Compared to Nigerian legislators, Indian lawmakers are paupers

A comparative analysis of Nigerian legislators‘ earnings and those of other countries reveals that the former can pay many of their counterparts in other countries and still remain very rich, NNAEMEKA MERIBE and GBENGA ADENIJI write.

An Indian lawmaker needs to work for at least 49 years to earn the annual salary of a Nigerian senator. A lawmaker in India earns $23,988 (N3.7m) per annum while a Nigerian senator earns $1.2m (N182m) per annum. A monthly breakdown shows that while an Indian lawmaker earns $1,999 (N305, 058) per month, a Nigerian senator earns $ 99,167(N15.18m) per month.

The Indian lawmakers‘ pay is also a far cry from what members of the House of Representatives earn. THE PUNCH reported last week that each member of the House of Representatives takes home N10.59m every month. Thus, a federal lawmaker in India will work for at least 34 years to earn the N127m annual salary of a member of the House of Representatives.

In fact, the pay of Indian lawmakers was only increased to the current level in August, after the legislators complained that their earlier monthly pay of $345 (N52, 648) was inadequate.

The jumbo pay of Nigerian lawmakers has been in the front burner in recent times, with the Nigerian public criticising it as outrageous. It is doubtful if the salaries and entitlements of National Assembly members had ever raised as much dust.

It was the legal icon, Prof. Itse Sagay (SAN) who first drew attention to the abnormality in August when he delivered a lecture on “Legislating for Common Good: Contemporary Issues & Perspective” during the celebration of the 47th birthday of the Lagos State Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr. Opeyemi Bamidele.

Sagay told his obviously stunned audience that in spite of Nigeria‘s position as one of the world‘s poorest nations, with a meagre per capita income of $2,249 per annum as against $46,350 of the US, the nation‘s federal lawmakers were the highest paid in the world, with each earning more than President Barack Obama of the US.

And the constitutional lawyer had facts and figures to back his statement. He said that a Nigerian Senator, in 2009 earned N240m in salaries and allowances while his House of Representatives counterpart earned N203.8m.

With the dust raised by Sagay‘s revelation yet to clear, the Governor of the Central Bank, Mallam Lamido Sanusi, upped the ante while delivering a lecture, late November at the convocation ceremony of Igbinedion University, Okada, Edo State. He disclosed that 25 per cent of the overhead of the nation‘s budget goes to the NASS.

Sanusi‘s disclosure was like a blow below the belt for members of NASS. They accused Sanusi of inciting the public against them with false figures and summoned him to appear before them on different days to clear the air on his statement and also apologise to them.

But the turn of events did not rattle Sanusi, as he stood his ground when he appeared before them, insisting that he got his figures from the right source and that there was no need for him to apologise since he did nothing wrong.

But a critical analysis of the lawmakers‘ pay will reveal a huge disparity between their pay and the N18,000 (monthly) national minimum wage which state governments are yet to implement.

The least paid worker in the country, at the contentious N18,000 minimum wage earns N234,000 per annum if the 13th month extra pay is added. This means that the least paid worker in the country earns just 0.13 per cent of a senator‘s salary. Such a worker will also need to work for at least 777 years to earn a senator‘s N182m annual pay.

A further breakdown reveals that a senator earns N498, 630. 137 a day, N20,776.28 per hour and N346.270 per minute. In other words, a senators daily pay is two times more than the annual pay of the least paid Nigerian worker. A senator’s hourly pay is also more than the monthly pay of the least paid worker in the country.

Similarly, the least paid Nigerian worker earns just 0.18 per cent of a member of the House of Representatives’ pay. Such a worker will also need to work for at least 542 years to earn the N127m annual salary of a member of the House of Representatives.

A member of the House of Representatives earns N347, 945 per day, N14, 497 per hour and N241 per minute. In other words, the daily pay of a member of the House of Representatives is more that the annual pay of the least paid Nigerian worker. Also, the monthly pay of the least paid Nigerian worker is slightly above the hourly pay of a member of the House of Representatives.

