Body talk and blessings

The things that wear well

About a week ago, I got sent a picture taken at an event I attended about 3 decades ago, I was both shocked and surprised as I did not know the picture existed.

How I have changed, in all that time and remain more or less the same. I guess one of the things striking about the picture was the jacket I was wearing then and to think that I not only still have the jacket, but it also fits well, I wore it to church just 3 Sundays ago.

That is durability for you, the good sense of spending money on good quality that lasts. Clothes, shoes, hats, umbrellas, or accessories like a pair of binoculars, and I can point to stuff that I bought in the 90s that is wearable or useful today.

The measures that remain true

The other matter is the body, how our bodies change or the way we work on ensuring the body remains fit and trim if you can put the essential work into it.

It is my weight that bothers me more than anything else and then the need to ensure my tummy does not distend and become protuberant.

Except for when I lost 25% of my weight during a bout of cancer, I have kept my weight within 5kg of 83kg, preferring to weigh on the lower side rather than the upper side for a height of 183cm or six feet. In the shops, it appears they do not expect someone with a 32” (81.3cm) waist to be tall, I need according to our UK measurements, a 34” (86.4cm) inside leg.

It is a great blessing

It is a struggle to find that fitting off-the-peg, Brian who is trimmer and taller can wear my trousers, he just needs one more hole in the belt, I think. He always looks so cute beside me.

I do wonder how people cope with the excess that they carry around, the belaboured breathing and other encumbrances that are associated with tending towards obesity.

Maybe I have just been blessed with a body that sticks close to form, even my neck has stuck to 16.5” (42cm) for as long as I can remember.

In everything, I am thankful and blessed be the name of the Lord.

South Africa: This humble customer is not a diva

Drop the stars and give me service

Why? I lamented, do I end up in places where I have to demand they raise standards? This is not my calling. When an expectation is set, I expect it to be exceeded, especially if a hospitality establishment dares to boast a 5-star rating.

It is important we understand what hotel ratings are and I am afraid, this hotel fails to breach the mark it has been assigned.

Earl Grey, yes, Earl Grey

This morning, I arrived for breakfast and the standard should be once I am seated, I should be asked if I want tea or coffee. I was not asked until I had to go up to the waiters and ask for a pot of tea. I wanted Earl Grey tea. That is standard fare in any self-respecting place.

The waitress said, there was no Earl Grey tea and then asked if she could offer me another flavour of tea. No, you do not ask to change the desired taste of a customer except when you have something better to offer. I refused and insisted on being served Earl Grey tea, failing that, it should be available tomorrow morning.

She flipped back at me that there is no Earl Grey tea. At which point, there was no point wasting my time conversing with her as I made for the reception and put in a formal request to be served Earl Grey tea tomorrow morning. Soon, one of the managers came to me and promised that my request will be fulfilled.

I’m not signing what I shouldn’t

Then, this evening, again I paid a deposit at the reception and was asked to sign the slip when the receipt slip clearly stated “No customer signature is required.” Much as the Chef de Réception insisted my signature was for accounting purposes, I refused to offer a signature where it was not needed.

In fact, one of the two lifts has been out of commission since this morning and did I mention they seem to have allowed their television channel subscriptions to lapse since yesterday.

Not like the menu says

Then for the third time of being a masochist, I returned to the restaurant for dinner. I received the menu, scanned the options and asked for smoked salmon roulade for my starter and spaghetti Bolognese for my plat principal.

The waitress returned apologising that the salmon roulade was not available, to which I suggested they take it off the menu, because this was my third night of asking and it was not available. I then asked was the ‘Soup of the Day’ was, she responded, 'mushroom soup'. Well, I had that yesterday, so I offered another suggestion that they rename the menu item, ‘Soup of the Week’, we both laughed, but I was serious.

I ended up with a carpaccio of beef, it just about passed the muster, before my main course arrived. I put my fork in it, twisted and rolled the pasta and to my buccal cavity it went before I motioned to the waitress to bring me the menu to confirm what I ordered.

I checked and it said, spaghetti Bolognese cooked al dente. I was missing the al dente part, now if I were in a papier-mâché art class, the pasta would have been gooey enough to use as binder for paper. I was having none of it, so I first told her, what I was served was not what I had ordered and suggested she return it to the chef because the spaghetti was not al dente.

Amends made

A few minutes later, the chef came out to apologise and said he will make amends, then another chef came to chat to me, apologising again and promising I will get me spaghetti, the way it is supposed to be made. Suffice it to say, pasta should be the simplest of meals to make, but it is also one that betrays a lack of attention to detail of the very basic cuisine.

