THIS YEAR and beyond, after my fellowship with God as a follower of Jesus Christ and being a committed husband to the wife of my youth, Oluwafunmilayo, the most significant role I will be playing is being a FATHER, BROTHER and FRIEND to TIERIAYOOLUWA, who marks his first New Year in 2022.

I am his FATHER because he comes from my loins and he depends on me as the lead source of moral, emotional and spiritual direction and sustenance, spirit, soul and body.

I am his BROTHER because we share the same heavenly Father, who loved us and gave His life for us both to receive the “Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’”

I am his FRIEND because friendship is a fellowship of like minds and it is never a function of age. Jesus, our Lord calls us his friends. I am a friend to TIERIAYOOLUWA as like minds in spiritual and temporal fellowship. I am his friend in authority, who communicates positive value to him through the best form of friendship. I guess that is why Josh McDowell says, ‘rules without relationship leads to rebellion.’

My family is my number one priority of love and service in life. There are many of us in Africa, whose honest desire to put our families first is seemingly insurmountably hindered by lack of Social Protection, resulting from a lack of credible and intentional social investment by African leaders, manifesting in the social, economic and political institutions they woefully fail to build over the years.

That is why everyone who believes in the sanctity of the family institution must be interested in the struggle for building an egalitarian society, where the institutions(community, state and international community) traditionally responsible for strengthening the family for fulfilling its inevitable roles as the primary positive value architecting and sustaining factory of the society are energized to performed optimally to serve the interests of the majority.

Do have an INSPIRED 2022, our year of #NOPROTECTIONNOSCHOOL.

I am Taiwo AKINLAMI
Social Development Attorney|Parenting Educator|S.A.F.E®️ for Children ETHICIST