was the statistics he gave about the alcohol consumption. Of course, these two religions. So who is drinking it? Yes, exactly. We are spending so much money, like more than the state government's budget within a period. But you get into these places and these guys are telling you that nobody, we don't drink this and they even swear that they don't take alcohol. So where is this thing going to? And then the statistics about the usage of condom 400 million. Actually, we think that they are using it. Inadequately though. But again, there is something I saw when he said that some people are beginning to hijack processes from God. You know, taking the whole tenets of religion. Focusing more on the religious aspect of people's life instead of their qualities also. Because we have people that are not in any of these religions and they are doing exceptionally well when they are giving responsibilities to take care of things. So what do you now say? Are you now saying it's because he's not reading the Quran or because he's not reading the Bible? Where is he actually getting that? So it means that he's focusing more on something deeper than those of us that have actually hijacked the process from God. I think we placed too much emphasis on the religion. And over time, unfortunately, I've had experiences whereby somebody tells me, Oh, I'm a Christian. I'm very religious and I'm very Christian. Like I go to church all the time. And I understand that the person's behaviour does not reflect any God-like characteristics. At a point in time, I had this staff and one day I asked her, Oh, you're so early. She was like, yes, I go to church at 5.30 in the morning before coming to work. And at that point, I was like, really? And I was like, really? Are you that holy? And of course, she had issues with four customers. At that point, I had to ask her that going to church at 5.30 a.m. and being rude to customers is contradictory. Personally, I consider Nigerian religiousity a disability, a national disability. And there are a number of reasons for that. I think most times the political class hides under the guise of religion to perpetuate atrocities. They discover that people also have soft spot for people on the basis of religious affiliation. And most painfully, the fact that we wait for God to do the things we should do for ourselves. Instead of fixing our country, we are praying, right? We are not driving innovation and doing a lot of things. I don't know what culture I think in where it is in the UK. Maybe they are not as religious or they have another approach to it. What do you think? Well, for me, I am someone who, people who follow me on social media, I talk about religion a lot, is that, like she said, that we are religious people, but we don't practice religion. If you are looking at data and statistics, they probably say that Nigeria is the most religious country in the world. Yes, absolutely. But when it comes to what's up there on the ground, when we interact with each other, you don't see the love that religion preaches. That is, I believe that the Christian religion preaches about love a lot. We don't see that love manifesting in our everyday lives. And it's quite a disappointment. And as Israel said, religion is something that politicians hide behind. This is to perpetrate all sorts of injustices. And so for me, I think, both religions, I think it really falls down to the people that preach religion. I think they are doing a disservice to humanity by not telling their followers to actually obey those tenants that the religion, they are preaching in religious circumstances. You are very right. And I think the major problem we have with religion that I see in a part of the world is that we have the saying that if you are not religious, religion starts as a personal journey. But it doesn't end as a personal journey.  It's not the saying, I know my God. You must have your behavior. You are preaching it. So you don't need to now tell me, I'm a Christian, I preach it. No, I should say it to you and ask, what church do you attend? Nice. Religion is just a comfortable corner for us to hide and do a lot of things. Up next is Raymond and his advocacy on youth empowerment. Stay tuned. Youth employability and empowerment punish for sustainable economic growth. Afrika's population has grown to over 800 million in the last 20 years. We have been working on it. We have been working on it. We have been working on it. We will start there. Saying about education. Because this institution is helping kids today. For more than 200 million in the last 50 years and is estimated to grow to over 1.8 billion in the next 50 years by 2050 one, one of the world's population will be African. Giving the statistics. Africa is the only continent where the youth population Afrika nis an army of courageous youth who can turn challenges into big time opportunities in the various fields of life. Youth is not a number, but a window of opportunity that closes with each passing day. It is actually a very important season whose outcome usually determines the rest of a person's life. Hence, if an individual does not know why he or she is a youth now, there is the tendency of abusing and not using it to their advantage. The vision of a nation lies in the hands of the youth. They are filled with tremendous and torn ambitions. It would be a great wastage of human resources if these youth are not allowed to exercise their talent and God-given potentials. The entire success of a nation depends on young people. But in order for a sustained success, it is the government's responsibility to provide the youth with proper facilities for getting equipped with the knowledge of the modern era. However, the youth cannot continue waiting for the government forever. The current surge of innovations, especially in the tech world, has proven that with determination and focus, the average youth will be shocked at what he can achieve, leveraging on the advantages of the technological industry. There is a rising tide of entrepreneurship sweeping across Africa, and the young stars are riding it vigorously. A growing number of young Africans are not just content waiting around for the proper career bump up the establishment ladder. No, their ambitions are much more profound. They are setting out to write their destinies, establishing remarkable enterprises that will transform Africa and reignite its economies. The youth of today are able to determine what kind of investments are made, what kind of jobs are created, what type of goods are produced, and what knowledge they pass on to others. Youth represent the chance to diversify the country's economy towards a more sustainable part. Harnessing new technology, the internet, new service and new ways of working and communicating with others. With the youth comes energy, innovation and optimism. If there are supportive environment and opportunities, which I believe are being made available by the speed of development across all sectors of digital transformation. In summary, it is high time African youth stop seeing life and start giving life. They must start questioning the status quo. There is the urgent need to start challenging every form of routine that has not contributed in any form to solving social problems. If we can think more about our capacity to take more steps and produce results, then we will be amazed at how much we can achieve in our time. Wow. Interesting. That's deep. That's very close to my heart. Because I've always been a youth champion. I know because I look like a youth myself. But it's because I believe that when you talk to children, if you both say 12 children from across the world into a room you can have a discussion with them about something as simple as their country's politics or economy. It's quite alarming to see the kind of things that the Nigerian youth will be able to talk about. While children who are in more developed societies who are empowered at a very young age to start to think for themselves, to start to begin to align. I can't tell my children what to study for instance in university. They've already made up their minds. Or they are about to make up their minds. And it's based on their strengths, based on their interests. And I think one of the key things is that the generation that will run the country in the next 5 or 10 years is this generation. Whether you like it or not. What's happening with the tech sector in Nigeria? With companies who I've never heard of or heard much of. Now raising funds $210 million in international world. And it just goes to show you that there's so much that the young people have in their minds. If you look at generational gaps as well. Look at how your father or my father would relate to a mobile phone. And look at what things you would do in a mobile phone. And how I would use it. Then look at how my child would use it. Maybe my 17 year old. And then look at how a baby was. Who is probably maybe a toddler who is probably just about one. How they can figure out these things. It just goes to show you that even without being around in the world for so long. The young people have an opportunity to grasp everything that's before them. And also that generation cannot be ignored. And it is very key that they are developed from a very early age. When they are in nursery school and primary school. Not just to be learning. I mean Nigeria would like to force knowledge down a lot. But more to be able to find out what the strengths are. And be able to develop them along those strengths. That's good. I will always say that Nigeria is the richest country in the