Sir: Over time, Nigerians have experienced hike in basically all goods and services required to live and run their day to day activities. It goes without saying that the situation has been aggravated by the removal of subsidy on premium motor spirit (PMS) some three months ago.
Nigeria has experienced persistent inflation over the years, with prices of goods and services continuously rising. The naira has faced fluctuations and depreciation in value against major foreign currencies like the US dollar. This has led to higher import costs, making imported goods more expensive for consumer.
Furthermore, dependence on imports for various products, including food, fuel, clothing, building materials and other consumer goods has resulted in higher prices due to transportation cost, tariffs, and exchange rate fluctuations.
Again, infrastructural challenges are another force to reckon with. Inadequate infrastructures, such as power and transportation, have added to increase the cost of goods and services. Businesses often have to bear the burden of additional expenses since they are not provided by the authority and they eventually pass these expenses to consumers so as to make profit and keep their trade afloat.
To cap it all, Nigeria has a significant income disparity, with a large portion of the population living in what in what is termed ‘multi-dimensional poverty’ due to the disparity. This poverty limits access to basic resources like education, healthcare, and housing, further exacerbating the cost of living for many individuals.
To address this worrisome situation, it is firstly important for citizens to understand that the high cost of living in Nigeria is a complex issue influenced by various factors such as those aforementioned.
Efforts to address this challenge should involve measure to tackle inflation, improve infrastructure, diversifying the economy, and promoting policies that support income equality and affordability for citizens.
Investing in infrastructural development, such as transportation power, road networks, water supply among others can help reduce production and other associated expenses often passed down to consumers.
Promoting and supporting the agricultural sector can help reduce food prices and enhance food security. Improving farming techniques, access to quality irrigation systems are all strategies through which dependency can be reduced on imported goods.
Control of inflation, implementation of effective monetary policies and fiscal measures to control inflation and ensuring that wages and salaries keep pace with inflation can help improve people’s purchasing power and reduce the burden of high costs.
Developing effective social welfare programmes can also provide a safety net for vulnerable populations, by reducing the impact of high cost of living on those with limited financial resources.
Patients share heartrending encounter with drug-resistant tuberculosis
The buzz about Bedaquiline
Tanimola begged her father to teach her to whistle. But much as he tried to teach her, she couldn’t. Her infant lips were too tender to hoot.
“She kept blowing air and bathing me with spittle,” said Folajimi David, her father.
Then, one Sunday evening, the five-year-old said, “Daddy, I can whistle with my chest.” To this, David responded with a smile, enthusing about how talented his little girl was.
He knew she couldn’t whistle with her chest. But “kids will always be kids,” thought the widower, craning his ear against her chest to hear it ‘whistle.’
All he could hear was the deep-seated wheezing that broke with her cough.
He blamed it on her inability to pass out the phlegm that was stuck in her chest. It’s one of the things she inherited from him, he thought; “I have never been able to cough out phlegm no matter how hard I tried,” he said.
Thinking she got that from him too, along with her looks, he gave her cough syrup, and then, a tincture of honey, bitter kola and mint.
But neither the cough syrup nor the potion provided relief to the five-year-old. She couldn’t sleep and she coughed through the night. By dawn, David noticed a spatter of blood on the bed sheet, at the spot she rested her head.
“Her symptoms got worse and she wheezed for breath like an asthmatic. But she had never been diagnosed of asthma. In the morning, she complained of fatigue, and collapsed on the way to the bathroom. That day, she didn’t go to school. I took her to a neighbourhood clinic from where she was referred to the Lagos teaching hospital,” he said.
Early diagnosis indicated that Tanimola had pneumonia and typhoid fever, for which she was treated. But her symptoms persisted.
“I became very scared when her teacher called, urging me to come for her; she said her cough had aggravated, and droplets of blood stained her teeth at every expiration,” said David.
Thus precisely eight days after she was treated at the teaching hospital, Tanimola was rushed to a private hospital, where lab tests and analysis revealed that she was infected by the Multi Drug Resistant strain of tuberculosis , widely known as MDR-TB.
David was diagnosed with the same disease, and father and daughter were advised to commence treatment at the state’s MDR-TB centre.
“We received the result late in the day, around 6.25 pm. There was no way we could report for treatment at that hour. I intended to take her to the clinic the following morning, which was a Tuesday,” said David.
But Tanimola would not make the trip with him. Seventeen minutes past midnight, she died in his arms.
David should have paid good mind to his daughter. Contrary to his belief, that, the five-year-old suffered a mild cough, she was in the advanced stages of MDR-TB. It wasn’t until she died, that, he understood the reason for her protracted cough and tiredness.
Today, David is “almost rid” of the disease. But he would never be rid of guilt.
The bereaved widower and his late daughter, however, represent a fraction of the country’s missing MDR-TB cases.
•An MDR-TB patient using his medication on the watch of a health officer at a DOT centre.
An awful way to die
Each year, nearly one and a half million people die from tuberculosis, that, for many years, has been treatable and curable. More than 30 million people have died since the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared TB as a global emergency in 1993.
The devastation wreaked by the disease is best captured in the anonymous quote: “When TB wakes up and gets into the lungs, it eats them from the inside out, slowly diminishing their capacity, causing the chest to fill up with blood and the liquid remains of the lungs.
“A wet, hacking cough is evocative of TB. The lungs, now in liquid form, are sloshing around in the chest. Cough that up, even in microscopic, impossible-to-see droplets, near other people, and they have a very good chance of getting TB too.
“Eventually, liquid replaces the lungs; the suffering patients cannot get enough oxygen, and respiratory failure occurs. They can no longer breathe and they drown. It’s painful. It’s drawn out. It’s an awful way to die. But before any of this happens, the disease weakens you. It diminishes your capacity for work, and puts your family and friends, and anyone else you come into contact with at risk. Individual death is only part of the problem.”
The bereaved family often inherits death from the deceased too. Or vice versa. In the case of the Davids, for instance, the father infected his daughter with the disease “because her immune system was very low, compared to his own,” said one of the doctors that attended to the deceased.
The typical pathway of the infection according to health experts is as follows:
When somebody coughs, it spreads through the sputum and then a susceptible host inhales it. If the person’s immune system is intact, the TB stays dormant in the lungs, without causing any harm to the body. But if the body’s immune system is compromised, the bacteria mutates aggressively in the body, corrupting and totally overwhelming the host’s immune system as a full blown infection. From a single host, TB can spread to infect between 10 and 12 people.
The progression is worse where the hosts dwell in a slum. It spreads rapidly, and assumes the state of a pandemic.
