JAJA OF OPOBO: THE LIFE HISTORY OF JAJA OF OPOBO

 JAJA OF OPOBO: THE LIFE HISTORY OF JAJA OF OPOBO.

Mbanaso Ozurumba Okwara was born around 1821 in Umudoruoha Amaigbo town in south eastern Igbo speaking area presently in Nwangele local government area of Imo State. He was kidnapped at the age of 12 and sold to a powerful slave trader Chief Allison. But due to his insubordination made Allison to sell him out and he was resold to Chief Madu in1833 of the House of Anna Pepple. At the death of Madu, his position went to Aldin his son. But his son was inept and weak and incurred so many debts. By the time he died in 1861, the Anna Pepple House was bankrupt. It was as a result of this vacuum that Mbanaso was chosen to head the House of Anna Pepple unanimously due to his wealth, power and ambition in 1863. 

The charismatic Mbanaso rose to the society through a sheer force of character. He was able to clear off the debt which he incurred from his successor and went further to establish trading relationship with the British Navy officers. He bore an honorific name Jubo Jubogha. He was fondly called by his kinsmen as Jujo whereas the European christened him Jaja thus King Jaja. 

King Jaja was able to register himself within the Niger-Delta as a very wealthy trader in palm oil and a powerful middleman who served as intermediary between the people of Niger-Delta and the European traders. The wealth he made in palm oil arose envy from many other houses and competition ensued from several houses particularly Manilla Pepple House headed by Oko Jumbo. By 1869, war broke out between the two houses and King Jaja secured his independence and moved inland to secure a new land which he named Opobo and took fourteen chiefs from the eighteen Bonny Chiefs and signed a treaty of protection in 1870 with Charles Livingstone. 

According to this treaty, it gave protection to the Opobo also with this treaty he was officially recognised as the leader of Opobo. He got married to several women from different tribes in an effort to strengthen his position. He also understood the importance of education hence he enrolled Mark and Sunday Jaja to study abroad (Scotland). The British official manipulated the rivalry among King Jaja and other Bonny Chiefs by giving them impression that they would secure unalloyed support of the British if they allow their warriors to be drilled by the British military officers. Through this, the British officials were able to get soldiers to fight on their behalf such as Asante war of 1873. King Jaja sent 105 warriors while Manilla sent 53 warriors to the British. By circa 1875 King Victoria of England gifted Jaja of Opobo a sword in recognition of his military patronage. 

However, the commercial acumen and wealth of King Jaja brought about a lot of jealousy from the locals and the British. First, his position as a powerful middleman meant that the British traders must pass through him before they could procure palm oil. He bought from the hinterland and sold to the British traders for export. His position denied the British a direct access to the hinterland even though the British agents paid their taxes (money and dash) for them to trade along the coastline. This attitude brought him to the collision with the Bitish traders. Thus, on 19th of December 1884 another treaty was signed with Edward Hyde Hewett to allow the British to trade freely. Following the Berlin Conference of 1884/1885 with which the British government got the effective control of Nigeria. With this, the British agents wanted to get rid of King Jaja of Opobo in order to trade with the hinterland freely. 

Hence, by 1887, Edward ordered all the British agents to stop paying taxes to King Jaja of Opobo. In that same year, he went on a sick leave allowing the impatient Henry Hamilton Johnson to deputise him as the acting consul of the Bight of Benin and Biafra. Johnson continued to have disagreement with King Jaja. 

Hence, on the 19th September 1887 King Jaja of Opobo was summoned by Henry Hamilton Johnson on board. He was confronted with a gun boat Hms Goshawk but ostensibly to negotiate trade activities and to end trading conflict or dispute. When he got on board, he was given two options: one to go back to Opobo land and watch it as being bombarded; two to allow himself for trial in Accra. King Jaja chose to go to Accra for prosecution. He was tried in Accra in the Gold Coast (now Ghana) then exiled, first to London, and later to Saint Vincent and Barbados in the British West Indies. His presence in the West Indies was alleged to be the cause of civil unrest, as the people of Barbados, of African descent, were upset at the poor treatment of a King from their homeland.