world. When it comes to the abundance of human and material resources. We have them in abundance. The problem is that Nigeria is at best an incubation for greatness. But it's not a habitat. It's not a habitat. So you see a lot of young people trying to make giant strides with visions and plans. But the system keeps frustrating the innovation and creativity in them. And that is why brain drain remains a challenge. The problem is that we have potentials and youth leaders of tomorrow. Yes, they are in abundance. But what does the system do? The system stifles that youthfulness in you. And leaves you with the grand vision of a Canadian passport. I'm telling you. How did you slide that in there? Plan B. The grand vision of a plan B. Because once you share 200 million Canadian passports, Nigeria will be empty. But it's only a matter of time before we all come back. We all come back. But another thing that I quite worry about when we talk about youth empowerment and empowerment is when you drive around with Lagos and you see these able bodied young men littering everywhere during the day walking hours you are going to a meeting and you look out of your car and you see these young men just by the road completely wasting away their time. And I'm wondering, can the government do more? Can the government give more? Provide opportunities for these guys to multiply themselves. It's painful because that's our future right by the side of the road. When somebody goes through the university and then the person has graduated gone through all the stress of our education system by itself and now you don't have options and you must have to survive. So that's where you have to see those people that they can't die in their house. Just like a friend said earlier, you wanted to die where people will see him. So some of these people have to stay outside where they have to find a way to survive where people can't see them. I think when we talk about the youth, I have this bittersweet feeling about them because in one breath you have a lot of guys doing great things in the tech industry, in banking, we have CUDA, we have a lot of big banks online. It's an innovation. Some of us never even imagined we could have online banks. When the first came I'm like, where is your head of the user? I need to go and put my money there. But it's happening. In the same breath, you have a couple of youth who do not have that kind of tech exposure but there are still opportunities for them that they are not seeing. For example, right now we have the Greek, we have so many things we can get into and they just need to be more inspired by not the government in London but people that are a bit ahead of them in age. I just think that a lot is also happening. Young people are also beginning to teach themselves in the world of personalization. That's the option that we should be pushing for government to do all that. All right. Is suicide really an option? Ejimai asks after the break. When is suicide the only option? Never. Suicide is never the only option. No matter how dark, no matter how bleak, no matter how far, no matter how frustrating, no matter how much it seems that the future will never be good. Suicide will never, ever be the only option. In our part of the world, suicide is rarely discussed but unfortunately in today's world news of people committing suicide is a regular occurrence. My experience with suicide is one I want to share with you today. Have I ever contemplated suicide? No. Have I ever had a close encounter? Yes. I was having a conversation with a dear friend and we discussed the struggle with societal thoughts. My friend mentioned that he was having dark thoughts and dark moments and things were just not going the way expected. And sometimes in 2019 as he was driving on Todd Mainland Bridge a thought came to him that if he went straight into the lagoon it would end the hot, the struggle and the pain. But he thought of his family, his children and people that loved him came to mind and he decided that he would keep fighting this battle knowing that the future will be bright. Today he is on a better path and things are gradually falling in place. I have a conversation about this thing called suicide and how it can creep in on people even people that we see are strong and courageous. Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. When the thoughts drag you in sucks you in we lose focus of how good the past was how the future is just around the corner. And make you lose focus of the door handle the door that opens to the light. You forget that all you have to do is stretch further. The thoughts keep you in your present state of mind the present state of mind that is difficult and dark. Forgetting that is only a phase it will surely pass. If only we can find strength close our eyes and reach a little further grab hold of the door handle and pull it down open the door and behold the light. During the dark thoughts of suicide one must remember once loved ones you must remember that nothing is permanent in this world so nothing bad lasts forever and nothing good also lasts forever. Obstacles are part of the journey we must look out for them we must remember that this is something that can creep up on anyone and distract you from your focus. Suicide also hurts those we love the most. Years after a loved one has committed suicide the family left behind finds it difficult to heal and there is always no closure for them. If anyone is going through this process I will advise that you reach out to someone that you love or someone you can talk to a professional can even help you please know that you are not alone and you can reach the Legostate Suicide Helpline remember suicide is never the only option I take conversations around suicide very personal and that's because I almost committed suicide in 2013 and usually when I talk about I am invited to speak about suicide I like to dwell on the solution I want to point out two things that I feel can help somebody escape suicidal thoughts the first thing there is that the person should have a great vision now let me talk about this why do most people commit suicide because they are so caught up in the present frustration that they cannot see a future so they don't see a future playing out for them in a favourable position so you say nothing is there for me so let me just die but this is what vision does for you vision keeps your focus in the future so for instance I want to have a vision of becoming Nigeria's president assuming becoming Nigeria's president and I believe that God has called me to transform Nigeria that is the vision when I pass through economic frustration or maybe I am heartbroken or I am jobless when I match joblessness being broke or being heartbroken to the vision or the grand vision of becoming a president I will see that that present frustration is not enough to jeopardize the future so that is the first thing the second thing is for people to cultivate a selfless thought pattern most persons who commit suicide are very selfish in their thought pattern is about them I am broken I don't have this when you think about other people family, friends, protégies, the tendency to commit suicide and I think adding to your solutions I am looking at one thing that listen every human being needs we draw strength from two ways one is internal strength and one is from the outside now the internal strength to me comes in two ways the personal one that comes from experience like the vision you have and everything and the second one is the spiritual spiritual in the sense that a lot of people will not even contemplate suicide because they feel how can you take a life it is impossible so their brain is shot down against it now that is from the inside from the outside as a family we were not created to live alone whether you are married or not you are created to be in a society have a group of people not gossip friends but group of people that you can rely on there were times in my life where I got so broke but one thing one thing that held me on was that if anything I will just go back home I will just go back home I will just go back home go to my parents if I stay there two years I will not bounce back if we shall lie the same way I found that so funny but I think that this topic is probably more sweetest for my son who is a mental health practitioner but I think from my little experience I have had loved ones cousins relatives who have taken their life from suicide so it is an area that really it is very deep I mean I always say that when I even look at the methods that they used to commit suicide somebody hangs themselves I am thinking that person must be so brave it is just supposed to show that sometimes the people are just at the end of the road and the only thing they want to do is to go out in a blaze of smoke really for somebody to do those kind of things but also I think the health when there is a lot of family support like Khalid said that he can actually go back home so basically Khalid is not at the end of the road yet but you said something they don't even they don't see any option it is something because of the way they have been conditioned as well but you mentioned that you have family close family that have gone out to suicide and I want to ask because I don't have somebody so close that has actually gone out like that what is the healing process like after that for the people left behind after the process how do they find closure or how do they heal and move on it is the most difficult and I think it is one of the things that should be shown to people who have suffered from