A comparison with the pay of five other countries reveals that the pay of Nigerian lawmakers is indeed outrageous.

The minimum wage in the United States is $1,257 (N191,667) and a US lawmaker earns $15,080 (N2.3m) per month. This shows that the least paid worker in the US earns 8.67 per cent of the total pay of the country‘s lawmaker. Thus, a US legislator will need to work for over six years to earn the annual pay of a Nigerian legislator. The US lawmaker will also need to work for over four years to earn the annual pay of a Nigerian House of Representative member.

In the United Kingdom, a lawmaker earns $8,686(N1.3m) monthly while the gross national minimum wage is $1,883 (N283, 333) per month. Thus, the percentage of a UK lawmaker‘s pay that is the salary of the least paid UK worker is 21.68 per cent. This, like that of the US (8.67 per cent) is much higher than Nigeria‘s 0.13 per cent/ 0.18 per cent.

Also, Nigerian lawmakers earn higher than their counterparts in Sweden. With a monthly pay of $7,707 (N1.2m), a lawmaker in Sweden will need to work for over 12 years to earn a Nigerian senator‘s annual pay of N182m, and for at least nine years to earn the N127m annual pay of a House of Representatives member.

In France, the minimum wage is $1,805 (N275,433) per month and a legislator earns $6,754 (N1.03m) monthly. Thus the least paid worker in France earns 26.73 per cent of the pay of a lawmaker in that country as against Nigeria‘s 0.13 per cent/ 0.18 per cent.

Like Nigerian lawmakers, Kenyan lawmakers are also believed to be greedy. In July, the Kenyan public protested against a hike in the salary of the legislators. The lawmakers hiked their salary to $14,583 (N2.2m) per month. And with the minimum wage in the country at $69.17 (N10,555) per month, the least paid worker in the country earns 0.43 per cent of a legislators pay. But this is still better than Nigeria‘s 0.13 per cent/ 0.18 per cent.

Many Nigerians have been speaking against the jumbo pay of the lawmakers. On Tuesday, Lagos lawyer and human rights activist, Mr. Femi Falana, while addressing the members of the Edo State branch of the University of Ibadan Alumni Association, called on Nigerians to resist the jumbo pay.

A former member of the National Assembly, Prof. Sola Adeyeye, in an interview with THE PUNCH, said that the nation was beset with the calamity of legislation being turned into “legislooting.”

He lamented that the Nigerian politicking has become a brazen exercise in elite parasitism. He said, ‘‘Statecraft has degenerated into do-or-die power merchandising that turns senators into “stealators” and representatives into ”representa-thieves!”

Also, President of the Campaign for Democracy, Dr. Joe Okei-Odumakin was of the belief that the lawmakers had not justified the pay. Speaking in an interview with THE PUNCH, she called for a constitution-backed downward.

Perhaps, what these Nigerians want is what lawmakers in Venezuela did in December 2009. They passed a law prohibiting the President, judges and top government officials from earning above $6,750 (N1.03m) a month.

Walk faster and live longer

A new study indicates that you can live longer if you walk faster, NNAEMEKA MERIBE writes.

How often do you take a walk? If you walk less often or not at all, you may be reducing your chances of growing old. Scientists say that by simply taking a half-hour walk five times a week, you can reduce your risk of early death by almost 20 per cent.

But how fast you walk may determine how long you will live. According to scientists, walking speed can be a useful predictor of how long you may live. The faster you walk, the longer you may live, they say.

A 12-year period study of 8000 men in Honolulu, United States, found that walking just two miles a day cut the risk of death almost in half. The study reported in the January 8, 1998 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine found that the walkers’ risk of death from cancer was especially lower.