According to the 2017 Global TB Report, Nigeria is among the 14 high burden countries for TB, TB/HIV and MDR-TB. The country is also among the 10 countries that account for 64 percent of the global gap in TB case finding. India, Indonesia and Nigeria account for almost half of the total gap.
Nigeria is also ranked 7th among the 30 high drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB) burden countries and second in Africa, with an estimated 4, 700 patients with multi drug-resistant-TB (MDR-TB) in 2015.
•A shanty kid picks her way through a river of filth in Makoko. The Lagos slum is widely known as a cesspit of diseases like tuberculosis.
Why TB persists…
Tuberculosis, widely adjudged to be a disease of the poor, is endemic in urban slums and communities, where the poverty level and population density is high.
“Most hospitals in the communities are, however, not equipped with TB care and that is where you have most of the cases. Also, most of the affected areas are hard to reach,” said Dr. Babawale Victor, a Senior Health Officer with the The National Tuberculosis and Leprosy Control Program (NTLCP), in a chat with The Nation.
Further findings revealed, that, while TB care services are supposed to be available at the Primary Health Centres (PHCs) across the country’s 774 local government areas (LGAs), they are absent in most of the target coverage areas.
Where PHCs are present, they are ill-equipped and understaffed to contain and treat TB patients, let alone MDR-TB sufferers.
Victor argued that prohibitive cost of treatment also delays and prevent individuals from initiating TB treatment after diagnosis. The dearth of paediatric TB specialists in areas most affected by the disease also poses an impediment to containment efforts, he said, stressing that, delay in reporting cases for treatment and lack of point-of-care laboratory capacity also hinder treatment and containment efforts, especially for multi drug-resistant TB.
A nurse at a Lagos based directly observed treatment (DOT) centre revealed, that, in order to encourage patients to complete the full course of treatment, they are provided some token for transport fare and meals. After the intensive phase, patients are allowed to return home for the continuation phase of treatment.
Why paediatric TB goes neglected
Until very recently childhood TB has not been a priority in public health and has remained essentially a hidden pandemic. All too often, paediatric TB goes undiagnosed in children.
While high-income countries now use sophisticated molecular tests to detect the disease, most developing countries, Nigerian inclusive, still use the method developed 130 years ago: the patient must cough up a sample of sputum, which is then checked under the microscope for the bacteria that causes TB.
Young children, generally, are unable to produce a sample. Even if a child with active TB succeeds in providing a sample, it often contains no detectable bacteria.
Compounding difficulties with diagnosis is the fact that children with TB have families that are poor, lack knowledge about the disease and live in communities with limited access to health care.
•TB bacteria inside the human body.
The burden of stigmatisation
Isa Mahmud, 35, was forbidden from using the same cutlery with his parents and siblings, soon after he was diagnosed with TB.
“Even after I started treatment, they kept their distance from me. My brothers stopped sleeping in the same room with me and my mother turned her face away from me whenever she had to talk to me, even after using a nose mask. I have been treated like a leper. They don’t even tell me sorry anymore, when I cough. Instead they frown and hiss. Sometimes, I feel like killing myself,” he said.
Experiences like Mahmud’s have often led to non-disclosure of illness by TB patients. Even while the chronic cough persists, some simply explain it away as “chest problem.”
Patients also dread being quarantined in the hospital, often likening it to a jail cell.
“They will make you feel like a condemned prisoner. The nurses are particularly careless in thought and speech. They shout at you and treat you like a hardened criminal. They make you feel like you are doomed for death,” said Gladys Onuh, who quit treatment at a Lagos Direct Observation Treatment (DOT) facility to patronise a herbal doctor.
The ugliness of hospital based care
A typical ward in Nigeria would contain 24 patients with MDR-TB, who should be cared for by 10 specially trained nurses running shifts, where they provide 100 per cent of their time for this service. Additionally, doctors attend to patients for about 15 minutes weekly. This depicts an ideal situation.
In reality, patients complain of stigmatisation by doctors, nurses and other health officers. Princewill Okeh, an outpatient in a treatment facility in the southern part of the country, complained that many TB sufferers are reluctant to come forward due to the hostility they might experience from public health officers.
“It’s one thing to be maltreated by your family but when government doctors and nurses also treat you badly, you lose hope in the system. This disease (MDR-TB) will make nurses and doctors avoid you. My girlfriend also has TB, but she would rather treat it from home. She has witnessed my experience with family and doctors and nurses. They all treat me like a demon. This is why she will never come to DOT for treatment. She is using home remedy and antibiotics,” he said.
Further findings revealed that some public health workers avoid the wards of MDR-TB patients thus leading to a fragmented bedside interaction and hindered service delivery.
In a recent Focused Group Discussion (FGD) conducted by health researchers, some participants recalled that healthcare providers in other facilities, which they visited for specialised services such as audiometry and chest X-ray avoided contact with MDR-TB patients and were more resentful than the healthcare providers at the
treatment centre.
They also stressed that it was disparaging and unfair for patients to use an inferior quality face mask while healthcare providers used a superior type.
“It is an inferior face mask. It is not a good type. It is the type they are selling in the market that they brought to us. They were using the better type. You see Nigerians! I argued with them seriously. They said, I argue too much because I am educated,” said a 54-year-old male patient.
The cost factor
Management of identified MDR-TB cases is based on a standardised WHO approved treatment regimen of 20 months, consisting of an eight-month intensive phase and a 12-month continuation phase.
Patients are placed on Pyrazinamide and four second-line anti-TB drugs namely Levofloxacin, Kanamycin (replaced by Capreomycin when indicated), Prothionamide
and Cycloserine. The five drugs are used for the eight-month intensive phase, at the end of which Kanamycin (or Capreomycin) is discontinued for the remaining 12-month continuation phase.
A recent study revealed that three models of MDR-TB care were utilised in Nigeria between June 2013 and December 2014, and differed only in their eight-month intensive phase.
Patients treated under Model A, were hospitalized for the complete duration of the intensive phase; patients in Model B were hospitalised for a duration of five months in the intensive phase while patients treated under Model C received the complete
intensive phase treatment as ambulatory care in the community.
The estimated total cost of providing diagnostic and treatment care as outlined in the Nigerian MDR-TB guidelines, was $18, 528 (N2,927,464) per patient for Model A, $15, 159 (N2,395,070) per patient for Model B and $9, 425 (N1,489,080) per patient for Model C – all 2014 figures.