depression because I remember an episode that happened to me a few years ago a cousin of mine I lost a daughter through suicide and I remember going through the entire ceremony and the funeral and I know her mom mom was really struggling for answers really struggling to say why the pain that it leaves behind I think survivors of suicide victims should be made to talk a bit more especially in a Nigerian society where people always kind of push everything to the back honestly we really need to talk about suicide more and of course I think we are still going to look at this topic and we are probably going to look at it from another angle maybe the people left behind after suicide I think that is something we really should consider it is important it is important we will continue to discuss suicide at least at another date social media feedback esteemed viewer your contributions are integral to this program please keep sharing your thoughts on everything we discuss here on the previous advocacy on the need for boys learning to cook Otolo Newi says you are right boy needs to cook women I myself also cook even more than my wife I love cooking and it started from when my mother was alive beautiful emu owubete says I love the atmosphere of patriotism in today's show it only depicts the strong desire to continue fighting for a better Nigeria follow us on our social media platforms on facebook plus tv africa hashtag the advocate or on twitter and instagram at plus tv africa hashtag the advocate ng to catch up with previous broadcast go to plus tv africa dot com forward slash the advocate ng shalakutis up next after the break every election cycle in Nigeria is usually accomplished by the registration of new political parties but at the end of the election cycle the results are often the same object failure in recent times INEC has attempted to register around 74 political parties for failing to meet up with statutory requirements every time one talks about politics on social media the new party or third force advocates as I call them are always the loudest screaming things like pdp and apc are the same or we are not voting for pdp or apc in the next election and so on and so forth yet election after election the winner is always the devil or the deep blue sea so in short pdp and apc while I agree that citizens should be able to register associations including political parties freely it is now beyond doubt that many of these parties are mere inventions purely created to massage the eagles or politically lazy individuals who want to ride on the wave of the political season to improve their local or national rating which to be honest is not necessarily a bad thing if they were happy to take on the associated costs but as it leaves INEC with the bill we cannot continue to tolerate this after being a no show at the polls all many of the new players want is the pleasure of being referred to as former governorship or presidential candidate of XYZ party in Nigeria you know that we just love titles at the end of the fruitless exercise the outcome is usually a massive bill logistics and legal and management nightmares for the election body INEC which is funded through very scarce resources by the taxpayer the small number of citizens who also bought into this vision of a new political awakening are also left quite disillusioned there is no doubt in my mind that just by glancing at the election results from the last three or four election cycles that there are only three political parties in Nigeria there is the PDP there is the APC and then there is the rest which is all the other parties put together the PDP and APC in every election cycle usually share around 90 to 95% of the total votes cast the rest well they share the 5 to 10% along with voided votes in fact sometimes voided votes take a bigger chunk than some of the other political parties to be honest the new parties just don't have the resources to upstate media political parties in a local election talk less in national one I am not talking about money noon I am talking manpower expertise reach media platforms membership everything I mean it running an election is not a small job am I saying that no other political party outside the PDP and APC can win an election in Nigeria no I am not saying that at all because we all know that some of the few political parties other political parties have won elections at local level so we can agree that it is possible to do so however we must not lose sight of the fact that most parties outside the two giants have succeeded in winning these elections usually filled political gladiators who are from the two major parties but I've only left those parties because they were unable to secure their tickets every Nigerian that wants to be in the political space and make a difference in the next election cycle in 2023 should choose one of the two major political parties and ensure the better can emerge within the two parties it is certain that one of the two parties will definitely produce the next leadership for the country at all levels for those who will create alternative platform they should be truthful to the supporters and themselves that this is at least a 16 to 60 year plan and slowly start the journey from the lowest level of local politics and build up from there INEC INEC needs to be spared the pain of printing water scarves the size of bedsheets in subsequent elections just so some major politicians can be addressed as your excellency wow the bedsheets water scarves was what actually got me I think what got me is the need for hi one time presidential aspirant and I'm like which country I'm like Nigeria I don't know you I'm not familiar with your name which party usually when we get to before elections you must have seen all kinds of people coming up with all kinds of political visions, funny names YPP, ABC, CAC you know every I forgot to start putting it together just to coin something because constitutionally you have the right to register a political party so we can just have find this group of 5, 10 friends can just stay in their room, put money together and just go and register a party and then a causing problem everywhere just because after the elections somebody can answer like Ejamae said I was a one time presidential aspirant of the of the largest black population even if they didn't get any vote I was voided I think it's the intention behind that that bothers me truly maybe like Shala said they are actually lazy politicians because if your heart is in the right place and you want to make changes to the Nigerian society and economy then of course you should first of all align yourself with the possibility of winning a position then begin to find that opportunity to make a difference not going to add yourself to SPD and most of the major problem we have is that a lot of time when we get the idea of party politics wrong because most of the time when we say party we are setting up a party to vie for presidential candidacy which is not the ultimate if you really want to make a change change starts from the grassroots so I don't mind having 200,000 political parties as long as out of the 200,000 only 2 or 3 or 5 are vying for presidential and the rest are local so listen if for example we are talking about APC today but it started by fighting for Lagos then it went to Ogo then it went to Iqiti and all those places Abga today is still struggling in the east so by the time we build all this regional code of code blocks or even some I just said to remain in a local government in some parts of the world some parties will not go beyond the fellow doom or something they just keep pumping I agree with the premise of what we've been discussing and I can relate with the analysis okay but I want to come from a reverse perspective in this case and that is the option of always having to choose between the devil and the deep blue sea I think it's about time or we should be getting ready at Nigerians to start doing the right thing let me give an example in the last general election so we had article for PDP, Buhari for APC we had morale for YPP Durutoya and them coming together so you hear a vast majority of young people say I prefer morale but he will not win so let me vote article this one says I prefer fellow Durutoya but because he will not win let me vote article so that is problematic the reason it is problematic is that let's understand that PDP and APC are the same party the same people all the people that are in APC today we are once in PDP in best we can get a recycled politicians they are not recycled they are on loan no politicians so because in the next general election you discover that the next president is probably going to be a former vice president the former governor or former senator and these are the same group of people that have been messing up Nigeria because I believe that the Nigerian political space needs fresh air but the only way to achieve that is for the masses to come together because people don't vote because they believe the election can easily be rigged but I say this thing we need numbers to manipulate the numbers if you have a 2 million votes gap you cannot manipulate it or 20 million you cannot manipulate it so the masses have to come out and stand behind the right person else forever and ever we have to choose between the devil and the blue sea and that's a terrible option we are enjoying where we are we can be where we are and use our numbers like you say to effect changes in the PDP to effect changes in the APC that we see I don't necessarily believe that we need a new political party what I