In 1891, Jaja was granted permission to return to Opobo, but died en route. Following his exile and death, the power of the Opobo state rapidly declined. In 1903 the King Jaja of Opobo Memorial was erected in his honor in Opobo town centre.

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NO WOMEN AT THE BAR: HOW WOMEN MADE THEIR WAY INTO THE LEGAL PROFESSION.

HOW WOMEN MADE THEIR ENTRANCE INTO THE LEGAL PROFESSION. 

There was a popular saying that; “There is no women at the bar”. This arose from a long time discrimination of women in the legal profession. According to kingsleynapley blogs “What is the basis for a legal ruling that a woman is not a person for the purposes of a statute?  The starting point is a 14th century law textbook which states that women cannot be lawyers.  Then, a 16th century scholar, Edward Coke, quotes that textbook approvingly but without any other authority.  Three hundred years later, three justices of the English Court of Appeal refuse to interpret a statutory provision to encompass women, on the basis that “no woman has ever been an attorney-at-law.”” Until 1922, in Britain there were no women in the legal profession because they were not regarded as “person” under the Solicitor Act of 1843. [1] Section 2 of the Solicitors Act provided that “No person shall act as an Attorney or Solicitor […] unless such Person shall after the passing of this Act be admitted and enrolled and otherwise duly qualified as an Attorney or Solicitor, pursuant to the Directions and Regulations of this Act.”

In 1913, there was a case of Bebb v Law Society [1914] [1914] 1 Ch. 286 [2] where women vowed against this discrimination and sought that Bebb was a “person" under the Solicitor Acts. Therefore, she was entitled to be called to the bar. Here is the concise fact of the case the year was 1913, and the case was Bebb v The Law Society. Gwyneth Bebb was born in 1889.  She studied jurisprudence at St Hugh’s College, Oxford, and received first-class marks in her examinations, but at that time women were not awarded degrees and so she did not formally graduate.  In 1913, along with Karin Costelloe, Maud Ingram (later Maud Crofts), and Frances Nettlefold, Bebb applied to the Law Society to sit the preliminary examinations, with a view to becoming a solicitor.  The Law Society returned her fee, informing her that if she presented herself for examination, she would not be allowed to take it, since as a woman she could not be admitted as a solicitor of the Supreme Court.

Bebb and her fellow applicants brought an action against the Law Society.  In her suit, she asked for a declaration that she was a “person” within the meaning of the Solicitors Act 1843.  The case was dismissed by the High Court in July 1913 and so Bebb went to the Court of Appeal, which heard her case in December of 1913.

Bebb’s Arguments

The Solicitors Act 1843 came into force as part of a wider process of greater regulation of the legal profession. Section 2 of the Solicitors Act provided that “No person shall act as an Attorney or Solicitor […] unless such Person shall after the passing of this Act be admitted and enrolled and otherwise duly qualified as an Attorney or Solicitor, pursuant to the Directions and Regulations of this Act.”

Furthermore Section 48 of the Solicitors Act provided that “every word importing the Masculine Gender only shall extend and be applied to a Female as well as Male […] unless in any of the Cases aforesaid it be otherwise specially provided, or there by something in the Subject or Context, repugnant to such Construction”.

The issue in Bebb’s case therefore, was whether there was any reason why the word “person” in Section 2 could not be interpreted to include women.

Counsel for Bebb, Lord Robert Cecil KC, argued that by virtue of these provisions, women had a right to be admitted unless there had been an absolute rule of law disqualifying them; he submitted that there was no such statute.  By contrast, women had acted as attorneys for their husbands in the reign of the fourteenth-century King Edward III (in the sense of acting on their behalf, presumably because their husbands were abroad, fighting the Hundred Years’ War); women were now permitted to practise as solicitors overseas; the recent trend of legislation had been to open opportunities to women.  Counsel concluded, “There is no reason in the nature of things why women should not practise, and the plaintiff is a particularly capable person”.

The justices disagreed (although they did recognise the ability of Gwyneth Bebb).  The statute could not be interpreted to include women, despite what it said in plain text, because women had never been allowed to be attorneys.  There was not enough in the statutes to show that the legislature intended, by their provisions, to open the profession to women.