Although financing for care and prevention has increased over the last decade, there remains a funding gap – $2.3bn (£1.74bn) in 2017. The biggest donor, the Global Fund to fight Aids, TB and Malaria, allocates just 18 per cent of its resources to fight the disease.
Babawale Victor
Is Bedaquiline the next-best elixir?
There is no gainsaying the emergence of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) has threatened the progress made in TB control globally; MDR-TB is the resistance to Rifampicin and Isoniazid, the most effective first line anti-TB drugs, by the disease.
Els Torreele, executive director of Médecins Sans Frontières’ access campaign, said there has been a dearth of research and development (R&D) over many years for adequate tools for diagnosis and treatment.
In the last few years, however, Bedaquiline (a bacterial drug belonging to a new class of antibiotics) has been released to treat patients with drug-resistant TB.
“Before Bedaquiline, the last drug we developed was before we put a man on the moon,” said Aaron Oxley, executive director of Results UK. “Unfortunately in TB – or fortunately now – things are about to get more expensive because we’re getting tools that actually work.”
Bedaquiline (BDQ) has a novel mechanism of action. It binds to mycobacterium tuberculosis ATP synthase, an enzyme that is essential for the generation of energy in the pathogen. Inhibiting ATP synthesis results in bactericidal activity. The atpE gene product (subunit c, a proton pump) is the target of Bedaquiline in mycobacteria.
The distinct target and mode of action of Bedaquiline minimises the potential for cross-resistance with existing anti-TB drugs thus the buzz about its efficacy and potency as an anti-MDR-TB nullifier.
Tackling the MDR-TB conundrum
A major issue with TB in Nigeria is the low TB case finding for both adults and children. In 2017 only 104, 904 TB cases were detected out of an estimated 407, 000 of all TB cases.
This indicates a treatment coverage of just 25.8 per cent thus leaving a gap of 302,096 cases, which were either undetected or detected but the cases were not notified especially in non DOT sites.
A total of just 1,783 MDR-TB cases were notified out of an estimated 5, 200, according to the health minister, Prof. Isaac Adewole.
Nigeria currently has 6,753 Direct Observation Treatment (DOT) centres compared to 3,931 in 2010. The total number of microscopy centres has risen from 1,148 in 2010 to 2,650 in 2017. GeneXpert machines installed in the country have increased from 32 in 2012 to 390 in 2017.
Treatment centres for patients with MDR-TB expanded from 10 in 2013, to 27 in 2017, while the number of TB reference laboratories also increased from nine in 2013 to 10 in 2018. Over 90 per cent of the TB patients notified in 2016 have documented HIV test results compared to 79 per cent in 2010, according to Adewole.
The health minister disclosed, that, in addition to this, a shorter drug regimen for the treatment of MDR-TB was introduced in the country in 2017 to reduce the treatment duration for patients with MDR-TB and ensure better treatment outcomes.
•An x-ray of a lung damaged by TB
“To further strengthen TB notification in some challenged states, TB Surveillance officers have been recruited in 12 states (Rivers, Delta, Imo, Anambra, Lagos, Oyo, Benue, Niger, Kaduna, Kano, Bauchi and Taraba) to work with non-NTP facilities (private Health facilities, atent medicine vendors, community pharmacists), disease surveillance and notification officers, state epidemiologists and TB programme officers, to improve TB case notification, he explained.
In a bid to bolster Nigeria’s anti-TB campaign, the Federal Ministry of Health has also initiated an active case-finding campaign in key affected populations spanning people living with HIV, children, urban slum dwellers, prisoners, migrants, internally displaced people and facility based health care workers.
The result has been encouraging so far, with the detection of over 11,500 TB cases through active house to house case searching in 2017.
However, the number of TB cases detected represent a small fraction of the over 300,000 missing cases of TB in the country; that is, those that go undetected.
Recently, Nigeria signed a $71 million agreement to support efforts to control TB in the country over the next two years (2019-2020) thus signalling the government’s intention to prioritise TB efforts.
In the wake of the development, national TB program officials and health care practitioners converged in Lagos, as part of a training focused on building health systems’ capacity to tackle TB and multi drug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) at the national and sub-national levels.
Prof. Isaac Adewole
These, among other efforts, are certainly meant for the long haul. On the short-run, the government and partnering agencies would do right to increase sensitisation efforts. It’s the only way prevent an experience like the Davids.
Sometimes, when he shut his eyes, David, 36, remembers his deceased daughter’s smile, and the pitter-patter of her feet.
In those moments, the world peels away and the bereaved father and TB patient, experiences fresh torment; heartbroken, he relives the screaming gleam in his daughter’s eyes just before the glimmer turned clay-like, the colour of burnt mud.
“I know she is in a better place. But I should have been more observant. My carelessness led to her death,” said David, in the tenor of a man for whom time and memory allows the gift of reflection. Until reality afflicts him with the plague of truth: Tanimola, his bubbly five-year-old daughter, lays dormant beneath cracked earth.
PHOTOS: William Daniels, Olatunji Ololade, Library
SIR: It is tempting to want to feel a new rush of optimism at the coming of anew year, to bemoan the events of the preceding year and, perhaps, seek life on a new slate. We’d naturally assume that the perfect way to start new year is to command it such that we prepare a litany of resolutions – habits to discard, connections to secure, ambitions to fulfil amongst others. As happens, we may have vanquished that age-long habit but would always almost have given up on those ideals as surviving gains precedence amongst other priorities.
As I should like to imagine, it is at this point we lose control over ourselves, lamenting the woes of the year and yearning for the swiftusher of a new year that would possibly give meaning to our battered lives – which, in truth, is highly debatable.
Being creatures of emotion means that we perceive the events of life through the misted lens of emotions as coloured by our feelings. And that, I dare say, remains the root of man’s manifold troubles. Yet thatcan scarcely be regarded as the problem in this case.
This disappointment that mars our pleasant vision for a new year stemsnot from our heavy demands and expectations but from our in accurate projections of reality, which, incidentally, arises from our primal urgefor control. We strive to exert control over every new year andbend it to our will. We expect that a new year brings us closer to ourenvisaged futures of a greater promotion or an election victory. Thus weare trapped in a castle of our imaginations, built upon our dreams and memories, that we are terribly crestfallen when this castle comescrashing under the weight of reality.
That our lives are governed by forces over which we have no control isfirst to be brought to consciousness. It is apparently obvious that there’s so much we don’t control in life, and, as such, things will never go according to plan, however the strategies employed.