Those who walked infrequently were about two and a half times more likely to die of cancer than were the two-mile-a-day men. These were men age 60 and above who appeared in good enough health to be able to walk. Those who did walk were less likely to die in the 12 years that followed.

Walking is also a fantastic preventative medicine as well as a good treatment for ailments. More medical research findings keep supporting this more and more each day.

For instance, it has been found that it reduces the risk of glaucoma. Dr. Michael Passo of Oregon Health Sciences University found that starting a walking program lowered the intraocular pressure of 40 sedentary individuals, which decreased their risk of glaucoma. He has found that exercise also lowers the pressure for those with glaucoma.

An optometrist at the Mercy Eye Hospital, Dr. Kelechukwu Ahaiwe, agrees with Passo’s findings. He says that studies have proved that walking for 30 minutes or more four times a week like other aerobics (exercises that use oxygen) like biking and swimming helps to lower intraocular pressure as it reduces pressure of blood in the veins around the eyes, thereby helping circulation to the optic nerves. This, he says, is good for people with primary open angle glaucoma. However, he warns that walking and other recommended aerobics should not take the place of medication but should only complement drug therapy.

Researchers at the University of Tromso, Norway, found that physical activity like walking during leisure time and at work was associated with a reduced risk of breast cancer, as reported in the May 1, 1997 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. The survey of over 26,000 women confirms several earlier epidemiologic studies on the benefits of moderate exercise in preventing breast cancer.

Scientists also found that exercise like walking can reduce the side effects of high dose of chemotherapy. This was reported in a study at Freiburg University Medical Centre in Freiburg, Germany, and published in the May 1, 1997 issue of the journal, Cancer. While the study was small, its results were impressive, according to Wendy Bumgardner in her article on the health benefits of walking published on www.about.com.

Bumgardner also points out that a large study of 80,000 men and women in the Scandinavia in the 1970s uncovered the role of walking and other exercise in preventing colon cancer. Moderate recreational activity was enough to bring a 40 per cent reduction in the risk of colon cancer among women. Only those men who were over 45 at the time of entry into the study clearly benefited from physical activity when it came to colorectal cancer. The theory, she notes, is that walking, by increasing the speed up the passage of ingested foods through the colon, gives less time for carcinogens in the food to be in contact with the intestinal lining. Cancer was most reduced for the beginning (proximal) portion of the colon, less for the end (distal) portion of the colon and little or no effect on rectal cancer risk.

However, you might just live longer if you walk faster. Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh found that walking speed can be a useful predictor of how long older adults live.

Those who walked one meter per second (about 2.25 mph) or faster consistently lived longer than others of their age and sex who walked more slowly, the study published on the January 5, 2011 edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association shows.

“We’re able to show that a person’s capacity to move strongly reflects vitality and health,” says study researcher Dr. Stephanie Studenski, a professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh.

However, the researchers also emphasise that the purpose of this study isn’t to get people to walk faster in hopes of living longer.

“Your body chooses the walking speed that is best for you, and that is your speed, your health indicator,” Studenski says. “And that’s what it really is: an indicator. Going out and walking faster does not necessarily mean you will suddenly live longer. You still need to address the underlying health issues.”

The researchers showed they could reliably predict the 10-year survival rate of a group of people based on how fast they walked along a four-meter track.

The walking speed for those with the average life expectancy was about 0.8 meters per second (about 1.8 mph) for most age groups of both sexes. Walking speed was a more accurate predictor of life expectancy than age or sex, the study showed.

The numbers, according to the online health news portal, www.myhealthnewsdaily.com, were especially accurate for those older than 75. This suggests that for older people, walking speed could be a sort of “vital sign,” like blood pressure and heart rate, the researchers say.

“When you think about it, a sick person would not have that certain spring in their steps. Therefore, it should not be surprising that walking speed can provide a simple glimpse into aging and health status,” notes Studenski.

The findings were based on analysis of nine previous studies that examined the walking speed, sex, age, body mass index, medical history and survival rate of almost 34,500 people.