The Judgment

The Master of the Rolls, Cozens-Hardy, went first.  He considered that there was nothing in the Solicitors Act which destroyed or removed the existing disability (used here in the sense of a disqualification or prohibition) of women to practise as solicitors.  The question in the case, therefore, was whether such a prohibition was in place at the time the Solicitors Act was passed.  His conclusion; that there was.  No woman had been an attorney-at-law, or had applied or attempted to be an attorney-at-law, and that this was the “long uniform and uninterrupted usage” which established a principle at common law that a woman could not be an attorney-at-law.  It was not for the courts to legislate on the matter, but for Parliament.

Lord Justice Swinfen Eady followed.  He set out a history of the regulation of the profession .  Like his brother judge, he remarked that “no instance of a woman attorney has […] as far as it is known, ever existed” and “From that time continuously to the present, there is no instance of any woman being an attorney” and this raises a presumption of what the law is on the matter.  He was satisfied to rest his interpretation of the Solicitors Act upon “the inveterate practice of the centuries”.  Like the Master of the Rolls, he concluded that “if there is to be any change from the ancient practice, it is a change which must be effected by Parliament, and the law must be altered”.

There was to be no dissent from Lord Justice Phillimore.  It was the justices’ function to declare the law, and common law was to be determined by “what we ascertain to be the received inveterate usage of the country”. Again, the conclusion was ‘that’s just the way it is!’   There had never been a suggestion that the office of attorney was one which was open to a woman.  Not only that, but there was an additional obstacle to female attorneys: married women were not at absolute liberty to enter into binding contracts, and so would be “unfitted either for entering into articles or for contracting with their clients”.  Of course, spinsters were not limited in that way, but “it would be a serious inconvenience if, in the middle of her articles, or in the middle of conducting a piece of litigation, a woman was suddenly to be disqualified from contracting by reason of her marriage”. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court ruled that the right of being called into the Law Society was only given to “a person” which only referred to men. Therefore, Bebbs was not a person and not entitled to be called to the bar.  

Fortunately, in the case of Edward v A.G Canada, [3] the case gave a new definition to the meaning of “person” which encompassed the women in its meaning. The Privy Council ruled that women were also persons and therefore entitled to be called to the bar. This laid a landmark in the history of women in the legal profession and saw to the encroachment of women into the legal profession.   

Thankfully, it was only a further five years before the Sex Discrimination (Removal) Act 1919 [4] declared that “A person shall not be disqualified by sex or marriage from […] entering or assuming or carrying on any civil profession or vocation, or admission to any incorporated society…”, spurred in part by the publicity arising from this case (as well as the up swell in awareness of women’s rights from the Suffrage movements and the role played by women in the Great War).  In 1922 the first women, Maud Crofts among them, passed the Law Society examinations, and on 18 December of that year, Carrie Morrison became the first woman to be admitted as a solicitor in England. Sadly, Gwyneth Bebb was not amongst them.  She had died the year before, aged only 31, from complications arising from her second pregnancy. [5]

Reference 

[1] Solicitor Act of 1843

[2] Bebb v Law Society [1914] [1914] 1 Ch. 286

[3] Edward v A.G Canada

[4] Sex Discrimination (Removal) Act 1919 

[5] https://www.kingsleynapley.co.uk/insights/blogs/giving-something-back/iwd-a-woman-is-not-a-person-within-the-meaning-of-the-solicitors-act-1843-a-review-of-bebb-v-the-law-society-1914-1-ch-286#:~:text=Section%2048%20of%20the%20Solicitors,%2C%20repugnant%20to%20such%20Construction”.

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A WOMAN IN HISTORY: VALENTINA TERESHKOVA.

A WOMAN IN HISTORY: VALENTINA TERESHKOVA

The history of ground-breaking records has always been portraying and glorifying men as the only trailblazers thereby undermining the contribution and impact of the women in all areas of life. The Space Race of the Cold War produced ground-breaking efforts to launch artificial satellites; space probes of the Moon, Venus, and Mars, and human space voyages in low Earth orbit and lunar missions.  In 1961 Yuri Gagarin was said to be the first man to land on space. Also, on 20 July 1969 Neil Armstrong and later Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin become the first men to walk on the Moon while their crewmate Michael Collins continues to orbit the Moon aboard the Apollo 11. In order to make history and to be a pacesetter to the Western countries, Valentina Tereshkova a Russian woman broke a record of being first civilian and first woman in space in the year 1963. The subject matter of this article is to showcase the great outcome of giving women the enabling ground to fully utilize their God-given brilliance and ingenuity. This article focuses on the ground-breaking record of Valentina Tereshkova. Note however that this work is base on research done on Wikipedia and other sources. 

