“Music is in my family. My mother was a musician. My elder brother had a musical band and my younger brother was a bass guitarist for my elder brother. My sister was a leader in a musical group and so, music is my family. I have always enjoyed dancing from the James Brown days. I can still do the ‘camel walk’ and glide both ways. In fact, when James Brown came to Nigeria in 1970, I was working then at Auchi High Court. I came to Benin to watch James Brown live in 1970. I called James Brown my elder brother and gave myself a ‘guy name’ – ‘Mike Brown [MB]’. When Jimmy Cliff came to Benin too, I was there. I like music. Like I said, I can do Zanku, and my ‘carry body and gbese’ are not bad at all” – Prof. Paul O. Idornigie.
He arcs his upper body forward and stomps on the ground rapidly in harmony with the beat. Repeatedly, he taps his feet, with hands projecting forward like someone slicing. Then he finishes with one foot thrust as if to knock down a door; all the while, displaying vigour and attitude. His dexterity on the dance floor is as excellent as his academic prowess. Beginning life as a Typist Grade III, Prof. Paul Idornigie, tells Law & Society’s Lillian Okenwa the story of a Typist who rose to the dizzying height of three careers and more – Chartered Secretary, Professor of Law, Senior Advocate of Nigeria and Chartered Arbitrator.
L&S: Tell us about your childhood
Answer: I was born in a village called Ayogwiri-Izairue, Etsako West Local Government Area of Edo State on 24th February, 1951. I’m second to the last of my parent’s children. I had a memorable childhood and I enjoyed village life. At night, they gathered us and very interesting stories were told – real stories by moonlight. We played at night and after school if we didn’t go to the farm, we played football. At that time too, the road to my village was not too good so we played along the road especially at night. It’s not like now that the road is tarred.
I also enjoyed going to the farm because everything was in the farm. Everything was in the farm. We had a functional hut in the farm where we slept sometimes for as long as seven days. Around the hut we had vegetables which were cooked every day and we set traps. So ‘bush meat’ was not in short supply. Soup was cooked every day and nothing was preserved till the next day – no need for refrigerators or freezers. We were very strong and healthy – worked in the rain and sun. I am sure that if there was COVID-19 then, it would have been scared of our farm and hut!!!
Sometimes we spent two to three days in the farm working and then returned home. Most times after school, you will not find anybody in the house. But when you go to the farm, everybody and everything was there. The nearest medical centre in the village was a Dispensary where almost every medicine was in a big bottle. The main sickness then was either belly ache or head ache.
Life in the village is not so again now, because those in the Village are very lazy. We used to go to the farm very early and almost daily apart from market days and Sundays. We left home as early as 7am and not until about 4pm before we returned. Now they go to the farm by 7am and by 9am they are back, so why won’t there be hunger?
L&S: What about the insecurity?
Answer: Insecurity in a village setting? That is recent. I am talking about going to the farm 40 to 50 years ago. The local thieves then focused on yams in the ban and chickens or goats in the village. Village life was very, very sweet growing up. But it’s different now. I still feel that village life prepared me for life in the city. My dad used to say to us that ‘work does not kill’ and that ‘hard work paid.’ As a role model, he was quite hard working. He advised that instead of looking at the size of the work to be done, we should simply bend down and be working. You know farm work essentially involves bending down to dig ridges and heaps or harvest. So today, I can sit down to work without looking at the size of the work.
L&S: Apart from your academic portfolio, you happen to be a good dancer.
Answer: Yes, I started dancing quite early. There were no stereos then but we had gramophones. I still remember one called ‘His Master’s Voice’ that had a needle for playing the records. I still remember also artists like Dele Ojo, IK Dairo, Sunny Ade, Ebenezer Obey and later Victor Olaiya, Victor Uwaifo, Rex Lawson, Stephen Osita Osadebey, among others. We danced ‘twist’, ‘akwete’, ‘palongo’, ‘rock steady’, ‘reggae’, ‘ekassa’, among others. Today, I think that I am still current as I can do ‘Zanku Dance’ especially when I am listening to Burna Boy (ft Zlatan) doing ‘Killin’ Them’.
L&S: How do you learn and do it so well?
