One day a rich businessman was leaving his office. As he walked towards his chauffeur driven car, he brushed against a tall figure in a hooded cloak. The rich man glanced round in irritation and saw the hooded figure looking at him in surprise. The rich mans irritation turned to horror, for he realized that he was staring into the face of the person everyone would love to avoid; the face of death. The rich man realized that if he did not escape now and then, he would die.

He ran to his car and told the surprised chauffeur to drive as fast as possible to the airport. There he charted a jet. The jet flew all night and the very moment it landed, the businessman ordered a helicopter to take him deep into the mountains. Finally, he hired a guide to lead him to a distant valley and as the sun came up, he crawled into the darkness of a cave. 'Death would never find me here' he thought and began to relax. Just then, a bony finger tapped him form behind on the shoulder.

'Congratulations', said a cold voice. 'We were destined to meet here in this cave at dawn today. That is why I was surprised to see you on the other side of the world last night. But you made it - dead on time'


- ROTIMI ALAGBE

She stood by the side of the road gazing at the cars as they whizzed by, first blurred images, then specks receding in the distance. There was something maniacal about them, as they accelerated past, pursued by demons the little girl could not see. As they went past, the wind, displaced by the speeding vehicles, rushed to the side of the road, lifted up her skirt and exposed her grim underwear under the cheap blouse and skirt plastered onto her skinny frame; on the scrawny chest where two little distended orbs announced her brave assault of the gates of womanhood.

She stood, very oblivious to the noise of the speeding cars heading for destinations obviously more glamorous than the one room hole she shared with her parents and the ever increasing brood; at the last count, there were six of them. Neither the lashing of the wind nor the clouds speeding across the sky, chased by rain seemed to make any impression on her. If she was aware of the presence of others who stood beside her also waiting for a break in the sea of traffic to dash across expressway, she did not acknowledge it. She was completely still, her hand holding the tray of oranges on her head was rock steady.

Actually, she needed to concentrate on the road and the vehicles. At this place, the Anthony bus stop along the Oshodi expressway, another hawker, a boy running after a car with some shirts was knocked down and killed by a hit and run a few meters from where she stood. This was about two months before. The corpse mangled beyond recognition, a parody of the healthy cheerful looks of the vibrant youth it once was. The corpse had, in the typical fashion been left by the road for a day and she had avoid the spot for days.

On her face the intense frown of concentration remained. Perhaps she was thinking of the kids she saw every day on their way to school looking bright and neat in their uniforms. Perhaps she realized that they are no older than she. Whatever her thoughts were, she stood still, like a sculptured figure watching the world and her life go by, for God knows her long her life would be the same. She would leave home in the morning and until 9 p.m. or thereabout; she would be at the mercy of man and the elements. The rain would fall in sleets drenching her to the bone; the sun would shine with ferocious intensity, savaging forcing all moisture in her body through the pores in torrents of sweat. Cold and heat, night and day, lecherous old men, armed robbers, young men who prefer to pay for oranges in the privacy of their bed rooms; those were the conditions and inhabitants of her world.

Certainly, the beautiful intelligent children who appeared on television the other day, during the children's day concert were children whose welfare were eons away from her reality. She saw them occasionally, eyes pressed against the windscreens of their posh cars, as they gazed with wonder or contempt at her world so crude and different form theirs.

Still she stood, for a moment, a sculptured indictment of a society, which pays lip service to high ideals, yet allowed her and other children to face the ravage of so much hunger and abuse.

Suddenly there was a respite, a break in the relentless motion of cars. The little girl suddenly comes alive and darts across the road. A young man waiting, beckoning her to come over with her oranges. On his face was a sly smile. He was not looking at the oranges; or perhaps the small ones on her chest.

The message is clear. Child labour must end.