The way we walk and how quickly we can walk depends on our energy, movement control and coordination, which, in turn, requires the proper functioning of multiple body systems, including the cardiovascular, nervous and musculoskeletal systems, Studenski tells MyHealthNewsDaily. Because of this, researchers have associated walking speed with health in the past.

“But in the past, we simply knew that walking faster was better,” says Dr. Matteo Cesari, who wrote an editorial accompanying the new findings, but was not involved in the study.

“This study provides us the numerical basis to estimate survival for each walking speed measured on an older person,” Cesari said.

“When we measure, for example, blood pressure, we need a cut-off point to understand whether it is normal or not. Similarly, we now have a cut-off point to understand whether the overall health of a person is normal for his/her age by simply testing their walking speed,” Cesari tells MyHealthNewsDaily.

Studenski says this finding will have many practical applications. It is a quick and inexpensive way for seniors to gauge their own health. Similarly, doctors can monitor and remedy their patients’ quality of life based on this. Walking speed, and in turn, mobility, will be a useful way to measure whether someone is still maintaining a healthy, active and independent lifestyle.

Similarly, findings from a research by Eleanor Simonsick, a Baltimore, US-based epidemiologist, indicate that there is a relationship between walking speed and longevity.

Simonsick and a group of scientists assembled 3,075 seniors in their seventies and asked them to traverse a 400-meter course, walking as fast as they could. They monitored their subjects’ health over the following six years, during which time 430 of the geriatrics died and many more fell ill.

Analysis of the data showed that those who were died and those who got sick were those who walked the slowest. For every minute longer it took someone to complete the 400-meter walk, he had a 29 per cent higher chance of mortality and a 52 per cent greater chance of being disabled. People who walk faster live longer—and enjoy better health in their later years.

“Walking speed absolutely reflects health status,” The New York Magazine quotes Simonsick as saying.

The political economy of coaching the Super Eagles

                 

The horrendous performance of the Super Eagles in the last World Cup in South Africa has once again led to the search for a coach for the senior national team, which has, since 2002, been performing below the expectations of football-loving Nigerians.

The story of how the Nigerian Football Federation fired Coach Shuaibu Amodu and hired a foreign coach just few months before the global soccer fiesta, and where that action led us to are well known. However, the dithering of the soccer authorities in appointing a substantive coach for the Eagles since its all-knowing but underperforming and highly-paid foreign coach, Lars Lagerback, went AWOL, has only reminded one of the politics cum economics of coaching the Eagles.

In fact, the position of the Super Eagles’ coach is a highly politicised one. Every Nigerian seems very interested in who takes charge of the team. Whether the coach is local or foreign, a lot of politics is involved. The only difference is that when the coach is local, the dimension of the politics usually takes the pattern of the larger Nigerian politics.

Anyhow, any coach who seeks to get and retain the Super Eagles job will have to know the power blocs in Nigerian football and device a clever and effective means of dealing with them, as his relationship with each bloc will determine how far he will go in getting the job or getting on, on the job. None of the power blocs is unimportant and ignoring any may deny him the job or earn him a sack, if he was eventually employed.

The presidency, the NFF, the sports minister, the governors, the ex-footballers, the mafia in the team, the sports writers cum football analysts and even the fans constitute the numerous power blocs. Also, a candidate for the Super Eagles coach job must not be greedy. He must learn how not to ‘chop alone’ and be magnanimous enough, while negotiating his salary, to reserve a monthly percentage for the NFF egg heads. This is important as it has cost many qualified candidates the job. Glenn Hoddle is a living witness.

At least, since the resurgence of the Eagles in African soccer in 1988, this has been the trend. Recall that the Eagles went into a sort of hibernation after winning the African Nations Cup in 1980. The team could not go beyond the preliminary stage in the AFCON of 1982, even though it got to the final of the championship in 1984. However, the team could not even qualify for the next AFCON which was hosted by Egypt in 1986.