believe we need is that we need to governize our strength governize our numbers and tell APC that APC guess what we are going to support you but in return we want a fresh candidate I think one of the mistakes we make is always the assumption or that there is that if the young people come together and vote in particular candidate is going to win the election the young people are not in the villages I can say I have been in politics for more than 20 years I have gone to so many campaigns so many villages I can't even remember what they are called I have done campaigns around at least 32 or out of the 30 60s in the country and the FCT so the point I always tell people is that if you go to understand that for you to get a candidate that can deliver a national wide election that candidate must be able to campaign effectively I am not saying just visiting these places for a day or two must be known in the nukes and crimes of Nigeria in those places where he wants to win the election and he must have representatives in every single polling unit across the stage when you think that Gregor state has more than 8000 polling units on its own how many people, I don't know 8000 people I can put in those polling units because the people who are doing this must come from that area they must have a pretty face or a PhD but you know what Shola you know what this is what Nigeria does it gets you talking and talking and talking and we won't have time to do the next one let's go over to the next advocacy Kingsley is about to point out who Nigeria's enemy is so stay tuned Nigeria and Nigerians have a common enemy politically speaking only two tribes exist the rich and the poor and there are only two religious extremes the wealth extreme and the poverty extreme the elites know this very well but the mass is done Nigeria's political elites may be incompetent about governance but they are definitely competent about incompetence and politicking through the instrumentality of systematic indoctrination and divisive religious and tribal sentiments they have strategically maintained their grip on power despite their class incompetence impunity and corruption the average northern Muslim grows up believing he was born to rule and that the only enemy he must overcome is the infidel and that is the southern Christian the average Yoruba man grows up believing that he has to get rid of Omoibu who is occupying his land and monopolizing the businesses therein why the average Yoruba man like me grows up believing that the house man doesn't want his existence and would easily partner with the Yoruba man to achieve that however from my experiences some of the most supportive people around me are from the north and west now when they teach us history they teach us conveniently doctor and regional historical perspectives the Ibo's are thought that the Biafran genocide happened because Ibo simply demanded their own nation as a way of forestalling the marginalization and massacres of Ibo's in the north the Ausaflanese are thought that the war happened because the Ibo-Kokos connived and executed the massacre of northern elites and the Yorubas are thought that the Ibo man would never trust or love him because of the betrayer role Omoibu supposedly played in the failure of the Biafran mood now instead of admitting that the war was avoidable and was a result of the egotism and parochial interest of our rulers they forced the masses into believing that tribal differences necessitated this war which is wrong what then is the consequence why the rulers revel the masses are divided by parochial regional interest and that jeopardizes our sense of objectivity merit and nationhood during national elections the northerner would rather boast the worst northerner than vote an easterner the westerner would prefer to pander to the north when he can't be in power than risk an easterner and the easterner prefers to leave the union than vote the northern or western option and the saddeners would often pander to the east nevertheless there is still hope for Nigeria but it will start materializing when the masses realize that we have a common enemy and that is our rulers we also need to realize that the ruling class is strengthened by our unity and would do anything to jeopardize it this was clearly demonstrated in the Arabid crackdown of the NSAS protest and very importantly we need to realize that our political elites are united in their oppression and suppression of the masses and that PPP and APC are the same party the ruling is however different nothing else can be true about who our enemy is we already know who our enemy is but what actually struck me is how they are threatened by our unity and I keep saying it that the NSAS was the very first time since my own existence that I could see everybody despite religion where you are from origin, background qualification whatever everybody came together for the first time and it never mattered where you are from it never mattered your tribe it never mattered your religion things were working it became like a nation of its own it just sprung up in different parts of the country there was food, nobody complained of hunger there were medical health care there were legal services just within a few days it was a nation of its own so I really believe that these guys are threatened by our unity and the best way to really use your enemies to ensure that these guys are set up because provided they come together it reminds me of an advocacy we had a few weeks ago where we talked about everybody being a victim whether you are Igbo, you are a teacher you are a citizen, you are jobless you have a job, you are civil servant we are all victims because whatever we are going through was dictated by a group of people who have decided to just make us feel and until until we come to that realisation and that is where it baffles me that even in the era in the 80's and 70's where there was no internet where people didn't have access to information they tend to understand things better than we are now than we do now now we have access to information you can google I have downloaded so many documents from online about the Igbo Biafra it is a Nigeria war and I have seen so many angles you see what is happening in the north and for example when people say the north is destroying Nigeria I tell them that listen if any sensible president comes into power today and wants Nigeria to be good he has to focus on investing in the north because they don't have anything look at all the kidnappings that is happening because a lot of the schools are in the outskirts and people don't have walls this one is the model college in the north and we accuse the north and they have the number I always say that wanting in Nigeria is that the politicians we ponise poverty and illiteracy don't educate them so that you can move them in the direction you want put religion there and divide them apart put ethnicity and throw them apart but when you come to the offices when you go to the markets when you go to the grass roots we are all together in this even Sholad knows that wherever he is I once you are in Nigeria we are together but when you come home you find this line tell us what you think let's hear from you I think it is funny because even though we started my best friends are from for me when we are having these discussions because they actually mean nothing when you think about it really in the sense of the word when somebody does a transaction with you you don't care whether they are from the north or from the east if you are going to send somebody for hundreds of millions of nights you wouldn't be like oh I am not sending through this person because it is from this part of the world this is the thing that I find a bit frustrating about Nigeria is that we conveniently find these escape routes when things are not working out for us but when things are working out great for us our best friends are we are all the ones that want to to travel like Nigerians I just wish that we would go beyond just same things the same thing we said about religion we go beyond just same things and start to do more and show people like proper way things should be properly done let me tell you before you wrap up it's all bad right now in terms of insecurity we are saying all these people are coming from Niger but you know as such today a lot of people still take the local security guards from Niger that is how you know that in our mind we don't really care where you come from we just want solutions because where I live we happen to own the property we have a tenant young ladies hard working girls they are in our bq they are evils and our security man that lives beside the bq he is an awesome man we wake up in the morning everybody is just in we have a good deal we can take care of it I think this is a political machination our politicians may not understand governance but they know politics as long as we are divided along political religious and tribal lines they can have their way for instance if an incompetent northerner is coming to power the average northerner who is not exposed we vote him regardless of how incompetent he is as long as he is a northern muslim so they continue to sponsor those sentiments because those sentiments benefit them and elongate their stay in power so I just wish there is a way that the poor masses can realize that we are one this advocacy, this program is one of the ways to educate them but what is even more scary to me is that rather than watch this a lot of the people that are concerned that are badly hit will go watch other entertainment program because they don't understand they don't understand the value I mean here people say you actually don't concern me and I'm like how can you say that that means your future what you wrap up is that we also need to start understanding that we are different and not better and I'm saying that because of what he said we need to start really realizing that we are different from each other if I was born in the north and I have that environmental influence from the north I will not behave anything less than what they are doing so the fact that you are born in a different place completely make you different and so you shouldn't despise your rappers they grew up as a result of what they are upbringing the culture and all those things we need to really start understanding that because you guys understand that you are different it makes you to appreciate your similarities, diversities rather than drive us apart you should bring us together well time is never our friend on this program however the advocacy continues on our social media platforms on Facebook plus TV Africa hashtag the advocate ng or on twitter and instagram at plus tv africa hashtag the advocate ng to catch up with previous broadcast go to plus tvafrica.com slash the advocate ng and don't forget to subscribe to our youtube channel plus tv africa till next week same time on this station let's keep advocating for a better society see ya


