1. Keep both hands on the steering wheel. Driving in the rain requires utmost concentration. Keep all distractions (mobile devices especially!) away from you. Keep your focus firmly on the road while observing happenings beside and behind you through the side and driving mirrors. 2. Turn on your headlights Visibility is naturally reduced during the rains. Putting on your headlight helps you see the road ahead more clearly and also makes you more visible to other road users. 3. Keep a good distance from the car ahead. You never know what the driver ahead of you may suddenly run into; putting enough distance between you and the car ahead helps you when you need to make instant decisions. 4. Drive below the speed limit Speeding in the rain is unsafe, as brakes can be affected by water. Keeping well below the speed limit helps you remain in control whatever the eventualities 5. Avoid flooded roads if you can. Never drive through standing or flowi...Read more

Accidents can happen anywhere… Here are some safety tips for your Home. 1. Clean up spills immediately. A tiny liquid spill could potentially be harmful to you. Ensure you always clean up all spills immediately so as to avoid slipping on them. 2. Take extra caution with hot liquids. For those who have kids around, refrain from placing hot liquids in a place where children can reach it or on tables that have their table cloths hanging over. The child may pull on the fabric causing the liquid to spill on them. 3. Install grab bars in the shower. Shower falls are commonplace in every home. Installing grab bars in your shower help prevent disaster should someone slip. 4. Keep electronics away from water. Do not keep electronics near water or in a place where they could fall in or a child could pull them in. In the same vein, do not let children near water storages. Children love to play with water. A large body of water poses as much risk ...Read more

The rainy season brings with it an unfortunate increase in crime rates during traffic rush hour. Here are tips for you to avoid being robbed in traffic: 1. On noticing the gathering of the clouds, if you can, leave whatever you are doing and head home immediately. It is better to avoid being caught in traffic occasioned by the rains. 2. If you must move in the rain, select routes that have minimal flooding. The traffic radio stations can help intimate you of such routes. 3. Pull off all jewellery and keep somewhere safe in the car. Please do not keep in your purse as robbers often ask for those as well. 4. Before starting your car and driving off, please keep all valuables like laptops, mobile devices etc. out of sight. Keep the appropriate ones in the car trunk or glove compartment. 5. Have little cash in your wallet; keep the bulk of your money elsewhere. Wallets and purses are one of the first things robbers ask for. You don’t ...Read more

1. Make it difficult for someone to conceal themselves while breaking in. Avoid tall/thick shrubs around your windows and doors. 2. Having good exterior lighting helps. If you own your home and can afford a motion sensor floodlight, please install one. When a motion light kicks on, you know someone is out there. 3. You know your neighborhood more than anyone. If you stay in a middle class area, avoid having stuff in plain sight that shows affluence. If you have an expensive car, keep it in a garage. If you have nice stuff in your house, keep your blinds closed. Never show off wealth in the midst of little. 4. Burglars usually case a neighborhood before they rob it. They know when you leave for work. They know when your neighbors leave for work. If you have neighbors that are home during the day, it will make your house a riskier break-in. Or better still, stay in a gated estate with adequate security. 5. If you have a security system, don’t put one...Read more

The SMS that woke Abdullahi up was three-words long: We get accident!. He blinked away the sleep that weighed heavily on his eyes and shot up in bed. The message was from his truck driver, Kabiru, who was delivering a truckload of goats to Lagos in response to the Christmas orders that were already coming in. ”What happened?” he asked immediately the line connected. Kabiru explained how he had lost control of the truck while trying to avoid a ditch on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. ”33 goats don die sah!” Kabiru told him. The goat herder knew he was in trouble. At N45,000 per goat, losing 33 goats meant he had incurred a N1,485,000 loss even before he had sold one. Abdullahi wept for the colossal loss and for his refusal to listen to the young man who had approached him just three days earlier to buy an Sanlam General Insurance Goods-in-Transit policy to protect him from uncertainties on the road. Do you run a business that transports goods...Read more

Well before new generation hypermarkets took over the city, Reggie’s was the neighbourhood’s favourite supermarket. Established as a one-stop family business by the Ajekigbes, the store was renowned for its consistently low price regimen and diversity of stock. Year in, year out, Reggie’s catered for the neighbourhood in ways only it can. Soon, it became a major landmark around the locality. Until the Matriarch of the family, Madam Ajekigbe, who ran the store for years, passed on and Reggie’s had to employ a Store Manager. Within seven months of the new hire, Reggie’s began witnessing empty shelves and ridiculous prices. Then one Monday morning, residents woke to a closed Reggie’s. The Store Manager had refused to show up at work locking out store attendants and cleaners in the process. It was later discovered he had been stealing stock and diverting sales proceeds. He had bolted when the owners decided to audit the accounts. ...Read more

Everything about the new apartment made Chigozie happy. From sharing a two-bedroom apartment with eight others in downtown Lagos to getting his own place, a newly-built -though tiny- one-bedroom apartment in Ajah, he was finally moving to freedom. No more hustling for space on one of the two 3-and-a-half inches mattresses available, or settling for one of the thread-bare throw pillows that made for neck cushions the days he missed out on the mattress. The boys themselves called the apartment Barracks, an apt sobriquet for the mess it was at its rowdiest. The first set of gadgets he bought with the entire savings he had left after paying the rent included a 43” LED TV, a DVD Home Theatre system, an HD Zapper decoder, and a 1hp air-conditioning unit. No one told him adulting was a lonely journey; as far as he was concerned, life is good. It all turned sour for him one Monday evening when he got back from work to find out his TV and sound system had grow...Read more

Tonye was engrossed in the calming lyrics of his favourite band, The Corrs, when it happened. Like an unwanted noise in the calm, he heard the sharp scraping sound as the Keke Marwa, in an attempt at squeezing itself between two vehicles, drew a long jagged line on the side of his shiny black 2010 Toyota Camry. He was out of the car in a flash, eyes blazing, set for war. “You guys have been doing this rubbish for a while, today, I will make you a scape goat,” Tonye stuttered as he poised for a show down. But it never happened. Immediately the driver of the Keke saw the extent of the damage, he quickly got out of his tricycle and laid flat on the hot tarmac. As if in a movie, other Keke riders around joined their colleague on the tarmac. While some knelt, others prostrated. Standing tall in the middle of the drama, Tonye found himself looking like a newly-crowned king accepting his subjects’ homage. He left the scene without sa...Read more