Ten minutes later, my meal arrived and yes, there was a bite in the spaghetti, it was al dente and I more or less cleared my plate. If I have been poisoned for my insistence on quality, I will have suffered nobly for the sake of what is right.

I decided there was no point ordering a dessert lest they come up short of what was needed. When the bill came, the chef said my meal was on the house. To be honest, like I have said many times before, I pay because I expect the service, I am not waiting to be compensated for what should have been there in the first place. I signed the bill and offered a gratuity too.

I fear, my situation makes it appear as if I am a diva, but nothing could be further from the truth. I am not a vexatious customer, I am a humble customer with simple requirements that I appear to expect to be met. Surely, there is nothing wrong with that or with the expectation that a 5-star hotel should aspire to be what it says it is.

Holiday Snaps: Location still serves vocation

Tribes in the sun

Location, they say, is everything. This could not have been more evident than in my recent visit to Playa del Inglés on the island of Gran Canaria.

Much as this part of the island offers hotels, sun, sand, mostly in dunes and the sea, there are sections around the place that are tribal, clannish or native.

We are left in no doubt that the Germans frequent this island more than other nationals considering the number of signs in German compared to English, Dutch or Scandinavian signs.

Whilst, many other nationals do visit for the sun and surprisingly we met up with Americans who had somehow found this out-of-the-way European sunshine paradise, it is was something of a surprise to me.

Traces of places

When it comes to night life, there are places to go where a lot is going on. I could not however fail to notice that beyond these central places that the tourists throng, some enterprising and entrepreneurial spirits had thought to attract custom to other places in town.

These new places I found were considerably better in standard, facility and variety compared to the crowded places that proprietors could not care to maintain or update. However, they have so much footfall that they cannot be bothered to differentiate themselves from competition to attract more clientele. Complacency had set in.

Whereas, these new places strive to convince us that they are close to the centre and in the process miss out on providing the critical detail that might persuade people to visit their premises.

Failing to listen

I took it upon myself at one such venue to state that the instructions given for their location were not clear and sometimes confusing. The indications use referred to a building that had a name spelt top-down rather than from the left to the right as most of us read words.

My friend, new to the island had more recognition for the building name that had the word spelt horizontally from left to right rather than for the building name spelt vertically, prominent as it appeared to be, but I could not get that point across to the owners, rather, I was pushed back as being probably stupid.

Missing the essential

You then wonder if their market research despite the quality of the product took cognisance of that minor detail of getting people to come or whether it had any strategies for persuading people to leave the beaten paths to the less well-travelled places.

Yet, with owners who appear to know too much that they cannot appreciate a simple observation from a customer concerned enough to make a point about the directions to venue, there is no wondering why despite how good and fantastic the new places are, not many are venturing beyond the central hubs of activity.

They’ve created paradise in a desert and expect people to leave the comforts of tried and tested venues for an unknown. Unknown, they would remain until they rethink the whole scheme because they present no competition as at yet to force the popular places to improve, upgrade or make attractive offers to customers.

Nigeria: Presumed Substandard Tyonex HIV/AIDS ARV Drugs Removed From Circulation

Click to large

I received this picture on Twitter earlier.

I am pleased to read that the concerns raised about SubStandard HIV/AIDS ARV drugs have registered with NAFDAC and they have taken appropriate action to suspend with immediate effect all the ARVs manufactured by Tyonex Nigeria Limited.

I first wrote about this in November http://goo.gl/fYINqS and then when I got hold of the said drugs in December I posted another blog and wrote to NAFDAC about the issue http://goo.gl/kQOh8t

Obviously, NGOs have been clamouring about this for months and to have a letter acting on the issue is a very successful outcome for all those whose vulnerability has somewhat been abused by failings in the drug administration system.

There is much work to be done to build on this success, it is however wonderful news.

Blog - Nigeria: These Sub-Standard ARV Drugs are Completely Unacceptable

Blog - Nigeria: The issue of sub-standard ARV drugs is a critical emergency

Nigeria: These Sub-Standard ARV Drugs are Completely Unacceptable

Until now

Just over a month ago, I wrote about the issue of sub-standard anti-retro viral drugs (ARVs) in Nigeria, and when some of my friends contacted people who were supposed to be in the know about the management and distribution of ARVs in Nigeria, they appeared to pooh-pooh the idea.