Perhaps, it was that shock that led to the 1988 resurgence. With a certain Manfred Hoener in charge, the team dazzled Africa in Morocco in 1988 but was arguably denied the chance of winning AFCON a second time by the poor decision of the referee that handled the final against the Indomitable Lions of Cameroon.

The Eagles playmaker, Henry Nwosu, had scored a beautiful goal, which was disallowed by the referee. Cameroon later won the match through a penalty kick converted by her best all-time player and African legend, Roger Milla. But many believed that had the goal not been disallowed, the outcome of the match would have been different.

However, Hoener’s training regime, which the Eagles’ mafia considered too demanding, and the poor performance of the Eagles in the 1988 Olympic Games, led to his sacking and the appointment of Paul Hamilton as interim coach. Hamilton, however, surprised everybody by putting up a strong performance in the qualifiers of the Italia ’90 World Cup. He put together a crack team made up of mainly players from Hoener’s Maroc ’88 squad and the talented but unlucky Chile ’87 U-20 squad put together by the late Chris Udemezue.

The team was doing well, and was, in fact, at the top of its group until the foreign-is-better mentality of the nation’s soccer authorities led to the appointment of the Dutch coach Clemens Westerhof in 1989. That appointment was later to disrupt the team’s rhythm and Cameroon qualified from the group for the next round of the qualifiers.

However, the Dutchman later became the nation’s most successful coach. He understood the politics of Nigerian football. He knew that the nation’s football authorities could, for the sake of lining their pockets, do anything to scuttle the smooth ride of the national teams. Therefore, he found a way to bypass the then Nigerian Football Association by becoming close to the then Vice-President and Games Master General of the Federation, Admiral Augustus Aikhomu.

Aikhomu gave him all the political and economic backing he needed to succeed and, fortunately, he led a predominantly home-based Eagles to a runners-up position in the 1990 AFCON and a third place in 1992. He won the 1994 AFCON for Nigeria and also qualified Nigeria to her first World Cup — US ’94. He, however, quit his job immediately after his World Cup success.

Enter Shuaibu Amodu. He led the Eagles to a couple of games but was later sacked because of his poor understanding of the power relations involved in coaching the team. He dared the then Sports Minister, Chief Jim Nwobodo, and got the boot.

But before Amodu got the boot, a certain Brazilian, Carlos Alberto Torres, was employed as his boss, but after penning a deal with the NFF in Lagos, the man went back to Brazil and never returned. A few days in Nigeria gave him an insight into the high-level politics that characterised the Eagles job. He wasn’t a good cut out for it, hence, he never returned to Nigeria.

With the sack of Amodu, however, Bonfrere Jo, a Dutch, was contracted to handle the team. Bonfrere, who was a Man Friday of some sorts to Westerhof, discharged his first assignment to the admiration of everybody. He led the U-23 national to win gold in the soccer event of the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta Georgia, USA. But because his understanding of the politics of Nigerian football was very shallow, unlike his countryman, Westerhof, he resigned in Atlanta.

To fill the vacuum created by Bonfrere’s exit, the NFA hired Frenchman Philippe Troussier, who once handled the Ivorian national team. Troussier did a good job, or so it seemed, as he led Nigeria to qualify for the 1998 World Cup before any other country save the host, France and the defending champions, Brazil.

But Troussier was sacked despite his success. His then ‘strange’ 3-5-2 formation could mean some members of the mafia of the time losing their places in the team. Consequently, they moved against him and he was fired.

Troussier was replaced by Bora Milutinovic, a Serbian, who understood very well the economics of coaching the Eagles. He just came in, took the Eagles to the 1998 World Cup, ‘settled’ those who facilitated the job for him and went his way immediately they were knocked out of the tournament in the round of 16 by Denmark.