Carlvon Clausewitz, a philosopher of war, had a term for it: friction; that is,the discrepancy between our plans and reality. Such chaos merely rhymes with the course of life. Yet is that to say, noting our powerlessness before circumstances, that we should retreat to a passive mode,accepting all that come our way with slavish calm? Not at all. Such defeatism is, in itself, destructive and spirals to a grievous end.
Instead you should take your cue from water, which has the greatest potential force. Never resisting but flowing through the boulders andcaves until it’s finally worn away the rock. This would mean that youcome to accept your fate, not wish for a better one. You embrace as wellthe pain and suffering and anguish of your circumstances, knowing thateverything happens for a reason. Knowing yet again that such reason isnot designed to lead you to a reluctant death, you’ll build for yourselfstoic armour that grants you the forbearance and courage to weather the storm. You simply nurture a love of fate – Amor fati, as the Greekscalled it.
With the epiphany of this, you’re thus able to bend to circumstances. You won’t merely become rigid as a cow stuck in the mud but as flexible as the eel. You’ll understand – and have even visualised – that your plansmay not come off as expected, and you’re not disturbed by this reality.
In essence, you’re learning to give up control and to, instead, flowwith the chaos of life. This also would be striving to achieve morebalance than perfection. You cease to command every new year in yourfavour but face life as it presents itself, channelling, somewhat subtly, the momentum of the year in your direction by your action.
What’s more, this becomes a mental skill that you’ll refine to an art – that is, the art of living.
You may think that living life in this fashion is to sap the pleasure ofhope and promote the nondescript ideal of pessimism. This isn’t exactly so; however, for what joy is to be got from the day-dreaming,rose-tinted variant of life that only sets you up for disappointment?
I should conclude with this nugget of wisdom from Seneca to a friend: Nothing happens to the wise against his expectation…nor do all things turn out for him as he wished but as he reckoned…and above all hereckoned that something could block his plans.’
In Yoruba language, literature and culture, it is kudos to the dead; and challenge to the living — both incidentally, symbolised by two Akinwunmis.
Akinwunmi Isola, professor of Linguistics, actor, playwright, immense man of culture and icon in the deeper realm of Yoruba contemporary film industry, perhaps did as much as anyone to mainstream the Yoruba cosmos, in a hostile contemporary world of cultural imperialism and actual capture.
His collabo with ace film maker, Tunde Kelani of Main Frame (Opomulero) in films like “O Le Ku”, “Thunderbolt”, “Saworo Ide”, “Agogo Ewo”, all classics in themselves, is abundant proof of his passion for the Yoruba universe. He shared that passion with the late Ayo Faleti, seasoned broadcaster, public administrator and fervent soul mate in that endevour of high culture propagation.
Prof. Isola died on February 17 in his Akobo, Ibadan, Oyo State, home in the loving hands of his wife, Adebola.
Akinwunmi Ambode, governor of Lagos State, chartered accountant and public administrator, is a man of numbers, hardly of letters. Yet, he just pulled off perhaps the most decisive punch for Yoruba, as an active medium of the future, in the life of Lagos, a Yoruba city which is nevertheless Nigeria’s prime cosmos of business, culture and opportunities, into which other Nigerians pour in numbers.
By that law, a candidate must have a credit in Yoruba language before qualifying for admission into any of the state-owned tertiary institutions. It’s as audacious a push as any, to mainstream Yoruba in Nigeria’s prime economic hub.
Could another Akinwunmi be challenging the present and the future, on the Yoruba cause, continuing where the old Akinwunmi stopped, in a stellar campaign for a Yoruba cultural renaissance, in the context of a federal Nigeria?
That somewhat reinforces the wisdom in Prof. Isola’s life-long activism, that one’s culture is one’s life; and how dead you are without it. Ironically, Prof. Isola’s first degree was in French, before embarking on his life-long Yoruba campaign, so much so that his widow recalled that a few days after their wedding in 1969, he gave out his wedding suit.
He said he wore it to please his bride! Left to him, he would have had both of them wear “aso ofi” — a Yoruba native garb — in all of its traditional flourish and majesty, despite that the couple numbered among the modern elite.
There are different sides to Ambode’s new language policy. It would further boost Yoruba consciousness among the native speakers, so much so that it could curb the empty conceit of many looking down on their own mother tongue, as it is common among not a few families. That would be very good, for it is a strong blow for ethnic federalism.
But it could also limit the cosmopolitan outlook in Lagos State-owned schools. If non-speakers cannot gain admission into these schools without a credit pass in Yoruba at the O’Level, it could well mean that less and less non-Yoruba would gain admission into them.
That might not be too good, although many have raised the point that when Nigerians travel to non-English countries to study, they first study the local language of instruction. That could well be.
Still, Prof. Isola’s cultural activism clearly showed you could be proud of your essence without becoming a bigot or irredentist. That is the prime essence of his legacy — showing off the best of yours without being offensive.
That is the challenge to the living, as Lagos State starts implementing this new language policy.
Adieu, foremost ambassador of Yoruba culture. The living will drink deep from your rich — and ever living — well.
After a lull in the real estate industry, Odu’A Group, once the pride of real estate development, has staged a cameo comeback.
The Group on Tuesday inaugurated its N500 million estate in Jericho, a government reserved area (GRA), in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital.
Simply called the ACE Estate, the luxury mini-residential estate of three units of five-bedroom duplexes and four units of four-bedroom duplexes was developed on 4,400 square metres of land, that used to be occupied by a colonial storey structure.
A tour of the ACE Estate revealed that it is fitted with modern amenities to attract the middle class and ensure luxury living. The facilities include street and perimeter lighting, swimming pool, fitness centre, uninterrupted electricity and water supply, underground drainage system and stone-paved roads. There is a dedicated generator for common use, but with provision for each house to have its generator. Each duplex also has quarters for domestic staff, with en suite facilities, and outdoor space for recreation, including a parking lot of three vehicles per unit.
Although there is provision for individual generator usage, regular supply is guaranteed in the estate as it is connected to a dedicated 33KVA line, making the need for generator use very minimal. Yet, in the event of power outage, street lights and water pumping machines will be powered by the facility manager; and there will be an agreed sharing formula for its maintenance.
To regulate inconvenience that may arise from the use of individual generator, the deed of agreement between an offtaker and the developer stipulates a maximum of a 60 KVA sound proof generator for an individual. This is why the developer also provided a generator platform for each unit, to ensure that the placement and location of the generator will muffle the noise such that it won’t disturb anybody.
Inside the buildings are spacious rooms of between 23 and 30 sqm each, including a study in the four bedroom unit. The interior also boasts of top notch finishing for a house of its class, with marble floor tiles, solid wood finishing, installed fittings for air conditioners, television and satellite cables, gas and electric cookers, steel stairway railings, family lounge upstairs, and wardrobe section in the master bedroom. In the kitchen is a fitted cabinet with marble worktop.