Alrighty! So there is some pretty breaking news today. It is pretty confirmed now that Extreme Skyflyer is going. So as of today, Wonderland started removing all the key parts to Extreme Skyflyer. So that was really cool to catch. You should see a crane at some point this week or next week arrive and actually start removing the structure. Wonderland was getting ready obviously for that process. So again, this is really exciting news. I know it's kind of sad, but it's like exciting because it means that obviously something will eventually replace it. I'm not sure that there are any plans yet, but it is a little weird that Wonderland's removing it a whole one year early. So Extreme Skyflyer was due to expire from Skycoaster. I believe at the end of next season, October 2024. So again, it is a whole year early. So it is interesting. But nonetheless, over at My Buster, a lot of work was going on. So a lot of carpentry and woodwork going on, getting those crossbeams on My Buster. And then we'll start seeing the track go on. So that's really exciting. Again, it's so funny. One day there'll be zero work going on and then the next day you fly, which you'll see in a second, and suddenly a lot of work is done. So My Buster is one of those. But if you look at front gate, front gate is progressing extremely quickly. So here you can see them removing. I'm not quite sure what that component's called, but essentially it guides the wires up and down. So yeah, I was told the part its name and then I completely forgot obviously when it came down to recording, but they removed those. The key wires are still up there. Cables, sorry. Those will be coming down and the fences will obviously be removed. But yeah, a lot more has been removed today on Extreme Skyfire than just that. So if you look closely, you can see it doesn't look like a lot, but if you know the ride, a lot has been removed from it. Over at front gate, you can see what I believe is timber kits getting installed. A really nice amber red stained wood. To be honest, I really love it. It looks amazing. So I'm really excited to see what they do. And they were cutting out a weird line. You'll see right over there. There's a line where we would normally enter from our cars. They cut that out. So I'm really interested to see what they build. It's almost like they're going to build a wall there for an exit or something. So again, it wouldn't make sense to build all these queue lines for security posts if you can still enter from the left and the right side of the front gate. So I do have a feeling that we'll be entering from way back and then coming through Leviathan's Hammerhead towards front gate. So you can see it clearer there. It'll be interesting to see what they do with that. Outside of that, not much else going on. They're still taking apart the ice rink and no visible signs of them touching the other parts of front gate yet. But as you can see here, Wonderland's maintenance team, hard at work, removing components of extreme sky flyer. And I'm trying to see if there's anything else I can talk about or if I'm going to cut it off here and display some music for you guys to watch a bit more of the construction update. You will see Vikings Rage. I believe you should see it in this clip. It's like a complete skeleton and it's stuck up at an angle while they work on the tires and the motors of the ride. So that's really cool. But yeah, I think that's pretty much it that I have to talk about now. I will be flying daily to keep you guys updated. So to the best of my ability, I fly daily unless weather gets in the way. Again, my drone's worst enemy is actually fog. So there was a day that I flew Jern fog, and it was funny. I actually thought it would be fine. When I landed my drone, it looked like a wet bird. So even though my drone could see because I flew below the fog line, the air was so full of moisture when I landed, I was in pure panic drying her and patting her dry slowly and warming her up because she was literally a soak bird. So I'm glad she survived that. But yeah, that's all I have to talk about in today's update. Again, stay tuned, follow us on Patreon. Patreon's got to see some HD photos of some of these components that are going on around the park, and they will get information first. Thanks so much, guys. Have a great day everyone. Bye.


So. So remember the suit cameras, guys. Oh, Pat? Yeah. So what are you going to look at? Here. Does the light look better if I'm like that? I'll keep my head facing this way, but my eyes are looking at that one. Pretty easy to look. All right. Can we have something to talk about? Yes, we do. So Thanksgiving is coming up. We just want to say thank you. And to do that, we have some goodies. This is our new little holiday kit that we're going to be rolling out with, like right now. It has the mini kit. The eight ounce mini kit. It's got a spreader, some gloves, a little stir stick in there. And we want to give these away one a day from now until Thanksgiving day. If you are on our newsletter list already, you are automatically entered to win every single day. If you're not on our newsletter list, you might want to sign up. Yeah. And just to let you know, it's a computer that's going to pick a random number and then line up to a person's name. And that's how it's going to be picked every day. So we're not totally random. So starting right now. Today. This moment. We have a winner. Our first random selector is. Megan Bowden. Thanks, Megan. And thank you, Rebecca. Thanks, Dave. I'm thankful for you. Oh, stop it. And thank you again. Thank you, Pat. And thank you. Thank you guys. Yeah, thank you. Thanks, Jeff. But let's finish off on this camera. It's like waving goodbye to this one. Good to meet you, Jeff. So happy Thanksgiving. I worked really hard to get this shot there. Whenever on my camera from out of town. Thank you. I didn't ask you to do this. Just tell the guys just to thank you. Yeah, but I'd rather end it off on a note. That's why we have it over here. Interesting.


Marketsick, go. This is Dan and Stephanie Burke. Welcome to Divine Intimacy Radio, your Radio Haven of Wraths. Your Hermitage of the Heart. Your Monastery of the Mind where we looked our hearts and minds into heaven to draw on the wisdom of the saints. And today is a Q&A show and I've got a few questions that I think we've dealt with before. You ready? Sure. On the demonic and how they cause issues. So here's a question. How do you know when you're dealing with a demon of discord and what can you do about it? Demon of discord. Okay. Well, the first thing and the first thing that comes to mind is understanding what you're listening to in your head, right? Where are the thoughts coming from? And what is the tone of those thoughts? Right? What is the tone of those thoughts? We have a really beautiful exorcist priest in our circle of influence, a dear friend, and he shared something with me that I think is remarkable. And that is that, you know, how do you recognize God's voice? Like, what does God's voice sound like? And if it doesn't sound like this, it's not of God, which I think is phenomenal. So here it is. Here's the key and listen closely. The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control, right? If there's no self control, right? No peace, no patience, no kindness, no generosity, no faithfulness, no love. It's not of God, right? And she knows, I think she knows it's it's not of God. I think that's, I love that what you're sharing. And so you're saying, I'm just asking you, you're saying to be aware of what you're hearing in your head, right? And the fruit of what's happening, right? Right? So it's divisiveness, right? Right, discord, discord and divisiveness, right? And the thing is, it doesn't we need to keep in mind that what we're dealing with is not flesh and blood, but rather principalities, right? Which you just quoted St. Paul and Corinthians, right? So so say you have a situation at work, right? And as as you are conversing, or as you're in a meeting, like somebody shared with me, they were in a meeting the other day, two of their coworkers started to bicker and started to to go at one another. No charity, no generosity, no self control, no peace, you know, just ding, ding, ding, you know, this this intensity, urgency, lack of charity, right in words and in kindness. That doesn't mean that you can't speak truth or deal with difficult issues. But the manner in which in which it's being done will tell you if there's a spirit of discord, or dis ease in it, which is coming from the enemy.  