Blog - Nigeria: The issue of sub-standard ARV drugs is a critical emergency

The message coming back was that the complainers were not interested in using drugs manufactured in Nigeria, that they wanted foreign-sourced drugs.

Handling the ARV drugs

Well, this afternoon, I handled with my own hands the drugs, a bottle from India and Nigeria of the same formulary of ARVs (Zidovudine [AZT] 300mg, Nevirapine 200mg, Lamivudine [3TC] 150mg), but that is where the similarity ends.

It is important that we clarify that the drugs are not fake, they are sub-standard, and I would illustrate what I mean with pictures to follow.

The Indian manufactured bottle is on the left, the Nigerian manufactured bottle is on the right, and the first thing that you see is the poor quality of the labelling.

By comparison the shelf-life of the drugs is 35 months for the Indian version and 23 months for the Nigerian version – A first indication of a difference in quality or standards.

The question of Storage

The problem seems to come down to information on this part of the bottle label. The Indian version is to be stored below 30°C and protected from light and moisture, the Nigerian version should be stored in a dry place below 25°C and protected from sunlight.

A double-take to the World Bank website for the average temperature and rainfall in Nigeria  and in India for the 110 years to 2009 suggests the average temperature in Nigeria only dips below 25°C in December and January, and it has a higher average range than that of India. [World Bank Group][World Bank Group]

Besides this, whilst Nigeria does not have as much rain as the monsoons of India, the rainfall is spread across more months suggesting the climate in Nigeria is broadly humid resulting in more months of precipitation.

It goes without saying from this basic observation that the instructions on the bottle of the Nigerian manufacture ARVs must at least be the same as the ones for India – Store at below 30°C, in dry place, protected from light and moisture.

Between English and French

It is also interesting to note the difference been the English and the French instructions on the Nigerian bottle. Apart from the typographical errors where the obvious one is physician spelt as pyhsician, why Anglophones should be concerned about sunlight and the Francophones are more affected by humidity, escapes me.

A French-speaking observer of this said, “It is full of typos, and badly translated from English.” In other words, this is patently shoddy work and that is just the labels on bottles on life-saving medication.

With the permission, my French-speaking friend, reviewed the French part of the label and his comments appear below:

Chaque ma' dicament contient:
[...]

La prescription des pyhsician seulement.
Gader tout medicament hors de la portes des enfants.
Mettax su frais bas de 25°C. Protegez de l'humidite.

It is just about understandable.
It should be:
- médicament not ma'dicament
- physician, wrongly spelt is an Anglicism, in French it should read: Seulement sur prescription médicale
- gader (keep) is misspelled = garder
- la portée (reach) misspelled
- Mettax misspelled = mettre (keep/store) but should be "conserver"
- su misspelled = au (at)
- bas: poor translation of "bellow" = en-dessous

All the accents are missing and overall it say on prescription only, keep away from children store below 25°C, protect from humidity.

It does not make any reference to sunlight.

Why Tyonex could not get a French speaker in Nigeria to properly translate the English portion of the label to French escapes me. I am sure Google Translate would have done a better job. It is unprofessional, shoddy and really dampening in confidence.

Inside the bottle

Opening the bottles, the quality becomes evident, the Indian version has a desiccant, the Nigerian version does not, the tablets or caplets as the label indicates are in a cling film bag all coated with the white dusty powder of the pills.

The Indian version remains intact to the touch whilst the Nigerian version leaves a chalky residue on the fingers when touched and when held firmly between the thumb and a finger, it disintegrates as seen below.

I note that in the blog I wrote last month, this is what the AIDS Healthcare Foundation said – ‘The press release suggests the drugs “are brittle, break easily and dissolve in one's mouth before swallowing, and furthermore the package presentation is substandard, with poor labelling that resembles the work of professional counterfeit drugs peddlers.” [AIDS Healthcare Foundation]’

The standards are poor

It goes without saying that poor manufacturing standards without consideration for the socio-economic and climate conditions in which the drugs would be used can inform the rapid deterioration of the medications leading to sub-par efficaciousness of the medicines, the consequences which can be dire and life-threatening to patients who need these drugs to survive.

Even if the drugs were to be kept in a fridge, the power situation in Nigeria precludes that, it only means that standards should be significantly raised to improve the quality of these drugs, and one cannot say what other drugs are poorly packaged and distributed as these.

This ARV is Manufactured by, Divine Essential Formulations and Distributed by Tyonex Nigeria Limited at the same address in Igando, Lagos State, Nigeria. [Other Tyonex Anti-Retro Viral Drugs]

What is NAFDAC doing?