Answer: Music is in my family. My mother was a musician. My elder brother had a musical band and my younger brother was a bass guitarist for my elder brother, my sister was a leader in a musical group and so, music is my family. I have always enjoyed dancing from the James Brown days. I can still do the ‘camel walk’ and glide both ways. In fact, when James Brown came to Nigeria in 1970, I was working then at Auchi High Court. I came to Benin to watch James Brown live in 1970. I called James Brown my elder brother and gave myself a ‘guy name’ – ‘Mike Brown [MB]’. When Jimmy Cliff came to Benin too, I was there. I like music. Like I said, I can do Zanku, and my ‘carry body and gbese’ are not bad at all.
If I didn’t go to school, I would probably have been a dancer, or I would have been a musician. In fact, when I was in Jos, I was a part time DJ in the University of Jos Staff Club. I’ll tell you why I had to slow down. When one of my friends in Jos wedded in 1981. I was the DJ at the bachelor’s eve. I went to a party in Abuja some time in 2014 where I met a son from that wedding where I was a DJ and I said no, it’s time to quit, time to slow down. And again because of my kids – they are big now; you go out and they start asking you about your children and all that and all that. But I like dancing any day.
L&S: Did your background in commercial and secretarial studies influence your interest in commercial law?
Answer: You know, and this is very interesting. As a young man in Benin, then, my ambition was to qualify as a Chartered Secretary. That’s all I wanted. I went to England in 1983 and I qualified in 1986 and returned in ’86. So by 1986, I achieved my life ambition. Anything that I acquired since 1986 is the Lord’s doing. We give God the glory and honour. But because I was trained by the University of Jos in the UK, I was bonded to serve the University for five years. I came back from the UK in 1986 and in 1987 the University of Jos started the Evening Law programme. So I said well, while serving my bond, let me be doing law. I had worked at Auchi High Court in the 70s but I had no inkling as to whether I would ever read law though I also had a guy name then – Lord Obingo of the High Court.
The Evening Law Programme was like a play thing. I just said while serving my bond let me read law and of course, as a Chartered Secretary, I was already a qualified Company Secretary. Besides, as a confidential secretary, I was used to running and organizing offices and while at Auchi High Court, I assisted lawyers in preparing court processes. Indeed at Auchi High Court, I could draft any pleadings and affidavits. Eventually the aim was to qualify as a Legal Practitioner and when this is combined with my chartered secretarial background, I will qualify as a Legal Adviser/Company Secretary. Now when I was doing my Company Secretarial training in the UK, I was strong in Commercial Law. Commercial Law or Business Law was one course. Under the Company Secretarial Stream, it was one course and under it was the Law of Contract, Law of Agency, Sale of Goods, Negotiable Instruments, Arbitration, Insurance Law, among others. Now when I read law in the University of Jos, these were individual Commercial Law courses but they were not as deep as one course called Commercial Law in the UK. So when I read law, it was a walk over for me in all the commercial subjects.
When I finished the first degree programme in Jos, and I came back for Masters, I did my LLM in the area of Company Law. My thesis was titled: “The Codification of Duties of Directors under CAMA.” You know directors’ duties were essentially common law duties before CAMA. In fact, Nigeria is about the first country to codify common law duties in relation to duties of directors. I did my PhD in International Commercial Arbitration. When I was teaching in Jos, I taught Sale of Goods. When I was teaching at the Nigerian Law School, I taught Company Law and Law of Evidence. Then when I came to BPE in 2002 my background in company secretarial practice and law became handy.
I was Head of Secretariat (Company Secretary) – the Secretariat of the National Council on Privatization (NCP) headed by the Vice-President and General Counsel (Legal Adviser) from 2004 to 2009. Being a General Counsel at BPE exposed me to pure Commercial Practice, because, at BPE, I was involved in transactions across all the sectors of the economy – oil and gas, mines and minerals, roads, rail and ports, power and essentially both hard and soft infrastructure. For instance, I was involved in the concession of the Ports in Lagos, Port Harcourt, Warri and Calabar. I was involved in the drafting of all the lease agreements.
I was also a signatory to the contracts with the Director General. I was involved in the sale of NICON Hilton, NICON Insurance and NICON Luxury. I was involved in the liquidation of Steel Rolling Mills in Jos, Katsina and Osogbo; Nigeria Airways and Fertilizer Company at Onne. I did Ajaokuta, Itakpe and Delta Steel. The other luck I had was that in Jos in my final year at the University, I did both Private International Law and Public International Law. So when I was working in BPE as General Counsel, Private International Law was very handy.