So you've done a good job of describing how do you know that it's that? And let's say there's a human aspect here too. There are three sources of this, or there are two sources of this kind of thing, the demonic and us in a destructive way. Personally, I don't care what the sources, right? So you've said, well, how do you know if it's a demon of discord? And I could say, well, how do you know if a person's off base, right? Either way, the answer is the same. And the way you deal with it is the same. Yes. Right. So let's talk about how you deal with it. Right. So I think the way you deal with it is to do what St. Paul said. In conjunction with the passage you quoted a minute ago, which is taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. So what does that mean? It means that we recognize the movement that's happening, right? We recognize the disposition that's emerging in us. We think about our thinking. We identify the problem. And in Jesus name, we renounce it. Right, right. I think it's absolutely. And I think it's important. Often we can find ourselves right in the middle of it. And it's like it happens so quickly. Yeah, that you're going, Okay, what just happened? Right. You know, why am I feeling this revulsion? What you know, what's happening here? And so we need to step out of the situation and get somebody else's perspective. A holy person, a spiritual director, a priest, a holy friend, right? Not a gossip. Not a gossip. But but this is what I'm experiencing. This is what these were my thoughts. This is what's happening. This is the fruit of it. I mean, this morning, I ended up on a phone call with someone that's very dear to us. Because I called her and I said, this is what I'm experiencing in this situation. I need your perspective. I need your discernment standing on the outside. And it was a beautiful, hopeful thing for me. And it's something that I'm going to take into my prayer for the rest of lent, right? And that's rule number 13 of St. Jesus discernment. Shining the light on it, right? And I think the biggest difficulty is stepping aside, understanding nothing is urgent. Only the enemy thinks everything's urgent. He makes everything urgent. He makes it, you know, it's like, do it now. Fix it now. You've got to say something. You have to fix this, right? Yeah, happens all the time. And it was a longstanding pattern with me. The enemy would start to mess. And he would insist that I needed to act right away. Yeah, right away. I had to fix it. And that is straight from the pit of hell. Right because when when we go into that, then we can no longer discern, we can no longer think thoughtfully about how I need to approach this. What's a holy way to approach this? How do I solve this problem? Or this discord or this whatever it is, right? This unity that's happening in a holy way, and in a way that builds a bridge over which truth can pass. Love can be, you know, given and received in the true sense of the word, right? Not in a touchy feely way, but in the true sense of authentic love, and be able to bring peace, you know, his peace into it. So I think it's discernment, self control, time to reflect and think, and then shining the light on the situation and getting somebody else's perspective, especially if you feel yourself just being sucked in to a situation. And there's a book I wrote on this called spiritual warfare and the discernment of spirits on how to do this, how to understand discern, know what to do, how to respond, how to react, how to not get sucked into these conflicts, or sucked into thought patterns that are destructive to spiritual warfare and discernment of spirits, you can get it at EWTN's religious catalog. And if you buy it from them, two things happen. They will actually send you the book, and you'll help their mission, which is very good stuff. Yeah. The next question, kind of similar. But you've dealt with this a ton, like you are like queen expert of the universe on this. I'm going to ask you to go I'm not I'm not a queen of anything, except for I'm a daughter of the king. That's it. Okay, so here's the question. How do demons of conflict work on a spouse who is struggling with her, his or her role in an unequally yoked marriage? How can one seeking holiness combat this? Oh, yeah. Well, fascinating question. You know, say it one more time. So how do demons who are causing conflict work on a spouse who's struggling with his or her role in an unequally yoked marriage? How can one seeking holiness combat this? So I quite were to reword it, I would say, what is the normative pattern of demonic influence in unequally yoked marriages? And how do you deal with this? Probably a way to yeah, so we're going to we're going to focus on the spouse that is seeking the way of the Lord, which is probably the one who asked the question, right? Right. Because that's what I'm what I'm hearing. And when we talk about unequally yoked marriages, it's where one person is fully vested into seeking the Lord and trying to follow the Lord in all that they do think, behave, right? And then a spouse that is not there, right? The opposite. Right. And that's a biblical term, if you're right. So just to make, you know, to give people some context, if they haven't heard that before. So the way the enemy works is, well, he always works in one of three ways. So if we consider, if we take how the Lord works, right, recognizing the Lord's voice and his movements, he draws us to faith, hope, and love. The enemy draws us to doubt, despair, and narcissism. So the opposite of faith is doubt. The opposite of hope is despair. And the opposite of love is not hate. It's narcissism. Okay. So when we are drawn to doubt, I don't think this marriage is going to work. I don't think he loves me. I don't think he cares about me. You know, he's, I don't think he's ever going to come to God. I don't think God's working in his life, you know, XYZ, right, doubt, despair, hopelessness, just wanting to give up and, you know, all of those things. And then narcissism, what about me? What about my feelings? You know, what about what I want? That's a huge one. What about what I want, you know? And I remember even hearing somebody years and years ago, as I was going through my own difficulty, because I think, you know, most of our listeners may know at this point that you and I are the Brady Bunch. We both went through annulments. And by God's mercy, we were brought to healing and through that annulment process and when we're able to get married in the church. But I remember somebody saying to me in the past, when I was going through all those difficulties was, you know, you deserve something better. Right. Right. You deserve to be happy. You deserve blah, blah, blah. Well, you know, I don't know that I deserve anything. That's narcissism. Right. Narcissism, feeding the narcissism, right? Right. So those are the ways that the enemy works is to constantly put up a barrier of suspicion, of hopelessness, of lovelessness. And especially with the narcissism, it causes us to turn in on ourselves. And we no longer want to serve the other. We no want to no longer want to reach across to love. And the thing is, is to follow Christ is to be perfectly selfless. And we are here to be the, the, the helpmate of our spouse, and to be subject to one another as Christ was subject to his parents in Nazareth, you're right, in Bethlehem. Yeah. So that means I give myself away for you and you hopefully give yourself away from me. And in that, we serve the Lord. That's what we're called to even if the other spouse does not respond. Yeah, that was good. I'm glad you kind of brought it to that end. So let's do this. We're gonna go to the break. When we get back from the break, I want to walk through awareness, which is what you just did, understanding and then how you take action. So awareness is what you did thinking about thinking. Now what do we do about it is the question. So when we get back from the break, we'll continue to talk about how the demonic influences our relationships, especially in unequally yoked marriages will be right back. The market said go. This is Dana Stephanie Burke. Welcome back to Divine Intimacy Radio. We're talking about demonic influence on marriage and relationships, unequally yoked spouses. So you have the original origination of the word is, if you have, like I have a photo. So one of our most popular posts in an apostolate va.org is actually the most popular post is on unequally yoked marriages and as a giraffe yoked to a mule pulling a plow. So you have one ends really high up and one ends really low, which means it rubs them both wrong because the gate of a giraffe and the gate of a mule are not the same. And so it's torture for the animals and it can be torture in marriage with unequally yoked marriages is incredibly painful. So before the break, you talked about becoming aware of where these thoughts are coming from. Well, I talked about how the enemy works, right? In an unequally yes, understanding how the enemy affects a spouse in an unequally yoked marriages, marriage, right out to spare narcissism. Now we're going to talk about how to combat that how to deal with it. And I and I want to add to this, you know, I you have to be very careful when you are in an unequally yoked marriage to what sources you listen to and who is speaking into your heart, right? Because the enemy will speak often through people you love very much, who are watching you suffer, and they want you, they just want to ease your pain, right? And they're going to go to the easiest. The path of least resistance that avoids the cross. And the thing is, is salvation does not come without the cross. Yeah, we must embrace our cross and sometimes our cross, like sometimes my cross is in the shape of Dan Burke and has a beard. Whoa, whoa, whoa, right?  