With the exit of Milutinovic, a huge amount of money was ear-marked by the NFA for three of its own (later known as the three wise men) to scan the whole of Europe for a world-class coach. After junketing Europe, the group finally ‘arranged’ one Thijs Libregts, who was enjoying his retirement in Holland, as the Eagles coach. Libregts, however, did not last on the job, as, apart from underperforming, he was not quick in learning the politics of keeping his job.

All those who came after Libregts— Bonfrere (a second time), Amodu (a second, third and fourth time), Adegboyega Onigbinde, Christian Chukwu, Berti Vogts and Lagerback all got their jobs or got fired because of their dexterity in dealing with the soccer power blocs. Amodu got fired in 2002 for aligning with the team’s mafia and ignoring the then sports minister, the late Ishaya Mark Aku. Berti Vogts (in 2006) and later Amodu (early this year) were sacked for not impressing the fans and the sports writers. And Lagerbackcould not return to his job after the last World Cup because he was afraid of facing the fans.

But Lagerback must be commended for his negotiation skills. Indeed, his agents prepared him very well and he learnt fast—that is if the revelation of English coach, Glenn Hoddle, is anything to go by. Hoddle, who was interviewed by the NFF alongside Lagerback, told of how he was asked to tip a certain power bloc or forget the job. He tipped no one and it cost him the job. In other words, Largerback who got the job, must have tipped someone.

As the ritual of getting a new coach for the Eagles continues, any coach who desires the plum job must recognise the ‘pre-eminence’ of all the power blocs and pay homage accordingly. For instance, the fans’ love for a coach is not enough to land him the job. Ask Samson Siasia.

Spouses who quarrel live longer —Study

Studies suggest that couples who suppress their anger die earlier than those who express it, NNAEMEKA MERIBE writes. Quarrelling with your spouse may be the key to your longevity, researchers say. The conclusion seems irrational but that is what findings from a study of married couples suggest.

According to researchers from the University of Michigan, United States, couples who bottle up their anger die earlier than expressive couples.

In other words, fighting is a good way of releasing the pent-up frustrations induced by marriage.

“When couples get together, one of their main jobs is reconciliation of conflict,” online science news portal, www.livescience.com quotes researcher, Ernest Harburg, a professor emeritus with the University of Michigan School of Public Health and Psychology Department, as saying.

Thus, while conflict is inevitable, the critical matter is how couples resolve it. “The key matter is, when the conflict happens, how do you resolve it?” Harburg says. “When you don’t, if you bury your anger, and you brood on it and you resent the other person or the attacker, and you don’t try to resolve the problem, then you’re in trouble.”

The findings are consistent with past studies which suggest that arguments and the release of anger can be healthy. For example, one study reveals that when people are angry they tend to make better decisions, perhaps because this emotion triggers the brain to ignore irrelevant cues and focus on the meat of the matter. Another study suggests that a little arguing now and then is good for you, if done for the right reasons.

A marriage therapist, Mrs. Mopelola Ogunlusi, agrees that quarrels are inevitable in marriage, insisting that spouses who bottle up their anger are likely to divorce early or even die early.

Ditto for a psychiatrist, Dr. Adeoye Oyewole. He says the absence of quarrel in marriage can lead to mental illness and anxiety disorders.

Harburg and his colleagues suggest a combination of factors to explain the higher mortality for couples who don’t express their anger. These include “mutual anger suppression, poor communication (of feelings and issues) and poor problem-solving with medical consequences.”

Over a 17-year period, Harburg and his colleagues studied 192 married couples aged between 35 and 69, focusing on aggressive behaviour considered unfair or undeserved by the person being ‘attacked.’ Harburg said that if an attack is viewed as fair, the victim doesn’t tend to get angry.

Based on the participants’ anger-coping responses to hypothetical situations, Harburg placed couples in one of four categories: both partners express their anger; the wife expresses anger; the husband communicates anger while the other suppresses; and both the husband and wife brood and suppress their anger.