“The ACE Estate is an architectural masterpiece quintessentially designed and tastefully finished as a manifestation of aesthetics, quality and luxury rolled into one. Within the context of Ibadan, it stands out. Our view is making a statement of what we believe is the expectation of people when it comes to residential living particularly the middle income level expectations of consumers. So, we decided to start with this and we will ensure that we cater for all cadre of people in residential accommodation,” the Managing Director, O’dua Investment Company Limited, Mr. Adewale Raji, told The Nation Property.
He explained that the ACE Estate project would bring the O’dua Group back as a major player in property development as it represents the Group’s view of making a statement of what it believes in, which is to meet the expectations of customers.
Raji further explained the concept of the estate to be tailored around communal living, in the hope that it will meet the expectation of the middle class. For him, the idea is that whoever acquires it, it will not only meet their social desires, but they will have a comfortable place to live.
“As you know that Ibadan is the base of O’dua investment, then Ibadan is also the best place to start this. This development is more of a choreography in terms of the design. It is very contemporary, appealing and infused with amenities that meets expectations. This is a secured environment, and very serene, and more of community living which is the bedrock of the Yoruba life, which is very important; civilisation should not start tearing us apart, which is what urban development is doing. We want to make sure that we don’t forget our past because we still believe in community; hence this is built as a small community where people can also interact,” he explained.
Experts said Raji’s reasoning is quite understandable because having been out of property development for some time, there is the need to win public confidence by sending the best signals to potential offtakers. In future developments, the Group hopes to accommodate semi-detached and terraced houses in its estates.
“ACE, in a competition, is the masterstroke. It means that at a quintessential level of quality, you can flaunt this place. Our objective would have been met when other competitors are able to do something better than this place. That will be fantastic for Ibadan as it would have lifted the city’s living profile. When people come here, they should be able to compare it to places like Lekki, in Lagos. Ibadan can afford Lekki, Banana Island standard. So, we are redefining the standard of Ibadan as a whole,” an excited Raji said.
There is a certain defensiveness that could pass for denialism. Before our very eyes, President Muhammadu Buhari appears to be facing a life-threatening health challenge. It is a season of creative euphemisms employed by the president’s defenders to downplay the evidence of reality.
A picture of things as they are was presented by Olalekan Adetayo and Bayo Akinloye in an April 23 Punch report: “Fresh anxiety is mounting over the state of health of President Muhammadu Buhari, who returned to the country on March 10 after a 49-day medical sojourn in London, United Kingdom. The 74-year-old Nigerian leader was only seen in public once throughout last week, when he joined other Muslim faithful for a Juma’at service on Friday at a mosque located near his office inside the Presidential Villa, Abuja. The service lasted less than one hour after which Buhari returned to his residence. Before Friday’s brief appearance, the last time he was seen in public was penultimate Friday when he attended the same service at the same venue. Presidency sources attributed the president’s continuous non-appearance at public events to his ailing health and the need to take further rest.”
The report continued: “One of our correspondents reported that, although some government officials were reported to have met with Buhari in his office during the week to update him on developments in their ministries, no photographs or video recordings of such encounters were made available by the Presidency, which was contrary to the usual practice. Although the government officials spoke with reporters after their separate meetings with the president, the absence of such photographs and video recordings raised doubts as to whether, indeed, the government officials met with the president.”
This representation of reality landed the newspaper’s Presidential Villa watcher Adetayo in the soup as he was robotically expelled from Aso Rock by Buhari’s Chief Security Officer (CSO), Bashir Abubakar. The revolting reaction has been reversed, but it is thought-provoking that Buhari’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, tweeted: “We weren’t consulted in the media office by the CSO before he expelled the Punch reporter. President Buhari is committed to press freedom.” If this is true, then it would suggest that the president and his CSO are not necessarily on the same page when it comes to non-negotiable respect for press freedom. If that is the case, it is curious that this CSO is still the CSO.
The defensive game took a less physical dimension with a response by Buhari’s Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, to rising public criticism of the president’s serial absence from the regular meetings of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) which he is supposed to chair. After another non-appearance by Buhari on April 26, Shehu said in a statement: “As eager as he is to be up and about, the president’s doctors have advised on his taking things slowly, as he fully recovers from the long period of treatment in the United Kingdom some weeks ago. President Buhari himself, on his return to the country, made Nigerians aware of the state of his health while he was in London. Full recovery is sometimes a slow process, requiring periods of rest and relaxation, as the Minister for Information, Lai Mohammed, intimated in his press briefing after the FEC meeting on Wednesday.”
Shehu added: “Despite his lack of visibility, Nigerians should rest assured that President Buhari has not abdicated his role as Commander-in-Chief of the Nigeria Armed Forces. He receives daily briefings on the activities of government, and confers regularly with his Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo. His private residence, where he has been spending the majority of his time recently, has a fully equipped office.” A question may be asked: If the president can work from home, does he really need another office outside his home?
There are those who argue that Buhari’s poor health is bad enough to necessitate his resignation. Apparently, Buhari himself does not think so. Also, his loyalists do not think so. But the truth cannot be denied. To go by appearances, President Buhari is in bad shape. This perhaps explains the observation that the Presidency seems reluctant to share photos and videos of his alleged recent meetings with government functionaries “contrary to the usual practice.”
If pictures are more graphic than words, it is easy to understand why the Presidency is sticking to words in conveying Buhari’s health condition. Pictures would tell it all; and Buhari’s defenders don’t want telling images.
How long can the game last? Sooner or later, it will be so glaring that Buhari’s bad health cannot allow him to perform. What will happen when the country comes to the point that is beyond denial?
It is interesting to observe the thinking of the opposition on this issue. The chairman of the Caretaker Committee of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Ahmed Makarfi, was quoted as saying: “My take is that if the president is not fully fit to stay in office, it is better that he tell Nigerians, so that the vice president will continue to be Acting President, exercising the powers of acting president. For a number of reasons, the PDP wishes the president well, for stability of this country, political stability, and the fact that we want to defeat a sitting president. We don’t want any confusion politically in this country. “
This is agenda-setting thinking. Why must Buhari remain in office if his health does not permit it? To suggest that there will be “confusion politically” if Buhari is not well enough to continue in office is to insist that he must remain in office even if his health condition does not allow it.
