toonday's perspectives

It is important to reiterate that once a victim shows a sign of breathing, the first aider should quickly put him or her into a recovery position.   Kneel close to a side of the victim. The hand closer to you should be folded into a right angle with the palm face-up. The hand further to you should be gently placed palm up on the cheek of the victim. Then, you raise up the leg that is further away from the knee till the foot will be flat against the ground. Gently tilt (pull) the victim towards you and raise his head up to open the airway.  Then you wait for medical help. ---toonday 

If you haven't witnessed a fatal accident, may you not. If you have, may God cleanse your mind of the gory details. Living in Nigeria increases the probability of you seeing a fatal accident. Roads with huge potholes. Sharp bends on the highway. One way interstate drive. Thus, it's essential to be ready for an eventuality that may never happen: saving lives, reviving accident victims.  FirstAid is the immediate skilled care and assistance given to someone in need before the attention of a doctor is obtained. FirstAid is not only for motor accident victims but all kinds including domestic accidents. But this discourse will focus on road accidents which have been predominantly worrisome in Nigeria. My facilitator shared an experience where he cried after his 17years of being on the field as a first aider. On 23rd of December, a driver left Lagos around 3 pm and wanted to return the same day. He was taking an unfamiliar route that was supposed to be fast. He did 100km...

Everywhere and Everyone in Nigeria is a bundle of accidents waiting to happen. The pothole-ridden road, the irregular medical check-up, the careless attitude, the unplanned building, the tiled bathroom, the unlit highways, the abandoned nail on the ground seen but not removed, the impatient mechanic that fixes the car, the driver ogling bums beside the road etc. 98% of all accidents are caused by human error. If we can consciously try to be safe, we can avert 50% of daily accidents. Yesterday, a guy left the office for an official meeting. At the meeting, he was usually active and full of life. Getting to the office this morning, his colleagues were told he slumped and died in the bathroom. The first thought would be "we saw him yesterday just so full of life".This explains the concept of wellness and healthiness.  Healthiness is a state of complete well being physical, mental and social, not only absence of diseases. While wellness is the active co...

What attractiveness makes Twitter a media of the future despite not having humongous coverage like Facebook , nor the allure of Instagram or the ubiquity of WhatsApp ? It is a serious question for going-concern and a market pitch for those with listening corporate ear. The lesson of interconnectivity and openness has been learned from the hubris of BBM . Alas, almost all social media platforms have leveraged on the circle of sharing-- interconnectivity. Users can post to several social media platforms at once. Twitter has this edge of an evolving culture that is quite appealing to teeming youths. Despite the character limitations, it avails users a limited exposure to unnecessary verbosity. Its succinct bio-data protects twitterati from exposure to personality theft and privacy poke-nosing. The most fun of it all is the direct followership to stars and access to their tweets. From here, the evolving culture starts which can be further understood with the meaning of these t...

If you don’t know why "Berger to Ajah" is trending, you will now. Behind it is a story of a twitter meet-up. Uche, the bearded, everyone-dream, everyday twitter guy DM-ing B moore and things got rosy. They chatted for a while and planned to meet up sometime in 2016. It was a trip from Berger to Ajah.  Harrowing with the fact the B Moore expected a pleasant connection but Uche could only give an unaffectionate but (probable) relish-able sex. Fast forward to the present, Uche dude has been alleged to rape some girl through an advocate on this same twitter. B moore caught a wind of that, teamed up with the advocate for solidarity. The complex situation becomes compounded-complex. To clear the air, Uche leaked all private chats and DMs between him and B Moore showing their prior- and post-coital interaction.  B-more  encounter was obviously not a rape but an un-met expectation after a sexual knowledge. The bitterness of ...

Foreigners have always been my favorite customers because they come with different perspectives on issues in Nigeria. My curiosity always starts off with the innocent question of how they perceive Nigeria. It (my curiosity) stems from the fact that the perception of Nigeria from outside may widely be different to the reality encountered by a visitation to the country. Alas, I was never disappointed when I experienced a lucky and epiphanic encounter with a Kenyan.  At first, she debunked my initial assertion that she might likely want to settle down in Nigeria, stating clearly she could not wait to return to her country despite the fact she claimed that theft and robbery are rampant on her home side of mother Africa. My shocker started when she told me she has not stepped her foot into Nigeria when her disappointment dawned. The airport here reeks of unexpected abandonment and disorganization in comparison to what they have in Kenya.  Lagos on musical videos seems like ...

Living is a quadratic equation with a pre-determined answer (death) yet we keep trying to solve the equation. Year 2017 gave a fair share of answers to many lives. From international, national, to local personalities, lives were lost. To us, at first it appeared a distant reality until someone close to us succumbed to that harsh reality. To the young, it's a distant rumor. To the old, constant topic heavily brooded. If living is an act of dying, how can we then be gracious in dying? I came across this term: death cleaning and alas it's the much needed answer. How we can shroud in our living (dying) the preparatory kindness that can live after us and make neighbors happy?  Every breathing being will one day taste death.  No amount of science, or achievement, or bitterness or super-humanness can change that. If so, won't we live in all preparation for the constant exit? Death cleaning is a Swedish term that describes a conscious and deliberate preparation for death...

Travelling, to me, has been a kind of muse I can hardly explain. My degree of retarded-ness still gives a room for an ample curiosity. My mind will imaginingly crawl into co-commuters' minds, trying to discern the thoughts that crease into every minuscule smile, accidental frown, angry jolt and retort, battle-ready poise inside commercial buses. They are extension of Nigerian stories. This only happens inside public transport because in my personal automobile, I am always busy trying to survive the hazard of highways. Since, I find myself in a job that demands most handsome hours of the day. My curiosity seems to be dying a good death but alas it often re-incarnates when I sit hours in a commercial bus travelling to a compulsory destination. One boring weekend, I happened to witness a memorable but not unusual altercation inside the bus. On boarding the bus, I subconsciously declined to take the seat at the back as my Aunt has insistently warned against seating at the far-ba...