L&S: What is the difference between Public and Private International Law?
Answer: In terms of Public International Law, we are talking of state to state transactions. But Private International Law has to do with state to private citizens. When I was negotiating contracts in BPE, there was always the problem of how to determine the governing law of the contract. If a Nigerian and a Ghanaian or a Nigerian and a Briton, or a Nigerian and an American or a Nigerian and a German for instance entered into a contract, which law governed it? That’s the Private International Law. It’s also called Conflict of Laws. My background in Jos, studying Private International Law helped. I owe a lot to the University of Jos.
I will not forget one transaction I did in the UK. We were trying to privatize the Aluminum Smelting Company (ALSCON) at Ikot Abasi, Akwa Ibom State. At the formation of the company, there were all kinds of contracts that were entered into between the Federal Government of Nigeria and the German entities. These contracts contained several restrictive clauses. One for instance was that, when the plant starts production, they will sell solely to the German companies. When we were going to privatize, there was the need to terminate these formation contracts especially the pre-emption clauses in the articles of association. If we did not do that, no investor would buy the public enterprise, in this case, ASCON. I travelled to the UK with my Director General for the purpose of terminating the formation contracts. Other than myself as a lawyer from Nigeria, there were others lawyers from the UK, USA, France and Germany.
We spent a week negotiating the termination of the contracts. On the last day, the issue of the governing law of the contract came up. All the other lawyers said the English Law would govern the transaction and I was alone as I said it should be Nigerian Law. What I was doing then in BPE was that when negotiating and there is deadlock, I resort to academics. When I found that I was in the minority, I said to them, let’s leave this transaction and look at generally how to determine the governing law of a contract. What are the connecting factors used in the determination of the governing law of the contract? One connecting factor is to look at the place where the contract is entered into. Another is the place where the contract is to be performed. And we can also look at the nationalities of the parties.
But if all these fail, we look at the legal system that has the closest connection with the transaction. I said to them, we were discussing Aluminum Smelting Company in Ikot Abasi, in Nigeria. I told them to focus on the connecting factors. Connecting factor is a factor that links a transaction to a particular legal system. For instance, we were discussing ALSCON in Ikot Abasi. What is the link between ALSCON and English Law? The contract was entered into in Nigeria and performed in Nigeria. The companies used for the transaction were Nigerian companies. I said to them, what is the link between ALSCON and English Law? Then I was not a Professor. I had a PhD, but they were calling me a Professor.
They said, ‘Professor, we agree with you on the legal principle, but we will not accept Nigerian Law as the governing law’. I then retorted: ‘deal breaker’! And my DG held me and said, let’s go on break. You know once you say that, it means the deal is all over. I said to my DG, we’ve been in the UK for one week for the negotiations; the only way I will accept that English Law governs the contract was, we go back to Nigeria and brief the President. If His Excellency agrees, fine, but I could not on my own, being the General Counsel, concede that English Law governed the transaction.
We came back to Nigeria and we did a memo to the President. His Excellency Olusegun Obasanjo was President then. When he saw the memo, he said, Ah! Ah! ‘How can English Law govern this contract’? He said he would refer us to Prince Bola Ajibola, and that whatever advise Prince Bola Ajibola gave he would accept. Prince Bola Ajibola came. He said we should follow him to his hotel at Hilton. He said to me, ‘young man, you know the law, we know the practice. Give me two weeks.’ I said, ‘ok Sir’. So I left him. Three days after we returned from the UK, these guys flew into Nigeria, came to the BPE and said ‘governing law, Nigerian Law’ and signed the contract.
L&S: They came without any prompting?
Answer: Yes. What I do when I want to negotiate with you is, I read my law and I read your own law. I read American Jurisprudence on governing law of the contract and of course, English law and ours are the same, so I was citing American Law to support my position on the issue of the connecting factors. They really had no reply to my position, other than, ‘we don’t want Nigerian Law.” That’s what I gained from studying Private International Law in the University.
At the Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, I taught International Economic Law. That is a blend of Economics and Law. Again, because I did Public International Law of course, I am at home with the principles and today, I am into investment treaty, investment contracts especially at the International level because of my background.
