HOW TO STAY ALIVE IN 2023 IN NIGERIA AND BEYOND…

1. Do not rush out of the slippery bathroom to pick your calls. Cultivate the habit of making your phone ring out and calling back if you missed a call, airtime is cheaper than brain surgery. Many have slipped, slumped and died from hurried foolishness. There is no real emergency in minutes. Finish up, clean up and call back. Unless you are holding another’s kidney, nothing is that urgent to attend to immediately, that you can’t attend to after 5minutes. From the day I fell and almost broke my waist, trying to pick up a business call, even if the Secretary General of the United Nations is calling me whilst I am having my bath, it will ring out and I will call back afterwards. Obedience is better than sacrilege. Every sense of urgency dies when you die. You can treat broken legs, broken hands and live with an amputated limb, but not not an amputated or broken head.
2. Avoid Bath tubs if you can, especially if you are growing older. That exciting luxury can end your life. Many deaths at the ‘hands’ of slips in Bath tubs go unrecorded and passed off as ‘natural’ deaths from slumps. Shower in your glass cubicle or get coarse mats within and without for stability. Don’t buy a luxury that will end your life.

Buy a foot mat for your bathroom door and/or have two slippers in the bathroom. Always ensure one is dry and don’t wear the wet one on slippery tiles, lest you fall. This is more important for elderly people. Age is no longer on the side of your agility. Don’t kill yourself.

3. Ensure you use quality materials and competent Engineers and Artisans for your residential and commercial building projects. Don’t save money today and die tomorrow. ‘I can do it all by myself’ has grave consequences. Buildings don’t just collapse and fall, they are consequences of bad execution, poor choices and structural failure occasioned by corner-cutting clever-by-half home owners and builders. The story of the Professor whose loosely fitted living room’s heavy chandelier fell on and killed on the day of his inaugural lecture can’t leave my head in a hurry. If they charge peanuts, what more proof do you need that they are monkeys? Pay more and engage core professionals.
4. Don’t embark on meaningless journeys. Journeys are riskier on those carnage we call Nigerian roads and its more dangerous with the specks of highway robbery and kidnapping experienced on lonely Nigerian roads. Only travel If it is absolutely necessary. Do not honour every owanbe invitation. How do you explain in hell that you died enroute to going to a party that doesn’t really concern you? The best way to know if you should really attend an event is this- Will it go on if you are there or not? If you die on the way- Will they stop the event in your honour? Will your contribution via cash transfer not be more beneficial to the celebrants than your lousy presence? Have I not eaten party jollof before? Can you attend every event? You are not Elshaddai, if you try to please everyone, you shall die.
5. Change the rickety tyres of your vehicles if you must travel. I always advise that car owners buy new tyres no matter how inconvenient. A small car with new tyres is better than a big car on Tokunbo tyres. Sell your car If you must to afford a viable tyre. Your life is not negotiable. Risking your life on something less than 100,000naira is plain foolishness. If you can afford the car, then, you can afford brand new tyres. Dead people don’t spend money. To be penny wise and pound foolish is celebrated mediocrity. Don’t patronize Tokunbo tyres. There are more lives lost to burst Tokunbo tyres in Nigeria than HIV. Kill your speed when driving, speed kills.

In the unlikely event that your Tokunbo tyres burst on the highway on top speed, do us a favour so you can survive the accident, DON’T ever apply the breaks in panic, lest your vehicle do multiple somersault and some overzealous commuters will upload the pictures of your shattered and charred remains on Facebook to get likes and comments. Kindly decelerate and control the wheels till you reach a safe anchor to park. You are not James Bond. Don’t kill yourself.

6. Don’t board motorcycles at all If you can avoid them, your body is its body. If you must, wear your helmet. Use tricycles and car-hailing services and seat in front to reduce risk of harm or ambush. Stop forming luxury in a rented taxi, you are not made yet. Ever wondered why there are no patients with head injuries and fractured skulls from Okada accidents in the accident and emergency wards of hospitals? It’s because they don’t get to the hospital. It’s instant death! Once your head hits the tar, it smashes. It’s welcome to paradise or the other side.
7. Don’t talk carelessly about your fortune in armed robbers’ likely haven like pubs and hotels. A fool’s mouth is his cemetery, he who keeps his mouth shut, preserves his life. Avoid cash-based conversations in the presence of your drivers and other domestic aides. Armed robbery is an organised crime carefully orchestrated based on insider information. No sane robber will risk his life on uncertainty. Don’t let the information out cheaply. Stop nightcrawling like ghosts. The night knows not a Honourable. Don’t live always like a night owl. Let your children know your true complexion. Don’t leave at dawn only to return at dusk always. Night crawlers are often prone to disaster.
8. Don’t drive and drink. If you must drive, don’t drink, if you must drink, don’t drive. Avoid dangerous overtaking in bends and corners. There are too many insane and desperate Drivers on Nigerian roads. When on the road, assume you are the only sane one. Take the road safety precautions, use your seat belt- it saves lives.
9. Don’t argue with force men on the highway and at road checkpoints. When they motion you to stop, stop, go, go. Don’t be cocky and obstinate. Save your life before your right. Don’t claim right in the bush without a witness, lest you get shot. The dead does not prosecute or argue with the living. I marvel when commuters respect soldiers and treat police officers with disdain. They forget that there are more trigger-happy police officers than trigger-happy soldiers. Many Nigerian Police officers do not have fire discipline. There are more records of extra-judicial killings by the Police than in the hands of the Army. Don’t let an unmotivated, utterly frustrated, psychologically bewitched Police officer kill you because of N100 bribe.
10. Don’t eat and drink indiscriminately to avoid poisoning. I researched in a University and found out 35 Staff of that institution were poisoned in a space of 20years. Tame your mouth and keep your life. Never leave your food and drinks unattended to even in the company of your so-called friends and associates. Everyone cannot like you, you are not ice cream. Socialising is not a valid excuse to drink to your death and be careless. If only autopsies were taken seriously in Nigeria, you will realise how many unnatural deaths get disguised as ‘God’s Will’. Learn to say thank you to most ‘Come and Eat’. ‘Come and Eat’ is a greeting, not an invitation. Eat with decorum and modesty. Don’t eat till you belch like a bull and invite Andrews liver salt and Gestid to your rescue in the glare of flatulence, constipation and indigestion on another person’s bill. Don’t eat anyhow and anywhere lest you eat poison. A man’s throat is his sepulchre and snare. Keep it clean.
    Stay safe