Living in denial happens; so does dying in denial. A denial is a denial, and a denialist is a denialist. It remains to be seen whether denialism can resolve Buhari’s undeniable health condition and its undeniable implications.
It is a critical juncture in the country’s progression, and the country’s progress may suffer retrogression just because of the president’s ill health and the denialism of the president and his defenders. .
Kelechi Uhegwu is a multi-talented lady who decided to conquer her world in spite of her disability. In this encounter with Yetunde Oladeinde, she talks about obtaining a degree in Zoology, her challenges, conquests, passion and mingling with some Nigerian celebrities who admire her guts.
When Kelechi Uhegwu’s parents gave birth to her about 33 years ago, they had big dreams for their beautiful daughter. Unfortunately, those dreams were punctured at infancy, as the eldest of their three children became paralysed. The deadly polio virus ate into her system and confined her to the wheelchair and crutches. But this has not deterred her from pursuing her dreams and passion.
Putting up with a disability can be really difficult to handle, especially in a third world environment such as ours, but Kelechi has trudged on like a Trojan horse. Her disability became one of the richest classrooms for her, and instead of seeing a gloomy face, what you see is a pretty and ever-smiling face.
Now, you want to know how it all happened and sadly she takes you down memory lane, talking about her memories of early life. “My memories are loads but I remember writing down somewhere someone’s quote in paraphrase: ‘I am not one to boast as I am really a humble and modest person, but the name Kelechi Ruth Uhegwu would be popular and all the world would want to read about me.’ I wasn’t sure then of what I wanted exactly but I wanted people to read and hear about me and leap for joy.”
“I had poliomyelitis when I was a toddler.” Kelechi continued her story. “My parents had travelled to Lagos, leaving me with my grandma in Agbor, Delta State. I fell ill and my grandma took me to the hospital where I was misdiagnosed and I was treated for malaria with several injections. My lower limbs got paralysed. I had paralytic scoliosis, which worsened to a curve of 58.8 degrees that required urgent surgery.”
It was tough but her determination to succeed took the Amazon through the different phases of life, never giving up. Looking back, Kelechi’s recollections depict a journey that was torturous and rough but she bulldozed her way through. This included going to and from school while other kids stared at her continuously, imitating her body movement, thinking it was fun while she was sweating it out. But that and the many odds that came her way did not deter her at all. Instead, her mind was fixed on the laurels and plaques that awaited her in future.
“My childhood was an eclectic mix of the bitter and the sweet. I was always in the hospital for treatment; physiotherapy and all that. It was a very painful experience. Of course, there were other times that I went to school, church and returned home like other children. I was not allowed to play all the time because my parents thought I was fragile.”
Any parent in their shoes would have done the same. Reason: “I had a minimum of two visits a week to the hospital and each visit was hell. I mean ‘physiotherapy’. I had my treatment at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) and National Orthopaedic Hospital, Igbobi, Lagos. The experience wasn’t an interesting one, trust me.”
Surviving the odds was easy because she had parents who loved and cared for her. “My highest moment in my growing up years was when I could ask for ‘anything’ from my parents and they didn’t say ‘No’. Everything in the world seemed to be at my beck and call.”
Unfortunately, that source of joy was halved when she lost her father and things fell apart in the family. “My lowest moment was on the 8th of March, 2000, when my dad passed on due to renal failure. It was the final year of my secondary school and that was when I understood the meaning of the word ‘responsibility’.
This probably should have been the end of her dreams. But, again, Kelechi fastened her belt, determined to get educated against all odds. “I have a Bachelor’s degree in Zoology from the University of Lagos in 2008.”
Interestingly, her entry into the university was a miracle. Burning the midnight oil, she had battled with JAMB examinations for two years without luck. Then one year, she struggled and bought a diploma form of the University of Lagos. She passed the entrance examination but there was a snag. Poor Kelechi did not have the money to pay the school fees. But that was not the only hurdle. Kelechi had to contend with the tough task of shuttling to and from school – from Satellite town to Akoka. UNILAG diploma students weren’t given accommodation on campus.
“I took the risk of waking up every morning without a dime and getting rides from strangers to half my journey or directly to school.”
Then one day Kelechi met the Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academics) and told him about her challenges. “He was pleased with my zeal to be educated despite my physical and financial challenges and gave me an approval to write the (entrance) examination. I eventually wrote the exam and came out with good grades with which I gained admission by direct entry to study for a degree in Zoology. My debt in the diploma course was also erased. To tell the truth, how I made it through diploma was amazingly miraculous.”
Just before graduation, a life-changing experience came her way. One of her friends, Jane Ogbe, wrote a story about Kelechi and she was nominated for the ‘Survival Against All Odds Awards,’ by the Aart of Life Foundation in 2006. “My story was featured on-air; people voted for me and it was a really exhilarating feeling. I emerged 1st runner-up eventually. It also helped me become a stronger person because people kept stopping me to say they watched the programme and they were inspired by my story. I felt good that I was an inspiration to someone.”
Somehow, you wonder how she manages to pull herself through life in spite of the odds and her reply was instructive: “Life itself is my greatest inspiration. Each moment I live is a great opportunity despite my health challenges. My experience generally is my own Inspiration.”
A lab scientist, make-up artist, writer, poet and much more, Kelechi certainly has her hands in many pies. How does she get the energy to do all these things? She enthuses: “I love to multi-task. It is innate; maybe because I am a woman. The energy comes from the fact that things have to be done. If I don’t do them, nobody would do them for me. Therein lies my driving force.”
Of all the things that she does, which is her greatest passion or which does she considers her best? You ask. Her words: “All what I do have a way of relating with life, people, well-being, etc. I would not consider any one as my best because they are all intertwined. I have different moods and circumstances that would make me pick one over the other at a given time.”
To survive, Kelechi walked on leg braces and crutches for years and later opted for the wheelchair when it became inconvenient. “I am first a human and I go through the regular rigours of being that. Secondly, I am physically challenged and have to go through the stress of coping in Nigeria, where accessibility is almost impossible for a wheelchair user. Thirdly, I am experiencing a worsening case of severe scoliosis as a result of the poliomyelitis I suffered as a toddler. But our health system here in Nigeria cannot take care of that, including the expenses of going for my spinal surgeries in Nottingham, England, where I have been referred. So, I have only one choice – to keep a positive attitude in all till I am able to find help eventually.”
What exactly will be done to bring the desired change for Kelechi in England? “The corrective surgery is an anterior surgical release and posterior stabilisation with rods and screw, as well as fusion of the spine with a 2-stage procedure, to have an opportunity to walk unaided again. It costs way more than what I can afford as an individual, considering my present financial status,” she informs.