So, right? So, you know, we, we just have to, we have to understand that. And one of the best things, and you know, I'm kind of going off here, but one of the best things that you and I ever did, which I thought was really beautiful. And you had read something years ago. And we put it in place in our marriage is we put in hedges. We put in hedges, like a hedge around your house, right? We put a hedge around our marriage. And we committed to one another that the only person that got inside that has hedge was Jesus, our priest. And you and I, that was it. And the priest only in the, in the, in the context of, you know, if we needed to talk to a priest and get, you know, help, right? Nobody else got to speak into our marriage. And we also didn't speak to others about our marriage. So how does that apply to unequally oak though? Because that's, you have only one who's has a good commitment in that sense. Right, right. But as I've spoken to an, like, I countless direct these, right? Yeah, that have been in this situation. You know, if somebody comes to you and says, my husband is a narcissist, my husband is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, my response is, I'm sure that's very painful. The Lord wants to heal you. Yeah, you Lord wants to meet you in this situation. The Lord wants your heart. Oh, but what about my husband? I know, but the Lord is saying I want you. Yeah, because you can't control the other person. All you can control is what I don't want this time to go by because you're giving good advice, but I want to give folks a handful of resources who are in unequally oak marriages. One, spiritual warfare and discernment of spirits will help. Second, for the Gallagher's best book, in my opinion, by a long shot, it's called discernment of spirits in marriage. Right. And what? Well, yes, I love the book. Yeah. But as I said in our series with him, which is a phenomenal, phenomenal book. And I said, the wife is given a complete pass here, father. Oh, because only Mark, she did say it directly. Yeah. Mark in the book is the one with all the problems.  And but also women struggle wing women struggle hugely with discernment. So yes, you know, discernment of spirits. And we have a mini course, a free mini course on this. We did 14 sections with Father Gallagher, who wrote the book out on apostoleeva.org apostoliva.org. It'll be in show notes. Yeah. Yeah. So so in the end, you know, how do you combat this? How do you deal with it? You really need good counsel as in a spiritual director that's burst in in spiritual warfare and discernment of spirits, deep in prayer themselves, people of prayer, that can keep you grounded as it were in on the rock of Christ, right? Not out on the sea of tumult, not on the sand of trying to fix others in your life, but rather going deep in your relationship with the Lord, letting him meet you in that pain, and then offering that to the Lord and and seeking healing in and through him, right? That's where our piece is going to come. And you know what the beauty of that is? And I want every person that is in an unequally yoked marriage to hear this, there is great hope in this, because the Lord's at work in that pain in that suffering in that cross, the Lord's at work, he wants to heal you and meet you there and draw you to himself. And what's so beautiful is that when he does that, you change grace flows and the world changes around you. And, and I have seen countless people come to the Lord in a deep profound way, who have ended up bringing about salvation through Christ into their marriage, healing through Christ into their marriage. It's remarkable. I've seen people deathbed conversions. I've seen marriages be repaired after forced abortion, and, and lack of intimacy after, you know, decades, decades, I've seen complete transformations when whoever is being drawn by the Lord goes deep with the Lord and all of us all in completely in and allows the Lord to heal them. And then they're able to pray more fervently, more efficaciously for the transformation of those around them. And the Lord works in that. Amen. Just it's awesome. Divine intimacy and marriage retreat. When's our next divine intimacy and marriage retreat? We are going to have one actually in November of this year, which is 2022. Right, right? Yeah, tell people. And that one is going to be in the diocese of Arlington, Virginia. We are also going to have one in Hansville. And that one we do yearly at the shrine of the Blessed Sacrament where Mother Angelica is buried, Hansville, Alabama. And we do that when over the weekend, whatever weekend's closest or overlapping with Valentine's Day. Right. And that's really, really great. Folks want to learn this stuff in depth. It's great.  So we have a few men slept in the show. What I want you to do is get personal. And I want you to because I think most of the time it's women who are converted and husbands who are unconverted, even though it goes both ways. I want you to talk about your struggles in our marriage and how you've dealt with them when they occur and related to discernment of spirits and all of that. Because we we have a very happy and good marriage. It first five years was rough. But God be praised the last years have been amazing. What tell what have you done? Like how have you used what you've learned to help the situation? Yeah. Well, God be praised. We had a good, a wonderful spiritual director. Yeah, that led us both. And which is big, you know, I think first was the recognition that we both brought darkness in knew that we were so broken. And we had said our fiat to the Lord huge fiat on both of our sides, all in all in completely in because we were determined to break the pattern of divorce in our family. Yeah. And we desperately wanted to put Christ at the center of our marriage. Yeah. So that's foundational. That's foundational, right? But I couldn't wait on you to get all that right. And you know, my happiness wasn't in I couldn't find my happiness in you. You came to that realization and you accepted that reality. I had to at some point now that doesn't mean it was easy. Right. And I struggled with it. And I did try to make you make me happy. Which never works. It doesn't work. Make you make me happy. That's a good line. Yeah. You know, and and it just you know, it wasn't working.  And then I pursue and blah, blah, blah. And he said, let him go. Stop pursuing. Let him go. Stop pursuing. Stop trying to make him make you happy. Right. And and said, he'll come back. You know, and during and of course, that's a huge cross because you're feeling miserable at the time. And you just want to you want to relieve the pressure and the pain. So you just want to talk until you're blue. And that doesn't help because it just drives the other person crazy. And allowing that space was important. Allowing you to go was important and give you time to process and then come back to talk about it. Now, God be praised, you were in spiritual direction. So that was helpful. But what I had to do in that moment was embrace my own cross of needing to fix and drive to resolution. And I needed to deny that in myself to die to that in myself and offer it to the Lord. That's one thing. Another very, very specific. Go ahead. So the enemy would propose to you. Yes, you need to fix this. Yes. And something you revealed earlier and now now urgent, urgent, urgent. Right. So okay, and watch the clock. Yeah, I'm watching it urgency and improvements, by the way. Right. And just because you think somebody something does not mean that it should come out of your mouth. You could say that a many times. Yeah, just because you think of something doesn't mean it should come out of your mouth, especially to your spouse. You must treat your spouse with respect. And if you are driven to imprudence, to harsh words, to physical violence, to any of those kind of things, that's not of God. That's demonic. And you need to die to yourself a million times in that and not let that come forth and seek healing. Because that's that's an indication that you need healing. You know, the last thing I'll say about this, and this was huge for me, is I pursued God with all that I was, you did. I can bear witness to that with all that I was, I was so pained over my divorce. So pained at the at the damage it had done to my kids. So pained at the misery that it was causing that I was determined to be healed.  And I had said, Lord, if you are real, take over my life, and I will do whatever you ask of me. I made that promise and I meant it. And it changed the course of my life. If you want to know how to do that, you want to know how to follow up on everything we've talked about on the show, apostoleva.org, A-P-O-S-T-O-L-I-V-I-A-E.org, lots of free courses, lots of resources. And with that, we got to run. So we got to get close to show. Okay. Until next time, may the God of peace make you perfect in holiness. May he preserve you whole and entire spirit, soul and body, irreproachable with the coming of our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen.