It is more shocking to read from the label that these copies of the ARV drugs are manufactured under licence from the Federal Ministry of Health in collaboration with Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) under the auspices of the MDGs 2009 Conditional Grant Scheme. [UNDP NIG (PDF)]

The label also has a NAFDAC Reg. No: A4-6854, which begs the question of what standards of inspection and quality that organisation imposes on drug manufacturing companies to ensure the general public are not put at risk.

There is every reason to believe that the manufacture of short shelf-life, poorly labelled, badly packaged and low integrity ARVs means corners have been cut in the system, somewhere between the bureaucracy and the businessmen who are probably paid to do a better job than this.

Act now!

It is the duty of everyone to ensure that the chain from sourcing of formulation through dispensing to the patient ingesting the drugs is maintained to the highest standard of manufacture and integrity for us to be confident that drugs meant to save lives are not placebo effect dummies with no efficacious value.

I also hope everyone involved including activists ensure that they are compromised and bought off by the system where the lives of ordinary people are impacted.

When I was contacted about this issue last month, the person had suffered a precipitous fall in their CD4 count to 25% of what it was 6 months before. That is just unacceptable, and it indicates a sense of urgency and an emergency that needs to be addressed with immediate alacrity.

There were no other indications in the bloods that could account for that result apart from the Nigerian manufactured ARVs, and it would appear more of the Indian manufactured ARVs are now being distributed in Nigeria.

Additional Information:

NGOs Condemn the Supply of Sub-standard ARVs at Treatment Centres in Nigeria: http://youtu.be/YO4r1sZffrM

805 Restaurant just improves on itself consistently

Meeting my uncle

It came on a whim; I was meeting up with my uncle who I had not seen for nigh on 7 years or thereabouts. It was interesting when we first spoke that he had been informed that I was ill but he thought it just a fever – well, I did have fevers amongst other things – to which I commented, “That is an understatement.”

He probably went half-numb into shock when I told him how ill I was, the story of the discovery, diagnosis, hospitalisation, treatments, recovery and return to life has become a somewhat flawless delivery with snippets of other things like my brother thinking my being able to blog from hospital meant I was fine – the little artistic bent I have allows for the a dead-pan delivery of the line – You have no idea.

805, it is

Anyway, we got stuck in traffic so I suggested we go off to 805, the Nigerian cuisine restaurant at 805 Old Kent Road. Whilst my uncle had his general bearings of where we were, he was unsure as we got to Old Kent Road whether we had to turn left or right.

Smartphones are so handy nowadays; I should write something about how smart my phone is when looking for directions, checking timetables for public transport and much else. Immediately, I keyed in the address and we found we were to turn right, having parked the car briefly to be sure – there was no rush.

On getting to 805, the car park behind the restaurant was full apart from watching the annoyance of someone parking and re-parking with such indecision you were ready to take a nail to their tyres just to stop them.

Between you and me, you can use the Toys ‘R Us car park on Old Kent Road some 100 yards from 805 on the other side of the road – Yes, I am back to imperial measures – but you must never have your car there for more than 2 hours, else, be a customer of Toys ‘R Us before you go to 805, the penalty is a £50 fine wending its way to your wallet.

Responsive service

We got to 805 as it began to get busy and we were ushered to a table in one of the even more sophisticated dining areas, all the décor looking formal and well laid out. I then noticed a good subtle organisational arrangement; waiters and waitresses were allocated sections to attend to and the floor manager being very observant would notice if the service was not as prompt as one would expect and ask questions of the staff as to why the delay.

As it does get busy, there could be a bit of a wait but the staff will come with assurances to handle your expectations, the wait will always be worth your while.

I had assorted meat pepper soup as my entrée and semolina pudding with edikang ikong with assorted meats for my plat principal, my uncle went for the fish pepper soup and amala pudding with corchorus (ewedu) vegetable stew and assorted meats. We had Malta Guinness for drinks but the capsicum rating of the pepper soups had us pleading for water too.

Quality and class

I first visited 805 in 2006 and since then, I have watched the restaurant expand and improve, in quality, in service, in choice, in clientele and it is a stand-out Nigerian-owned business that sets the standard for what one should expect of a decent restaurant that I find quite lacking in many other Nigerian cuisine restaurants I have visited around Europe.

805 easily caters to an international diverse and multicultural demographic, it is a place you can take anyone not familiar with Nigerian cuisine to experience the amazing smorgasbord of Nigerian cooking without being squeamish about setting, service or any other uncomfortable situation.

