Ina Emmanuel

THE DIARY OF AN  ALMAJIRI ( By Japheth Prosper ) ® www.emmanuelina.blogspot.com Life as an almajiri in Kano was very tough. I could still remember how we went about in tens begging for alms and food. It’s really not a life anyone should live. I lived it years ago and could still tell exactly how it hurts; the memory of it and the hellish experiences we had to bear. Almajiri life isn’t a life. It’s like being dead-alive. I lived that life. I was ten when I decided to remove the cloak of destitution and face life squarely. It still remains the turning point in my life and the wisest decision I’d ever taken. I could still remember vividly what led me to take such a decision one afternoon. It was at Sabon Titi Kano. We were nine in number. We had trekked all the way from Bida Road. Ali, my best friend was saying something about how very unfair it was that girls were not allowed to wander about begging as boys did. He said something about girls being lucky and fortunate because ...

 George Stinney Jr. was the youngest person sentenced to death in the 20th century in the United States. He was only 14 when he was executed by electric chair. During his trial, until the day of his execution, he always carried a bible in his hands, claiming for innocence. He was accused of killing two white girls, Betty of 11 years old and Mary of 7, the bodies were found near the house where the teenager resided with his parents. At that time all the jurors were white. The trial lasted only 2 hours and the sentence was handed down 10 minutes later. The child's parents were threatened and prevented from giving him gifts in the courtroom and then expelling them from that city. Before the execution, George spent 81 days without being able to see his parents. He was trapped in a solitary cell, 80 km from his city. He was heard alone without the presence of his parents or a lawyer. He was electrocuted with 5,380 volts in the head. 70 years later, his inn...

September marks the 350th anniversary of the Great Fire of London, a blaze that destroyed more than 65,000 homes and 13,000 buildings including the Royal Exchange and the original St Paul’s Cathedral. In the early morning hours, the Great Fire of London breaks out in the house of King Charles II’s baker on Pudding Lane near London Bridge. It soon spread to Thames Street, where warehouses filled with combustibles and a strong easterly wind transformed the blaze into an inferno. When the Great Fire finally was extinguished on September 6, more than four-fifths of London was destroyed. Miraculously, only 16 people were known to have died. The Great Fire of London was a disaster waiting to happen. London of 1666 was a city of medieval houses made mostly of oak timber. Some of the poorer houses had walls covered with tar, which kept out the rain but made the structures more vulnerable to fire. Streets were narrow, houses were crowded together, and the firefighting methods of the day ...