Good evening. We want to welcome everybody to the Mitchell Boulevard area, water and sewer improvement, community design meetings. If you already have questions and you can see the screen, you can go down to the chat in the bottom right hand corner and type in your questions. Once we are done with the presentation, we will field those chat questions first. If you do not want to put your question in chat, we will also take the call and users once the presentation is over. And we want to welcome anyone from the two neighborhood associations to the meeting. We will have this PowerPoint and PDF form on the project page. So, if you've missed the meeting, you can go to the project page. And I'm going to hand this over to Pratima. She is your project manager. Thank you, Sally. This is the agenda for today's meeting. I'm going to provide introduction of the project team. I'll provide your project overview, project area. We'll discuss some of the frequently asked questions and we'll talk about the project timeline. My name is Pratima and I'm the project manager for this project. My phone number is<PHONE_NUMBER>. An email is Pratima.Paudel at phototexas.gov. Baird Hampton and Brown INC is the engineer, design engineer firm for this project. And Austin Baird is with us today. Why are we doing this project? City of Fort Worth prioritizes replacing water and sewer lines that have high risk of failure. Risk of failure is determined based on various available data such as water main break history, leak history, CCTV inspection data, if it is a sewer line, age of the line, line material, if the line has the late services or if the line is the cast iron line. These high risk of failure lines were selected on this project just because they have the high risk. Existing water main will be replaced on five streets and existing sewer main will be replaced on one street and in two easements. This project is in area bound by Canberra Court and Cub Park to the west, U.S. Highway 287, Martin Luther King Jr. Freeway Service Road to the north, Bentley Street and U.S. Highway 287 to the east and Eastbury Street to the south. This project is in Council District 8. The construction will impact the new Mitchell Boulevard Neighborhood Association and United Communities Neighborhood Association. The project area includes restaurants, businesses, churches and homes. Now the black lines you can see over here are the streets and the easements where we are going to replace the water and sewer mains. The first one is a Mitchell Boulevard. We are going to replace the water to water mains, 24 inch and 8 inch water mains on the Mitchell Boulevard from Berry Street to the Bedecker Avenue. On the Richard Legacy Lane we are going to replace water main as well and the limit of replacement is from Canberra Court to the Mitchell Boulevard. On the Eastbury Street we are going to replace the water main as well and the limits of replacement is from Mitchell Boulevard to the Bentley Street. On the Bentley Street we are going to replace the water main as well and the limit of replacement is from Berry Street to the Highway 287 Service Road. And we are going to replace the water main on the Highway 287 Service Road as well. This one over here and the limit of replacement is from Bentley Street to the West Hill Road. We are going to replace three segments of the sewer lines in this project. The first one is an easement between Tannis Avenue and Strong Avenue. This one over here and the limits of replacement is from Thrall Street to about 375 feet west. The second one is another this one easement between Bruton Avenue and Tannis Avenue. The limits of replacement is from Thrall Street to about 330 feet west and the third segment is over here on the Thrall Street and the limits of replacement is from this easement over here to the 287 Service Road. Now we will discuss some of the frequently asked questions. The first one is will our water be turned off? Water will be turned off for 15 to 30 minutes when service is transferred from the existing water line to the temporary water line and when the service is transferred back from the temporary water line to the newly constructed lines. The switchovers are done during the daytime. The contractor will knock on the door and let the customers know when the water will be turned off. The transport typically takes about 30 minutes per house or business. How does the temporary line impact my home and water bill? The temporary water line ensures that you are not without water during construction. In the summer months, the continuous flow keeps the water from being stagnant in the ground above in the ground line. During the winter months, water must be continually flowing through the temporary line to keep the line from freezing. Customers would also keep their faucets dripping. The bill for your water uses while you are on the temporary line is based on an average of previous months uses. Will you need access to our property? Construction will be in the streets and easements. If photo water needs access to your property, we will contact you beforehand. If an easement is needed on your property, a city land agent will be contacting you soon. Will our sewer service be disrupted? The temporary sewer service will not be disrupted. New sewer cleanouts will be installed at the property line. The sewer cleanout provides crews easy access if there is a backup or blockage. The sewer line from the cleanout to the house is owner's responsibility to maintain. Will I have access to my driveway? And City Inspector will be assigned to the project when we are ready to start the construction. The inspector and the contractor will work with residents who need driveway access during active construction hours.   Will there be lane closure during construction? Yes, there will be lane closure during construction. There will be lane closure sign posted to allow the motorist. What are the construction hours? The hours of construction are 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday. And if requested by the contractors, sometimes we allow them to open Saturdays too. And the hours for Saturdays are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., 4 or 5 p.m. This project is still in design phase. We expect to finalize the design, advertise for a bid and select a contractor before spring of 2023. We'll host another community meeting just like this after we have a contractor on board. Where can I get more information? You can go to the web page www.phototexas.gov and tap in the project number 103467 in the search bar on the home page. Mitchell Avenue area water and sewer improvements will pop up. To get project page updates, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on subscribe to this page. The link to the project summary frequently asked questions will be linked to the same project page. How do I report an emergency or non-emergency? If you have any emergencies or not emergencies, you can call the number<PHONE_NUMBER> and select option one for the emergency service, which is a 24-hour service. You can call the same number for the non-emergency services as well. You can also download the app, my FW app from the App Store or Google Play. You can report sewer overflows, leaks and water main breaks, missing or broken meter lake, water violation, no water service, water pressure issues or any other water sewer related concerns through the app as well. Again, my name is Pratima Paudel and my phone number is<PHONE_NUMBER> and email is pratima.paudel at phototexas.gov. Where Hampton and Brown is the design engineering consultant for this project and asking where is the project manager from the BHB. With that, this presentation is complete. If you have any questions, please go ahead. Thank you, Pratima. Leigh-Anne, do you have a question? I'm sorry. Leigh-Anne, do you have a question? Okay. All right. We talked about this before we started. There's going to be a PDF of this PowerPoint that will be added to the project page. Can you go back to that slide? There you go. That'll be on the project page. We also do written summary FAQs in both English and Spanish and that will also be added to the project page. Pratima, can you give us an idea of when we might do a construction meeting? So, there is a text. We need a text. permit for this project. So, that is what we are trying to coordinate with Texas. I'm sorry, text. So, as I said, we are trying to going to advertise it before spring of 2023. So, if we do that sometime in spring, we'll have a construction meeting again. Okay. So, thank you for joining us, Leon, and we'll come back to you when we get to the construction phase. Thanks, everybody. Thank you, everybody.