Sound Sultan, Nikky Laoye, Janelia and a couple of wonderful celebrities got involved in helping to raise funds for the surgery. A fund raising concert was held. “It was successful because all the invited celebrities came and we had fun but the aim wasn’t exactly achieved, as not many people attended. We made back about the money that was put in. I got a bit of fame, which made it a lot easier to reach some other people. We’ve been able to raise some money from the public so far but we still have some way to go. Promises have been made and I’m hoping for the best and I pray that this phase gets over soon.”
Life for this queen of the wheelchair is a walk, and she would rather keep walking, than lose hope. Some of her achievements in life therefore inspire and motivate her to keep pushing on, as well as inspiring others along the line.
“I am a lab scientist and I graduated from the University of Lagos, Akoka. I once worked at the Nigerian Naval Reference Hospital in Navy Town, Ojo, and later at NAFDAC in Yaba.”
Kelechi’s inspiration knows no boundaries. From the scientific world, she swings over to the arts and she is as prolific anywhere and everywhere. A Jack or ‘Jackyln’ of all, and master of all. “I am a poet and also a makeup artist. I graduated from the House of Tara make up school. I am also a public speaker and for this, I graduated from the Nigerian Broadcast Academy in Ikeja.”
Having proved her mettle, Kelechi has garnered a number of awards and recognitions. “I have been awarded several awards from Rotary Club, The Aart of Life Foundation and many more. I may not remember all my achievements in details but one thing is sure, I bring joy and smiles to the faces of people that have met me.”
Sharing in happy moments, meeting people and touching lives are some of the things that keep her going, as well as bring new opportunities her way. “I have many memorable moments but I would give credit to my humble beginnings when I was given the Against All Odds Awards in 2006; as the 1st runner-up by the Aart of Life Foundation. A documentary was done on me; people watched and cast their votes for me. The most exciting part of it was that people kept stopping to talk to me about seeing me on television and how much they were inspired by my story. It did mean a lot to me and it encouraged me to be a better person and is one of the reasons I am who I am today.”
Kelechi adds: “The Rotary Club of District 9140 awarded me the ‘Outstanding Award’ for my resilience as a polio survivor in 2016. The Enugu State University (ESUT) honoured me with an Award of Excellence in 2015. The Aart of Life Foundation gave me the ‘Survival Against all Odds Awards in 2006. And I was Miss Social in the Miss Wheelchair Nigeria 2010.”
Now you want to know if she would like to be a talk show host and she replies: “I haven’t anchored a particular show as a presenter on television or radio but I have been a guest on a lot of shows like ‘Moments with Mo’, ‘Who Wants To Be A Millionaire’, etc. My message is the same: having a positive attitude towards life no matter the circumstances. It is very important to upgrade yourself each moment as much as you can and just breathe.”
Scroll down memory lane and she tells you about the people who have inspired, challenged and helped her get to where she is today. “I admire and respect a lot of people from various walks of life. I Love my late dad, Mr. Onyebuchi Uhegwu, for imbibing in me the character I have in all ramifications. I adore my mum for teaching me hygiene, which was very beneficial to me as a lab scientist. I respect Nelson Mandela for the kind of heart he had towards ‘forgiveness’ after the opportunity he had to pay back his oppressors. I hope to have that kind of heart.”
Still counting her many blessings, Kelechi adds: “I also supported the 2face #VoteNotFight Initiative for a peaceful election. I go out a lot. I love to have fun. During my alone moments, I read books, write poems, listen to music.”
Relationship? That is a no-go area, as she replies. “My relationship is the same as any regular girl. But I’d rather keep it private for now.”
Interestingly, there are so many other exciting parts that make up this wonderful personality. The beautiful lady who has been empowered through skills in make-up artistry unveils this aspect of her life, telling you about her admiration for one of the best hands in the industry. “I regard Tara Durotoye, who came up with a new concept of entrepreneurship in the makeup business, which I had the opportunity to benefit from and hope to carve such niche for myself in.”
As a make-up artiste, Kelechi’s passion for creativity is let loose and her clients are happy each time she gives them a facelift. Apart from the make-up sector, she strongly believes that Nigeria’s designers are doing a great job and deserve to be encouraged. “As for me, my style is simple, beautiful and classy. Nigerian designers are doing a great job, I must say.”
For Kelechi, being disabled is not just about receiving from others; you should be able to touch lives and give back to the society in your own way. “I respect my small friend Oluchi Anekwe, a fire accident survivor, who is making life happen in her own way. She does say I mentor her but she is an amazingly strong person, from whom I draw strength. The world is waiting for her.”
Is there something that she considers as the greatest influence in her life? “My experiences are my greatest influencers, they carve out how I reason at different times,” she answers.
If Kelechi had to advise young people, what would she tell them? “I would say keep dreaming. Don’t be afraid if your dreams are so big and overwhelming, they would eventually come to pass without you realising it, fortunately.” Unfortunately, a lot of young people in the society today have stopped dreaming because the circumstances around them don’t seem right.
The season of regeneration is once again upon us. Actually, the rainy season is also spring time. It is the time everything springs and swings back to life. With its becalming rains and fragrant flowers, it is the season of renewal and rejuvenation, when nature corrects itself as an almighty healer. It soothes. It heals. You always know it is spring when you taste the first succulent flesh of the aromatic mango fruit. The harsh harmattan is fast receding. Cautious optimism returns. Hope springs eternally in the human heart.
But there are times when the living also tend to die alive. This past dry season has been quite hard on Nigerians. Our long suffering patience and faith in government have been tested to their elastic limits. Poverty and hardship bared their murderous fangs. Tempers flared on the streets and in the innermost recesses of the other room. Ethnic relations deteriorated. It has been said that Nigeria is a nation of thirty six unviable states. Pundits were beginning to add the father and primogenitor of them all as the thirty seventh unviable proposition.
Communities that have been at prosperous peace with one and other for centuries tore into each other like ferocious ants. And lightlessness became the leading light of the nation compounding the searing heat with stupendous darkness. The berserk and the besieged collided. The nation’s burden was compounded by a mysterious presidential ailment which gave room to morbid rumours and scary scenarios. For a moment, it seemed as if the dreaded apocalypse is here with us. Call no nation lucky until it has carried its luck to eternity.
But like Mother Nature itself, most nations tend to have an inbuilt self-correcting mechanism which returns them to the path of rationality irrespective of actual governance. There are encouraging feelers from the economic front with the naira clawing its way back to some relevance. After a period of somnolent disorientation, the Central Bank seems to be on top of its brief. Some economic regeneration seems to be in the air. If you think this is small beer, compare this with the fate of the Zimbabwean dollar as it breathes its last under the sclerotic clutches of the old wizard of Harare.