Valentina Tereshkova was born on 6 March in 1937 in the Bolshoye Maslennikovo, a village on the Volga River 270 kilometres (170 mi) northeast of Moscow and part of the Yaroslavl Oblast in central Russia. Her parents had migrated from Belarus. Her father, Vladimir Tereshkov, was a former tractor driver and a sergeant in command of a tank in the Soviet Army. He died in the Finnish Winter War during World War II when Tereshkova was two years of age. He and her mother Elena Fyodorovna Tereshkova had three children. After her father's death, her mother moved the family to Yaroslavl, seeking better employment opportunity, and became employed at the Krasny Perekop cotton mill.

Tereshkova was first enrolled in school at age 10 and graduated at 17. She began working at a tyre factory, and later at a textile mill, but continued her education by taking correspondence courses and graduated from the Light Industry Technical School in 1960. Tereshkova also became interested from a young age in parachuting, and trained in skydiving at the local Aeroclub, making her first jump at age 22, on 21 May 1959. While still employed as a textile worker, she trained as a competitive parachutist, keeping this a secret from her family. Tereshkova also joined the local Komsomol (Communist Youth League) in Yaroslavl, serving as the secretary of the organisation in 1960 and 1961. She became a member of the Communist Party in 1962.

Tereshkova had not had any desire to go into space before being recruited. Rather, her experience at skydiving contributed to her selection as a cosmonaut. After the flight of Yuri Gagarin in 1961, Nikolai Kamanin, director of cosmonaut training, read in the American media that female pilots were training to be astronauts. In his diary, he wrote, "We cannot allow that the first woman in space will be American. This would be an insult to the patriotic feelings of Soviet women." Approval was granted to place five female cosmonauts in the next group, which would begin training in 1963. To increase the odds of sending a Soviet woman into space first, the women cosmonauts began their training before the men. The rules required that the potential cosmonaut be a parachutist under 30 years of age, less than 170 cm (5 ft 7 in) in height, no more than 70 kg (154 lb) in weight. By January 1962, the All-Union Voluntary Society for Assistance to the Army, Air Force and Navy (DOSAAF) had selected 400 candidates for consideration. After the initial screening, 58 of those candidates met the requirements, which Kamanin reduced to 23. On 16 February 1962, Tereshkova was selected, along with four other candidates, to join the female cosmonaut corps.

Since they had no military experience, they started with the rank of private in the Soviet Air Forces. Training included isolation tests, centrifuge tests, thermo-chamber tests, decompression chamber testing, and pilot training in MiG-15UTI jet fighters. Tereshkova underwent water recovery training at sea, as part of which several motorboats were used to agitate the water, in order to simulate the rough conditions of space travel. She also began studying at the Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy and graduated a few years after her flight. The group spent several months in basic training and, after they finished their training and passed an examination, Kamanin offered them the option to be commissioned as regular Air Force officers. With advice from the male cosmonauts, they chose to accept Kamanin's offer, as it would make it harder for the program to get rid of them after the first flight. All five women became junior lieutenants in the Air Force in December 1962. Tatyana Kuznetsova became ineligible for the first flight due to illness, and Zhanna Yorkina was performing poorly in training, leaving Tereshkova, Irina Solovyova, and Valentina Ponomaryova as the leading candidates.

After the successful launch of Vostok 5 on 14 June, Tereshkova began final preparations for her own flight. On the morning of 16 June 1963, Tereshkova and her backup Solovyova were both dressed in spacesuits and taken to the launch pad by bus. Following the tradition set by Gagarin, Tereshkova also urinated on the bus tire, becoming the first woman to do so. After completing her communication- and life-support checks, she was sealed inside the Vostok. After a two-hour countdown, Vostok 6 launched faultlessly, and Tereshkova became the first woman in space; she remains the only woman to have flown into space solo, and, at 26 years of age, the youngest. Her call sign on this flight was Chaika (Russian: Чайка, lit. 'Seagull'); in commemoration, this name was later bestowed on an asteroid, 1671 Chaika. After her launch, she radioed down: “It is I, Seagull! Everything is fine. I see the horizon; it's a sky blue with a dark strip. How beautiful the Earth is ... everything is going well.”

