What do you look for in a partner?

However,  the question of what people look for in a partner is one that harvest diverse answers and opinions as people have different levels of reasoning, ideologies and interests in achieving their personal objectives from partnership. However, the more people seek to have relationships or partnerships, the more this question remains valid.People have different issues, […]

However,  the question of what people look for in a partner is one that harvest diverse answers and opinions as people have different levels of reasoning, ideologies and interests in achieving their personal objectives from partnership. However, the more people seek to have relationships or partnerships, the more this question remains valid.
People have different issues, resolutions and specific rationales for looking for a partner. Some look for partners to facilitate the process of achieving their business, educational, romantic, criminal, professional, technological or political motives while others still look for a partner for self enrichment and agrandisement. The fact remains that scrupulous partnership is necessary for improved quality of thinking and personal development.
In an interview, Miss Taye Jaiyeola, from Edo State said the very essence of having a partner is to encourage and advise each other on certain line of actions to be taken to better the lives of each other and not to be rivals.
She said she as a person, expects her partner to think like her and to respect her opinions on issues that concerns both of them. She also expects her partner to have the ability to keep secrets because partnership has to do with sharing of secrets. She added that before she cultivates any relationship, she used to test the level of understanding of the person as regards keeping of secrets before she confided anything in him or her.
Taye explained that keeping of secrets and respect for her own view point gives her a sense of belonging and make her to respect   the partner, as a honest person which is of course synonymous with trust and confidence.
In his explanation of the qualities he looks out for in a partner, Akiga Adzuu said that he is easily angry and doesn’t like a partner that will be provoking him always. His hot temper which he attributed to nature according to him requires him to have partners and associations that would avoid hurting his sensibilities deliberately.
 “For someone like me, I am easily provoked so I need my partners to posses good qualities of politeness in presenting issues, truthfulness, respect for our agreements and promises,”  he said.
Akiga also likes a partner who is happy with every progress and favour that comes his way because according to him, he likes people who make progress as it serves as encouragement and motivating factor that drives him to think of his own personal development. He said he likes a partner that is visionary and considers his success as his own and equally surprises him with problem solving ideas without any aim of jeopardizing his positive prospects.
 Nasiru Abdullahi Garba, a civil servant on his part said that he has a female partner who recites the Qur’ran and has the fear of Allah but does not give time for social interaction,  explaining that what he looks  for in any partner was constant social interaction and expression of jokes on both mobile phone conversation and face-to-face.
He maintained that his aim of having a socially responsible and interactive female partner was to enable him study her and if possible get into marriage with her and have a social and happy home but the inability of a partner to socially interact with him is what he doesn’t like.
Garba who said that he doesn’t like having male partners added that he needed a life-time partner that is interactive and can appreciate and respect him.  
Furthermore, Hajiya Fatima Umar in Karu, Abuja ,while explaining what she looks for in a partner said regard for her emotional needs is what she needs from a partner. She added that this is especially in her husband as every man and woman has emotional needs which must be respected for a successful partnership.
According to her, she needs a partner who is loving, caring with the ability to create time for her no matter his tight schedules, noting that lack of time and affection for her could block or terminate her relationship with her husband.
An undergraduate of the University of Abuja, who identified himself as Haruna Musa Bako, said partnership, determines to a large extent what an individual is and what he will become and so, should be taken seriously.
He said, as a university student, most of the partners he has are students and the qualities he usually expects from whoever comes his way are hard work, honesty, good sense of judgment, creativity and dedication to academic activities adding that he dislikes friends that are rude and perpetrate social-vices such as armed robbery, drug abuse, examination malpractice, cultism and prostitution.
“I like having a relationship with people that are decent and focused. Some of the students like attending night parties, taking alcohol at various joints, smoking, cheating in exams and carrying different women into their houses for sexual purposes.  I am also a young man but such people automatically, can’t find themselves in the same pair of shoes with me because they can never make any remarkable contribution for my intellectual and spiritual development,” he said.                         
On his part, Mr, Ephraim John, a civil servant, said he likes having a partner that criticizes him constructively with a view  to  giving him new ideas that would help him achieve great success and boast of having someone.
Mr. John stated that he is being very curious when it comes to the issue of selecting a male or female partner. According to him, the spiritual life of the person is very important as many people have belonged to different kinds of secret associations perilous to unsuspecting partners.
He said that some people have died prematurely in this world because of the evil done by their partners unknowingly to them. He expressed special concern about several recorded cases of husbands and their wives killing each other and terminating marriages attributing it to lack of trust and careful scrutiny into the partner’s background, character and worthiness for such relationship.
A trader who spoke to our reporter on the subject matter explained that he likes having around him, people that will give him ideas on how to expand his business,  adding that he needs encouragement in the business circle to enable him excel and become a great achiever like Alhaji Aliko Dangote.
Furthermore, Mr. Ezekiel Nanize, after his critical explanation and analysis of the different characters of people we have in the society said that his own judgment about what he thinks everyone should look for in a partner is his or her level of discipline, mode of dressing, simplicity, easy access with a moderate wealth.
Nanize believes that discipline encompasses other attributes of honesty, loyalty among others. He also stressed that a partner with moderate wealth is good in case of emergency adding that relationship these days go beyond sitting together and chatting, to include nipping unprecedented and unexpected omens in the bud and giving oneself comfort through the use of highly organized ideas and sometimes money.
The question of what one looks for in a partner when viewed from a wide and general perspective will therefore, require volumes of a painstaking chronicle as people have different religious, cultural, economic, political and social backgrounds and reasons differently.