To be sure, all is still not completely well, particularly on the political front. There are still some major concerns about the state of presidential health and President Buhari’s mental and political alertness. Or how else does one explain a situation in which the senate seems to hold the presidency in a pin-fall with the executive pleading for mercy and the resultant paralysis of the state and official business?
But let this distressing disarticulation of the state not put a damper on the feel-good atmosphere of the moment. At least General Buhari is showing signs of regaining his old bounce. His presidency may yet be redeemed if he experiences a radical epiphany in the coming months. It is as sure as daylight that this senate will soon get its comeuppance, if not from the presidency but from the populace. It looks like this epic collision of national will and selfish guts can no longer be postponed.
Given the dismal realities, the question whether the approaching spring will bypass the state in Nigeria may well turn out to be a benevolent plea for a stay of execution. Either in its colonial actuality or post-colonial incarnation, the state has acted to thwart the collective economic aspiration of Nigerian people or constituted itself as the major impediment to the progressive political ambition of the people. The state at the centre has become the enemy of the nation.
But when a route to human development is blocked by hostile accretions, it opens up other avenues for societal emancipation. When Karl Marx famously predicted the withering of the state as the ultimate goal of socialist engineering, little did one know that this daring prediction might find circuitous fulfilment in post-colonial Africa. In his revolutionary delusion and Utopian fantasy, the great German philosopher actually believed that socialist engineering would have so reformed humankind and forced them to abandon their wayward impulses that there would be no need for formal governance.
In the absence of formal governance in many parts of Africa, particularly in Nigeria, certain developments are unfolding which point the way forward in a way that deepens and complicates the Marxian conundrum of a vanishing state. Either through state-driven accelerated development as we can see in Lagos State or through the sheer explosion of human ingenuity which bypasses the state as it is evident in many parts of the country, something is about to give. In the past one week, Lagos played host to both possibilities. We must now critically examine these developments and their implications for both voluntary and involuntary transformation of Nigeria.
A while ago a colleague mentioned in passing that men are only useful for having kids, and not much more I beg to differ, although there are a lot of not so acceptable guys out there, there are quite a number of good ones around. It is as the Yoruba saying goes, “If you decide to close your eyes to let a bad person pass, you might not see the good person when he/she does pass by.” So rather than continuing to think that all men are tarred with the same brush, it makes sense to be armed with tools to make the right choice. Here are four tips to help you decide whether or not he is a good catch;
He really does love you
When I say love, I don’t mean it only in the romantic/erotic sense, but in the sense that the Latin language calls agape- unconditional, selfless love. A man who really loves you wants what is best for you; almost like the way a parent wants only the best for their kids. This kind of man will make sacrifices for you, simply because he wants what is best for you. Like Ada, whose husband allows her to pursue a career she loves, even though it took her away from home on holidays and Sundays at the start. Furthermore he supported her with tools and advice, even though the pay wasn’t all that great. At the end of the day her career took off, and she attributes her success to the support of a wonderful man.
He is interested in your happiness
A loving man wants his woman to be happy, even if it might cost him some discomfort, such a man does this simply wants you to be happy. Someone once told a another lady, let us call her Yemisi, “you will never be happy being only a housewife, your talents and gifts are such that you would never feel fulfilled until you pursue your dreams.” Fortunately, she was married to a man who recognized her gifts and allowed her to somehow juggle her marriage, home, and career. Fortunately for her, her man recognized that as well and gave her the opportunity to use her god given gifts and talents. Even though he had a successful and demanding career of his own, he gave her all the support she needed. This rare man often helped with the shopping, and the kids, made dinner for the family when he returned from work, as she often got him later than he did. She credits him for being ‘a real rock’.
He treats you nicely
Women are moved by what they hear, while men are moved by what they see. A woman’s self-image can be made or marred by the way her man views, and treats her. If he treats her well, she will most likely have a positive self-image, if not, she will have a negative one. It’s the reason why women in abusive relationships have a poor self-image. They feel unhappy and unloved. A man who disrespects you with his speech and attitude is an accident waiting to happen. Do yourself a favour and end the relationship for your own.
He makes you better
No human being has the power to change another, but finding a good man is like wind to a kite. Just as the kite will definitely fly, the woman will. A good man will pick you up when you are down, push you when you are discouraged, and celebrate with you when you succeed. He never feels threatened by your success, in fact, when you succeed, it’s his success as well because he backed you all the way. Such guys help you write or rewrite your resume, help you find a job,and encourage you to write that exam or certification. When you a look at your life, it’s easy to say that your life is better because he is in it, whether or not he footed the bills.
My friend Eji recently contacted about helping her with her packing. She confesses to being “the worst suitcase packer of all time”. I am not a bad packer myself, but she also admits to being “the worst un-packer”. She confesses, “I will pack for a trip in 30 minutes only to return and leave the suitcase in its exact state for weeks after”. My friend is a busy professional, whose recent promotion means that she is doing more and more travelling, and is in desperate need of an expert to help sort out her packing challenges.
See the packing mistake we are all guilty of, and tips to avoid it.
The major mistake we most often make is aimlessly throwing everything in a suitcase without planning, organization, or any effort whatsoever. Ahead, prepare yourself to do some personal reflecting on your other packing mistakes as you take hold of tested solutions for a disheveled and over packed suitcase.
THE #1 PACKING MISTAKE IS: AIMLESSLY THROWING EVERYTHING INTO A SUITCASE
One big packing mistake that people make is not taking the time to make sense of their suitcases. They grab items that they want to bring on their trips and just fill up their bags with them. Over packing is an issue too (getting into that mindset of Oh, I’ll definitely want to wear this since I’ll be in the Bahamas—when you know very well that that romper never looks good on you and being in the Bahamas won’t change that).
PACKING SOLUTIONS:
Separate items by type.
Separate items by type (clothing together, accessories together, etc.) and either use the pockets or mesh/clear packing bags to separate them. For example, keep the big and bulky clothing in the main pocket and small clothing like socks and underwear in one of the small pockets.
Pack exact outfits.
Do your best to plan out exact outfits and think when you’ll wear what. Keep in mind that versatility is of utmost importance when you pack. Those trousers that you can dress up or down to a variety of places? Pack them!
Store toiletries in clear bags.
Store all toiletries in a clear plastic bag. This way you can see what’s inside and keep everything contained and away from your clothing.