The study which appears in the Journal of Family Communication finds that 26 couples, meaning 52 individuals, were suppressors in which both partners held in their anger. Twenty-five per cent of the suppressors died during the study period compared with about 12 per cent for the other remaining couples.

The results held even when other health factors were accounted for, including age, smoking, weight, blood pressure, bronchial problems, breathing and cardiovascular risk.

Harburg says the results are preliminary, and his team is collecting 30-year follow-up data. He expects the follow-up to show almost double the death rate compared with the preliminary findings.

Anger, according to a 2005 research based on face reading published in the journal, Biological Psychiatry, is good for you, as long as you keep it below a boil.

People who respond to stressful situations with short-term anger or indignation have a sense of control and optimism that lacks in those who respond with fear.

“These are the most exciting data I’ve ever collected,” livescience.com quotes Carnegie Mellon psychologist, Jennifer Lerner, as saying.

Lerner harassed 92 University of California, Los Angeles students by having experimenters ask subjects to count backward on camera by 13s starting with an odd number like 6,233, telling them it was an intelligence test and then telling them they weren’t counting fast enough and to speed it up as they went along.

Wrong answers meant subjects had to start all over again. Another test involved counting backwards by sevens from 9,095.

The video cameras caught subjects’ facial expressions during the tests, ranging from deer-in-the-headlights to seriously upset. The researchers identified fear, anger and disgust using a psychologist’s coding system that considers the flexing of particular sets of small muscles in the face.

The researchers also recorded people’s blood pressure, pulse and secretion of the high-stress hormone, cortisol, which can be measured in the saliva and collected with a cotton swab.

The people whose faces showed more fear during the exercise had higher blood pressure and higher levels of the hormone. The findings were the same for men and women.

Lerner previously studied Americans’ emotional response to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks two months afterward and found that anger triggers feelings of certainty and control. People who reacted with anger were more optimistic about risk and more likely to favour an aggressive response to terrorism.

So, in maddening situations in which anger or indignation are justified, anger is not a bad idea, the thinking goes. In fact, Lerner says that it is adaptive and is a healthier response than fear.

However, chronic, explosive anger or a hostile outlook on the world is still bad for you, as research has shown that it contributes to heart disease and high blood pressure.

Also, a little arguing now and then is good for you, if done for the right reasons, according to a study presented in August last year at the 11th annual convention of the American Psychological Association.

The study shows that when people experience tension with someone else, whether their boss, spouse, or child, sidestepping confrontation could be bad for their health. Avoiding conflict was associated with more symptoms of physical problems the next day than was actually engaging in arguments. Bypassing bickering was also associated with abnormal rises and falls of cortisol throughout the day.

“Relationships have important influences on how we feel on a daily basis, especially the problems in our relationships,” says study researcher, Kira Birditt, of the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. “How we deal with problems affects our daily well-being.”

Ogunlusi, who is the managing director of a Lagos-based matchmaking agency, Romeo and Juliet, says that couples who fight and resolve their differences themselves tend to last in their marriage and also live longer.

She says, “It is better for couples to quarrel and settle their differences by themselves. They can even exchange blows. As long as they can resolve their differences, there is nothing bad about it. What is bad is for them to quarrel without settling their differences.

In fact, a home where couples do not fight and resolve their differences is usually dull and unhappy. “The spouses will be unhappy and it is easy for them to seek divorce or die of heartbreak,” she says.

For Oyewole who is a consultant psychiatrist at the Ladoke Akintola University Teaching Hospital, Osogbo, spouses who fight tend to be b healthier mentally and physically.

He says, “I think the researchers do not really mean physical fight but arguments, hot arguments. You see, marriages that allow all parties to express their opinions tend to last longer.

“But when spouses bottle up their feelings it may lead to mental disorders and eventually death. Sometimes you hear people say that they have not quarrelled with their spouses for over 20 years but in reality what has happened in such marriages is that one party has been suppressing his or her anger for over 20 years and this is not healthy.”