Vostok 6 was the final Vostok flight and was launched two days after Vostok 5 which carried Bykovsky into a five-day mission. The two vessels spent three days in orbital planes 30° apart and, during Tereshkova's first orbit, approached each other to within 5 km (3.1 mi). Although they were able to communicate by radio, neither could be sure if they saw each other. Cameras placed inside both the spacecraft transmitted live footage that was broadcast on Soviet state television. Tereshkova also maintained a flight log and took photographs of the horizon, which were later used to identify aerosol layers within the atmosphere.

Valentina Tereshkova has been honored with numerable international and national awards. Many streets both in Ukraine and Russia are named after her. More so, she has served in various Russian government offices based on election and appointment.  She epitomizes and utilizes the ingenuity, intelligence, bravery and the inbuilt capacity endow in women to undertake and participate in all human endeavors previously assigned to men. 

African women should be given the necessary and enabling environment and facility to utilize their natural endowments without any restriction whatsoever. 

OLAWUNI SAMUEL IDOWU. 

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THE NAME JESUS CHRIST.

 

 

THE NAME JESUS CHRIST.

Have you ever  heard, seen, touched, tasted, felt, watched, eaten, loved, understood, grasped, emotionally attached, heart-felt, read, enjoyed, empowered, saved, emancipated, minded, enlivened, comforted, sung, enlightened, embolden, helped, delivered, enlivened, engraced, unburdened, enclothed, mercied, praised, worshiped, honoured, remembered, thought about the name Jesus Christ before?

The sweetest name.

The most wonderful name.

The most mighty name.

The most gracious name.

The most merciful name.

The most pleasant name to hear.

The most powerful name.

The most dreadful name.

The only name that saves.

The only name that  leads to Heaven on the right hand side of the Father.

The only name to SALVATION.

The only name that delivers.

Is there any other name than this beautiful name?

Is there any other powerful name than this name?

Is there any other  name that can save than this name?

Is there any other name so sweet as this name?

Is there any other name that can deliver  than this name?

Is there any other name that can be loved  than this name?

Is there any other name under heaven that can give power  than this name?

Is there any other name either on earth or in heaven so lovely than this name?

Is there any other name so praise worthy than this name?

Is there any other name to be worshiped than this name?

Is there any other name that can give knowledge than this name?

Is there any other name that can make men wise  than this name?

Is there any other name that can make men foolish  than this name?

Is there any other name so thought provoking than this name?

Is there any other name that can comfort men than this name?

Is there any other name so comforting than this name?

Is there any other name so marvelous than this name?

Is there any other name so dreadful than this name?

Is there any other name more gracious than this name?

Is there any other name more pleasant to hear than this name?

Is there any other name more merciful than this name?

Is there any other  name that can save than this name?

Is there any other name?

Is there?

If there is, where is it?

Or where are they?

Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.

The name was JESUS CHRIST❣️❣️

The name is JESUS CHRIST❣️❣️

The name would be JESUS CHRIST❣️❣️

The name shall be JESUS CHRIST❣️❣️

©️ Sanafflatus ❣️❣️

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LET GIVE BASSA CHILDREN A FUTURE

 

 

Education came to Africa and other part of the world by the virtue of the Christian missionaries who God used. Thank God for that! Presently, you and I are the pristine and vibrant missionaries who God is using to continue spreading the Light around the world.

 Arishi is a remote village in Nassarawa State, Nigeria. The village comprised of two loving tribes Bassa and Afor. These tribes have been living together in harmony for several years. The people of Arishi are loving, hospitable and accommodating. The VOLUNTER TEACHERS NETWORK BASSA OUTREACH can attest to their topnotch hospitality and friendliness. The VOLUNTER TEACHERS NETWORK (VTN) is an arm of the SOWERS INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION which engages in teaching and salvation of souls of children. While SOWERS is the parent body organization that deals in preaching the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ to the unreached around the world.