- ROTIMI ALAGBE

1. The chance of life forming by chance from inanimate matter is one to a number with 40,000 zeros behind it

2. The rocks on the earth are made up from over 1,000 different forms of minerals

3. The sun fuses together hydrogen atoms in a nuclear reaction that creates temperatures to 15million0C. Flames of hot hydrogen shoot 100,000 kilometers from the surface of the sun

4. As you are reading this, 45,000 thunderstorms are occurring presently. Each thunderstorm unloads about 100,000 tons of water

5. Beneath every hectare of pastureland, scientists estimate that there are 2.5 million spiders, 25 million insects and 1500 million mites. These creatures play a vital role in maintaining the soil structure and recycling nutrients

6. Orchids can make more than 2 million seeds in a single capsule and 1 million seeds weigh only about 0.3 grammes

7. The Rafflesia flower of Indonesia is over 1 meter wide while the duck weed is less than 0.5mm

8. If the earth was 10 percent smaller or larger in size, life as we know it would not exist

9. If the average temperature of the earth was 2-30C higher, the ice caps would melt and your house would be 200 feet under water

10. If you started counting the stars at the rate of one a second, it would take you at least 2,500 years to count the ones known to astronomers

11. If you live to be 75 years old, you would have taken 600 million breathes, your heart beat 3,000 million times and pump 200 million liters of blood

12. The scale of the universe is unbelievably vast. If you could travel at the speed of 11 million miles a minute, it would take you 6,000 million years to travel to the farthest part of the universe we know of, and that's just in one direction


- ROTIMI ALAGBE

'Our true challenge today is not debts and deficits or global competition but the need to find a way to live rich fulfilling lives without destroying the planet's biosphere, which supports all life. Humanity has never before faced such a threat: the collapse of the very elements that keep us alive' - Geneticist David Suzuki

An apple is an easy thing to take for granted. If you live where apples grow in abundance, you might assume they are readily available and that you may pick from a wide range of variety. However, did you know that there might be far fewer types to choose from than there were 100 years ago? Reports have it that between the years 1804 and 1905, there were about 7,098 varieties of apples grown in the US. Today 6,121 of those [86 percent] are extinct. Pears have fared similarly. About 88 percent of 2.683 varieties once grown are now extinct. In addition, when it comes to vegetables, the numbers that have vanished is even worse.

Something is disappearing and its called biodiversity - not only the rich variety of species of living things but also the rich variety of types found within species. Does diversity really matter? As long as we can all have something to eat. Many scientists say it does. Although the role of biodiversity is still being debated, a number of environmental experts say that it is essential to life on earth. They say that it is just as vital to the plants we grow for food as it is to those growing wild in the forest, jungles and grasslands of the world. Diversity within species matters too. The numerous strains of rice, for instance, increases the probability that some strains will have the means to resist common plagues.

The extinction of plants can affect food crops in at least two ways. First by wiping out the wild relatives of cultivated crops, which is a potential source of genes for future breeding, and second, by reducing the number of strains within cultivated species. However, more than just food is at stake. About 25 percent of commercially manufactured medicines are derived from plants, and new medicinal plants continue to be found. Yet, plants are constantly being driven out of extinction. Could we be, in effect, sawing off the very branch that supports us?

According to the World Conservation Union, out of some 18,000 species of plants and animals investigated, more than 11,000 face extinction. Of course, the earth still produces a prodigious amount of food, but for how long can a burgeoning human population feed itself if the planet's biodiversity dwindles? Usually in response to economic pressures, planting uniform crops promises ease of harvesting, attractiveness of the product, resistance to spoilage, and high productivity. These trends began in earnest in the 1960's with what came to be the green revolution. Through massive government and corporate campaigns, farmers in famine-prone lands were persuaded to replace their diverse crops with uniform, high-yield grains that were not even cheap and they depended heavily on chemicals like fertilizers not to mention heavy and costly equipment like tractors. Unfortunately, what they didn't realize was that if all grains were uniform with no diversity, and a disaster should strike, such as a plague, almost all crops would be affected and there would be no other species of crops to rely on.

The study of genetics has given rise to a lucrative new industry called biotechnology. As the name suggests, it blends biology with modern technology such as genetic engineering. Some of new biotech companies are working feverishly to patent seeds that give a high yield, that resist disease, drought, frost and the need for hazardous chemicals. Like the green revolution. Some scientists say the gene revolution as it is being called, may contribute to the same problem of uniformity - genetic uniformity.

There are environmental scientists who feel that the role of biodiversity is still poorly understood and perhaps exaggerated by some of their colleagues. Whether the worst fears of environmentalists are justified or not, you may find it difficult to feel confident about future of this planet, but there is still hope.

- ROTIMI ALAGBE