How cell phones spread diseases

The cell phone may have revolutionised communication but it has also revolutionised disease transmission.

You may not agree with this but because cell phones go from pocket or purse to hand and to face, they are uniquely capable of spreading diseases quickly.

The now indispensable gadget that connects us to the rest of the world has been found to be unequalled when it comes to collecting and disseminating germs, bacteria and viruses.

Germ studies conducted by Dr. Charles Gerba, a professor of environmental biology at the University of Arizona, United States, found that cell phones are among the dirtiest surfaces we touch everyday. Others are, desktop surfaces, keyboards, mice, fax machines, copy machines, and toilet seats. And they all contain germs that can make us sick.

Mike Elgan in the article, Your cell phone is dirtier than a toilet. Here‘s help!,‘ published on www. blogs.computerworld.com, explained why cell phones are germ breeders. According to him, ”Cell phones are constantly coming into contact with both hands and mouth. When they‘re not, they tend to be tucked away in pockets, a nice, warm environment that promotes the growth of microorganisms.”

In his 2006 study, samples were collected from private offices and cubicles in office buildings located in Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oregon and New York City. A total of 113 surfaces were tested and analysed at the University of Arizona laboratories.

The germ count found that cell phones contained 25,127 germs per square inch compared to 20,961 germs per square inch found on desktop surface and 3,295 germs per square inch found on keyboard and 1,676 on mouse and the 49 germs per square inch on toilet seat.

Gerba, who is referred to as ‘Dr. Germ’ in his television appearances, revealed on CBS Morning Show in November, 2009 that he once tested 25 mobile phones and found the staph bacteria growing on almost half of them. The staph bug can cause skin infections and meningitis, among other maladies.

When he appeared on Good Morning America in 2006, he tested a soundman‘s phone and determined there were 10-50 million bacteria on his phone (he described it as “the dirtiest phone I had ever tested.”)

According to the online healthcare magazine, www. selffundingmagazine.com, during his more recent visit to CBS, Gerba proved that there were 261 bacteria on the surface of correspondent Kelly Wallace‘s cell phone.

Gerba said, however, that flip phones have more germs because they don‘t dry out as well as other phones, thus leading to moisture which tends to attract and hold more germs.

When concerns about cell phones and bacteria surfaced a few years ago in the United Kingdom, Dr. Emily Senay, a medical correspondent for CBS News’ The Early Show, advised “the first thing we should do all the time, whenever we’ve gone to the bathroom or cooked in our kitchen or shaken hands with somebody, is wash our hands. Washing your hands is a great way to reduce all sorts of infections.”

Speaking on the issue, spokesman for Public Health Dayton and Montgomery County, US, Mr. Bill Wharton, was quoted by the Dayton Daily News as explaining, “During the course of the day, you touch countless surfaces that are contaminated. What you touch isn‘t nearly as important as whether you wash your hands.”

He said that 15-20 seconds of lathering a couple times per day, especially before meals, was the best way to keep the germs from your cell phone and everything else you touch from getting into your system and making you sick.

Elgan, however, said there are several things you can do to protect yourself and others from your own cell phone. Apart from advocating hand washing, he said the easiest thing to do is to frequently clean your phone with rubbing alcohol.

But Wharton insisted that nothing can be better than hand washing-not even hand sanitisers

“Those are meant as an option when you don’t have access to soap and water,” he said.

Dr. Tony Aluka, a consultant family physician, however, observed that everything boiled down to improving our personal hygiene, even as he agreed that regular washing of hands with soap and water could prevent infections.

He said, “Hand-washing is a very effective method of infection control. People should learn to form the habit of washing their hands at intervals because everyday we touch many things that harbour bacteria.

Some companies have also introduced wands designed for sterilising handsets. But experts also advise that you can also use a Bluetooth headset most of the time, to minimise the mouth and hand contact with the phone.