Because my PhD is in Commercial Arbitration, I got involved with the practice of Arbitration and, my focus is commercial arbitration. I do purely commercial arbitration and the subset of that is Investment Treaty Arbitration which is what I am pursuing right now.
L&S: Prof, you’ve reached the zenith of three different careers; Law, Chartered Secretary and Arbitration.
Answer: Yes. When I qualified as a lawyer in 1993, I was still working in the Registry of the University of Jos. In fact, by the time I qualified as a lawyer, I had become a Senior Assistant Registrar in the Registry. But as soon as a qualified I wanted to do two things. I wanted to practice, I wanted to register for LLM, which they wouldn’t allow me to do in the Registry. So I opted to go to the Faculty of Law, University of Jos where as an academic staff, I will register for LLM and practice as well. Now my Registrar said to me, ‘no, don’t go to the faculty. You are already on GL12 as a Senior Assistant Registrar, by next year, I will make you a Principal Assistant Registrar on GL13. Don’t go to the faculty because you’ll be going to start as an Assistant Lecturer on GL9.’ I said sir, ‘can you do me a favour’? ‘Can you make my salary personal to me’?
L&S: What do you mean by making your salary personal to you?
Answer: It meant that if I left on Grade Level 12 in the Registry, they will not touch my salary and my salary will be personal to me and not that of a GL9 officer. He agreed that if that was my wish to go to the faculty, they would make my salary personal to me. That’s how I left the Registry as an Administrator. Now that was one major turning point in my life. When I took that decision in December 1993, I knew that I needed to move from Assistant Lecturer to Lecturer Grade II, Grade I before I get to Senior Lecturer position that was equivalent to my position in the Registry. However, the love of practicing and doing LLM was very, very strong. So in January 1994, I moved to the Faculty of Law, University of Jos as an Assistant Lecturer. I immediately registered for the LLM.
In April 1995 I became a Personal Assistant to the then Honorable Minister of State, Works & Housing and that took me to Lagos. I was in Lagos till October 1997 when the Federal Executive Council was dissolved and instead of returning to the University of Jos as an Assistant Lecturer, I became a Lecturer Grade I at the Nigerian Law School, Abuja where I rose to the level of Senior Lecturer in 2000. Taking that decision to leave the Registry was a major decision that shaped my life.
L&S: What was the reaction of your colleagues at the Registry?
Answer: Some made fun of me. Nobody believed that one could leave GL12 and go start a career on Grade Level 9. I told them that in the Registry there will only be one Registrar, but in the faculty there are many Profs. On reflection, my colleagues at the Registry all retired a long time ago but I have traversed many aspects of the legal profession. I too would have since retired if I had remained in the Registry. I saw more prospects in the faculty than in the Registry. In any case, I was in the University of Jos, where the issue of indigeneship was very strong, so nobody was going to make me the Registrar. I knew that so I wasn’t deluded that if I had stayed they would make me a Registrar.
Like I said earlier, my ambition was to qualify as a Chartered Secretary, so I already had that in my pocket in 1986. By 1998, I was a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Secretaries and Administrators. When I was called to the Nigerian Bar in December 1993, I started a career in Law. Now my PhD was in the area of International Commercial Arbitration. So very unlike my other colleagues in arbitration practice who were litigators, first before they became Arbitrators, I got a PhD in the area before I went to the UK to qualify professionally.
When I started teaching, because I had always been in the University system most of my life – I joined the University of Benin in August 1974; I knew that to progress, I must publish. And I was very, very aggressive. I gave myself a task of having at least 3 published articles every quarter. I was very, very aggressive in publishing, that by the time I applied to be a Professor, I had over 40 publications. By the time I applied for SAN, I had over 80 publications. When I then became a professor, in fact even becoming a professor was through the inspiration of Professor E. Azinge, SAN. When I was still a General Counsel in BPE, Prof. Azinge, SAN encouraged me to become a professor. As a matter of fact, although I was a PhD holder and published extensively, I simply published because I felt I could write.
On leaving BPE in February 2009, my interest was to go into full time consultancy and arbitration practice. However, Prof Azinge, SAN thought otherwise. He had seen my CV and believed that I had a professorial CV. Prof Azinge and I knew ourselves since 1975 in Benin.
L&S: How did you meet Prof Azinge?