Easily the best

We had a lovely dinner, the facilities are also much improved too and as I made for that opportunity I acknowledged the owner who apparently also knows my uncle that when I was later introduced to him commended my appearance – he is a sharp dresser too, commanding an air of understated sophistication that most of my country-folk usually fail to carry for hedonistic ostentation that makes for expensive and vulgar expressions of wealth as one risks snobbery for noticing the difference between the one and the other.

If you are in London and looking for a bit of class mixed with nostalgia, 805 at 805 Old Kent Road cannot come better recommended.

How to get to 805 and the menu.

My first review of 805 in 2006.

Incredible India: Honest to Koenig Solutions

Growth at the expense of quality

Much as I would want nothing to curb my enthusiasm, I have been forced to curb my expectations but only for a while.

I am saddened to hear that despite the successes of Koenig Solutions in the delivery of Information Technology training that has made them recognised partners with global IT firms of repute and won them many prizes and accolades, their push for growth and expansion is affecting other essential matters badly.

Now, there is a great possibility that the expectations of trainees from the West could be radically different from those of trainees from other parts of the world, it should not make for poor standards of management, administration and trust.

Those silly little things

It is the little things in many places that add up to losing confidence and the encouragement to recommend these albeit good services to others.

For me, it started with the confusion about visas then on to the poor arrangements for picking me up at the airport for which I am yet to get a decent explanation or apology for that cock-up, my training centre where the coffee area is so dirty as to constitute a health risk; the foul dustbin just beneath the coffee machine, the toilet facilities show aging and the hand-soap bottles are best left untouched so as not to invite a plague.

I have somewhat overcome the shock of what to expect for lunch, vegetarian meals from Haldirams will suffice though I know my dentition is naturally intended for meatier stuff with a tendency to vampire lust.

Discontent and frustration

The cooks at the inn seemed to excel themselves this evening for the chicken wings appeared to acquire the excitement of taste by reason of the spices generously poured over them.

However, I sense a seething discontent, complaints about promises left unfulfilled tantamount to untruths on the part of some staff at the centre. The lack of record-keeping in terms of fees paid or books ordered and delivered.

Having conducted courses for years with people from all parts of the globe no discernible lessons have been learnt to facilitate the couriering of the heavy books and manuals to the students’ home countries; verbal arrangements are made to take tests at certain times only for the trainees to be told the tests cannot be taken on the newly arranged dates.

Frustrated opportunities

Trainees who feel that the only advantage of coming to India offers is an environment distant from the distractions at home, some of the trainers not ensuring that their activity is helping the trainees that they have decided to skip class rather than complain out of frustration that only apologies will be offered without effective action to ameliorate the situation.

These are all little probably inconsequential things that could easily be overlooked but when each apparently forgivable thing is collated into a list of issues, you begin to see what are systemic management failings that are creeping onto a heretofore tight ship and it is only a matter of time before the weight of this becomes the fundamental disincentive to those who at one time were persuaded to engage the services of this organisation.

Quality needs to gain new focus

All that said and done, my training is going apace; I am learning new things each day; the times have been productive and I am gaining confidence in the areas where I was once weak. My trainer is a fine young knowledgeable man.

There is no doubt that Koenig Solutions can polish up their act, they have all the potential even in India to make the whole end-to-end experience world-class, efficient, excellent and considerably worthwhile and as for all the quantity, quality will always be the distinguishing factor when we put the matter of cost to one side.

It all matters, every single detail; so far, a straw poll of those from my side of the globe indicates their other colleagues will not hear glowing reviews of how things are at the moment and that would be an avoidable shame.

Incredible India: Incredible Dissatisfaction

Water wasters

A long eventful day it was for my first training day. My day schedule indicated I was to be picked up at 8:45AM in the morning for the training centre but I had set my alarm for 7:00AM to ensure I could have a shave and what passes for breakfast at the inn.

We are encouraged to waste in an unconventional way because the hot water is only available in the mornings and evenings except on Sundays when we have it for the whole day.

The hot water is not on the tap per se, we have to let the water run down the drain for nigh on 10 minutes before it gets warm enough for our cossetted sense of welfare. Then my bathroom sink drain had no plug, a problem that was solved with a bit of improvisation – tissue, but hardly water tight – I have to pinch myself with the realisation, I am far from the comforts of my land.

Rather than wash from a bucket like I did before, I decided to use the shower this time, I probably saved more water with that.