Furthermore, talking about the people of Arishi, what a loving people! They are receptive to changes and development. The major occupation of the people of Arishi is farming. This is because the village is blessed with arable and vast area of land for farming. They cultivate all kinds of crops such as rice, maize, beans, yam, groundnut, soybeans etc. Do you know that the people of Arishi farm from 6am to 6 pm? That’s shocking and surprising!  The VTN witnessed this during their last outreach over there. Moreso, Arishi village is made up of about hundreds of population of which the high percentage of it is children and teenagers. These children and teenagers are full of intelligence, creativity and potentiality. To the glory of God, quite a number of the people of Arishi have accepted Christ as their personal Lord and Savior through the preaching and demonstration of the power of God by the missionaries over there.

 Despite all these, this village does not have any structure called a school. A village in which the high percentage of its population is children and teenagers. This is surprising! This village needs a standard school. We know that education is invaluable in this current dispensation and that education is pivotal in shaping the future. The school in other villages is 2 hours on bike to get to and about 4 hours on foot. That sounds difficult, risky and stressful! Can you imagine a village where children and teenagers make up the average population does not have a school! This is alarming! School must be established in Arishi village by God's grace. Funds and sponsorship are needed to achieve this. A vast area of land is readily available for this. The small cash in your hands can go a long way in achieving this mission of building a school in Arishi. Mobilization and publicity are also needed too.

Let God uses you in any of this area for the accomplishment of this vision:

Ø  Sponsorship

Ø  partnership

Ø  funds raising

Ø  Mobilization

Ø  Publicity.

 

Pay into: 100103410 keystone Bank.

Sowers theatre ministry

For more enquiry

07068483050, 08156817205

www.sowers intl. org

 

And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. Gal6:9

#LETGIVEBASSACHILDRENAFUTURE!

#LETDOITFORTHELOVEOFCHRIST!

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NEW GAME.

THIS TIME AROUND A NEAT GAME.

No more a dirty game again.

No more dirty players again.

No more dirty referee again.

No more dirty commentator again.

 

No more dirty announcer again.

It's high time the dirty players ran far away from the game.

Because no more dirtiness in the game again.

Let's change the rule of the game.

 

Let's change the setting of the game.

Let's change the players of the game.

Let's change the officials of the game.

Let the new momentum circulate around.

 

Let the pristine momentum of the game resonate round the audience.

Let new players come to the new location of the game.

Let the new officials take full control of the game.

 If you can't beat them, you join them to bring the much desired change.

No more dirtiness in the game again!

SANAFFLATUS

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EXPERTISE AND GOD'S HELP.

 

EXPERTISE AND GOD'S HELP.

Psalms 127:1-2(A Song of degrees for Solomon.)

"Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain."

Judging by what is written above, there seems to be some professionals being talked about. These professionals are learned, well-educated, savvy, knowledgeable and are expert and authorities in their areas of expertises.

Without mincing words, we all have an idea of what professionals can do. They can do and undo in their various areas of expertises. Hmmmm.. They are guru. They know the in and out of their works.

Imagine telling an expert and professional that he's unlearned in his field. To create a better picture of this scenario, "Ben Carson does not know anything about surgery neither can he do anything therein". Hmm... What a cheap joke! Ben Carson, the great and successful surgeon ever produce in surgery. A force to reckon with.

There are experts, professionals, well learned people in various areas of their expertise. They are well known and they have performed many successful operations in their fields of expertises such as: making new discoveries, being cited as authorities, inventing new things, laying down new irrefutable laws and principles, breaking records etc.

Professionals and experts indeed! The above words of King David, vividly tell us that without God's help or involvement in these experts works, the outcome will be fruitless and unproductive.

No matter how well you are good at a particular thing, my bro and sis, without God, your expertise, efforts, toiling, sleepless night will be fruitless.

 Let's not be too wise, knowledgeable, savvy and expert to remove God from our endeavors.

Father Lord, I pray for your infinite grace and help in all my endeavors.

Help me Lord!

SANAFFLATUS. 

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