Answer: It’s very interesting. The present Vice Chancellor of Igbinedion University, Prof. Lawrence Ezemwonye and I were staying in the same house in Benin between 1975 and 1978. Profs Ezemwonye and Azinge were friends from St Peter’s College (SPC), Asaba. Prof Azinge was coming to visit his friend, Lawrence and that’s how we met. We kept the relationship since then. We attend the same church too, so every Sunday, Prof Azinge would say to me, “Paulo go and get that thing now.” I said what? He said, “Go and take a Chair at any Nigerian University.” It got to a point, I was dodging Prof Azinge in church, because he was encouraging me to go and become a professor. I was not interested. It didn’t come to my mind really that I should be a professor as I was a ‘big boy’ at BPE where I was a Consultant under the Privatisation Support Programme supported first by the World Bank and later by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) – earning first in dollars and later in pounds. When he became DG NIALS, he said ‘Paulo, I’m going to advertise’. He advertised. Many of us applied and came for the interview. I already had a PhD plus publications. I was clearly qualified. That’s how I became a Professor.
Not too long again, he saw me and said, “Paulo, you have to become three things.” I said what again? He said, I must be an SAN, I must be a Chief and I must be a Knight in the church. I said only me? He said: “Yes, you can multitask. Senior Advocate is academic, Chief is in your village and Knight in church. So what’s your problem?” That was how the idea of becoming SAN crossed my mind. I dedicate being a Prof and a SAN to Professor Azinge because if not for him, I didn’t bother. Unfortunately, I am yet to become a Chief or a Knight. You know what? Prof Azinge, SAN has not given up on these as we speak. I believe that I have a dignifying prefix and suffice and do not need any other ‘award’ or ‘installation’. Furthermore the prefix and suffice are earned, not awarded or ‘dashed’.
I qualified as a Chartered Secretary in 1986, became a fellow in 1998, became a Professor in 2009, became a SAN in 2015. Now like I said, I had a PhD in International Commercial Arbitration before I registered with a professional body and eventually became a Chartered Arbitrator in 2016. Prior to this I became a Fellow in 2015. In the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (UK), there are four classes of membership: Associate, Member, Fellow and Chartered. Because of my PhD, I didn’t start from Associate. I started from being a Member then a Fellow and today I’m Chartered. In Nigeria, we are less than 30 Chartered Arbitrators and that is the peak. That’s how I got to the peak of three professions – Company Secretarial Practice, Law and Arbitration.
L&S: Your entering into Law was through the evening law programme. What’s your take on the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) law graduates and the initial refusal to admit them into the Nigerian Law School?
Answer: I must say that the evening law programme was thoroughly abused. Many people who had made money saw that as a way to become lawyers and I think that some of them corrupted the system. They really corrupted the system. Retired governors, military officers, retired civil servants, businessmen and other professionals got involved and they had the resources. That was why and luckily for me, let me say this, although Jos had an evening law programme, we wrote the same exams with the full time students. There was no separate exam for us and on my personal level, from year one to year five, I was the best student. That’s how I became a University Scholar, and when we graduated in 1992, I was the best graduating student in the faculty. I got all the prizes for the Best Student in the Faculty of Law, 1992.
L&S: Best graduating student for both the evening and regular programme?
Answer: Yes. We wrote the same exams and when I became the best student then, someone said ‘why wouldn’t he be the best student when the lecturers were his friends.’ That really got me angry. That really hurt me because I knew how hard I worked. Notwithstanding, I said ok, the issue would be settled at the Nigerian Law School, then in Lagos. In the Law School, I was still the best from Jos. In fact, in the Law School, I was among the top six students of that year.
I later joined the Law School in 1997 as a lecturer. There I met these evening law students from other universities. Like I said, some of them really had no business being in that school. So I agree with the Law School that, they should stop the programme or overhaul it. But one thing I find interesting is, some of the senior lawyers from Nigeria who read abroad attended Holborn College and that college is a part time law college. Thus, some of the people who took the decision to cancel part time law students from gaining entrance to the law school, like me, read law part-time. The difference however is that those who went to Holborn College could not have scaled through without working hard. The way we corrupted the program in Nigeria, they couldn’t have done so in the UK. In fact, when the National Open University had this problem, I became their reference point. They were citing me as a product of an evening law program that had excelled. They were marketing their programme with my name. I think that most part time law programmes in Nigeria were not free from that allegation that they corrupted the programme.
L&S: A new law says NOUN law graduates can now do Bar Exam Part 1 exams and if they pass, they can now go to Bar Part II. Will that add up in your estimation?
Answer: Well on a patriotic level, like I said, it depends on how the National Open University runs its programme. If it is run efficiently, there will be no problem. But if the system is as corrupt as what I witnessed with the evening law programme, then, there’s a problem because it showed in the products of the various Universities running part time programmes. During my time at the Law School, I had many part time students who came to me to say “all I want is score 40.” I said to them, ’how can you come to school and your ambition is to score 40 percent’? That was not my ambition. Indeed in my final year in Jos, I had ‘A’s in all my courses. I won a prize in Jurisprudence as an evening law student, so I could not comprehend why a student would come to school and his sole ambition was to just score 40, 40, 40. Why not aim at 70 percent and then settle for 40. I said ‘If you aim at 40, where do you get to? That’s the last class of pass and you could fail.’ But like I said, I hope the National Open University will ensure that the process is not corrupted.
L&S: How do you relax?
Answer: Dancing is one way I relax. I like football. I like lawn tennis.
L&S: Do you play football?
Answer: I used to play lawn tennis until I had a challenge with my legs. I was playing tennis three times a week at Rockview Hotel. Then I go for a walk early in the morning for one hour every day.
L&S: What happened?
Answer: In 2013 in a tennis court, I had a tear in my knee. I had to do what was a minor surgery then, but in the course of the surgery here in Abuja, I was given an infection. Luckily for me, I travelled to the UK. It was while I was doing the physiotherapy in the UK, I discovered that I could not move the leg. I told my son to call the GP as I was in serious pain. The GP came and said, ‘looking at your drugs, you shouldn’t be in pains, you’re gonna be alright.’ But the pain continued and I had to seek specialist attention. The specialist just took my blood samples to run some tests and said I had an infection. I quickly called Nigeria and the hospital there said just do whatever you are doing and give us the report. It became an emergency, so I was admitted at the University of Edinburgh Teaching Hospital for eleven days. I came back to Nigeria thinking that I was fit but the infection didn’t go. I kept managing it. It became expensive to handle. I was taking antibiotics that a week’s dose was over a hundred thousand naira and the injection I was taking was being given intravenously, thrice a day. A nurse came to the house at 6am, 2pm, and 10pm. I was paying about N15, 000 a day and I did that for about 6months.
L&S: Did the errant hospital defray the cost?
Answer: No, No, No! I’m telling you a story. I had to do a third surgery. I went back to the hospital where I did the first surgery and they billed me. That’s when I got annoyed. They charged me. I said look, ‘I came here with a torn ligament and left here with an infection and you’re billing me for this’? All they gave me was a marginal discount. They did the third surgery. Lillian, the infection refused to go. The infection didn’t go. I was on a wheel chair. I was on a walker. I was on crutches and all that, but the infection refused to go. Incredibly, they discharged me with the infection and said I should go back to the UK or go to South Africa or go to India, to do two more surgeries. One to cure the infection; the last one to do a knee replacement.
L&S: Did the infection get into the bones?
Answer: God was faithful. I call myself a testimony of His faithfulness. Well, it was in my knee, for the two years, I had the infection. It didn’t go beyond my knee. That’s one major luck I had, although the leg was swollen, and I was in pains. I could not dance then and I lost a dancing competition. I was the reigning and defending champion. Before then, a friend in Jos had told me that there is a Catholic Monastery in Ewu in Edo State; the PAX Herbal. He said they had herbal antibiotics. I said ‘me, after going to Cedar Crest Hospital will go and take herbs?’ But when, I was discharged from Cedar Crest and I still had the infection, my wife said: “Before we decide where to go to next, let’s try this local medicine.”
I listened and incredibly, it cost me about ten thousand naira a week and that’s what cured me. So I moved from wheel chair to walker to crutches and I used walking stick till about 3 months ago. At a point my Zanku was shaky, but now, I can ‘carry my body and gbese’.
By way of conclusion, I repeat that God has been faithful, gracious and magnanimous. The only way that I can explain my life is the benevolence of God, Almighty. He is the source of my strength and accomplishments. May His Holy name be praised for ever and ever, Amen. Truly, I and the children God blessed me with are for signs and wonders: Isaiah: 8:18.