Peanuts don’t taste like pistachios

Trainees usually get picked up at 8:10AM, I first spoke to the concierge who muttered incoherently unsure of what information I needed and I went for breakfast. I decided to get on the 8:10AM taxi about the time the concierge asked the driver about the later pickup. The driver asked to see my letter, read it as if he comprehended it then gave me back the letter without a word.

I concluded, the many task-driven men around could only follow clear instructions, they had no aptitude for initiative, the most they could offer was an apology, sometimes the genuflection of the Indian nodding head and not much else.

There was no point expecting the epitome of professional dispatch and alacrity, so I rode with that early group to the centre.

A penalty of expression

We were sat at the reception for a while before we were called into a room to start the registration process, though none of the staff for almost another 20 minutes suggested why we were there.

As the silence got deafening, it got too unbearable for me, so I broke the ice speaking out and prompting those gathered round to introduce themselves, then everyone got talking which made for the passage of time before the staff brought in forms and more forms to fill in.

I was surprised that the extra days trainees stayed before or after training were listed as penalties, a topic that never came up when the original arrangements were made, I will suppose it was more a deficit of language on their part than anything else.

It was just unacceptable

The back page had questions about the arrangements for airport meetings and other issues. It gave me the opportunity to excoriate the process that allowed for passengers on the same flight to receive two different sets of instructions which lead to my having to wait another 70 minutes after seeing the driver who came to pick me up.

As the manager tried to belittle the situation, I forcefully made it clear that it was untenable, appalling and an outrage that such a simple arrangement could be so utterly mishandled that it would weigh heavily on my assessment of the arrangements around the course. I stated that the many issues I have will appear on my blog.

After that discussion, I was allocated a training room in another building and I was surprised to find I was the only trainee with the luxury of one-to-one training – I had felt a group will make for more interaction – I cannot say I have appreciated the full benefit of this arrangement yet.

A sick bag almost utilised

After introductions, we went through the schedule of the training scheme and began to work on the subjects.

Meanwhile, I had to book lunch on the management system and I was in shock that brought me close to severe emetic tolerance when the drop-down menu revealed such exquisite restaurants as McDonalds, Subway and Dominoes amongst others.

At the risk of snobbery most unintended, I gave the trainer a synopsis of my background that tailed off with the phrase, “… we don’t do McDonalds.”

These are places where even if one did have a pet, such will not be found masticating those substances pretending to nutrition and I did not travel 6,300km to India to end up in such places.

On advice, beside the training centre was a vegetarian buffet offering varieties of cuisine, though there were security checks at the door – with the help of my trainer, I found out what to do and had vegetarian sandwiches for lunch.

One expects

In all, the day was productive and useful; I gained knowledge of many things whilst at the same time I was able to share some of my experience. I would have had a coffee but the setting of the coffee machine was so foul that I gave that a miss; one will surely remonstrate on the morrow about the condition of that place.

For all the equality, egalitarianism and affordability taking courses in India offers, there are areas where the apparent excess of men to perform seemingly menial tasks has not been efficiently deployed. Such minutiae should not become a distraction bordering on regret and so amends will be expected to be made.

After training, I made arrangements to visit the Taj Mahal in Agra in two Sundays time and on returning to our inn, we first had room service of a roll of bread and a cup of soup and then managed the dinner which was barely edible but for the good company the setting provided.

I have decided I will not apologise for being so Europeanised in my outlook, if one expects, it is not vexatious to demand essential change.

Thought Picnic: A malaise of inexactitudes

Charges might not bring justice

Three people are facing six charges over the sale and distribution of adulterated drugs in a Lagos High Court in Nigeria [BBC][AllAfrica].

The background to the story is that they produced and marketed an infant teething syrup called My Pikin (My Child in Nigerian Pidgin English) containing the engine coolant di-ethylene glycol. [BBC]

I wondered how this could happen since there is a history of contamination with di-ethylene glycol which lead to the passage of the 1938 Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act and the creation of the FDA in America. [Healthline, Schwimmer][Wikipedia]

A deficit of exactness

Beyond the general view of greed, dishonesty and criminal activity which plays a part in all sorts of ways, the arraignment and subsequent judicial process would not half bring justice to the matter because this issue is more a manifestation of a malaise in the Nigerian psyche which I would attribute to a deficit of exactness.

Dealing first with time, it is rare to find a developed maturity to time, rather than have someone indicate a particular time prompt, you will find it said – “around a time”, no exactness, no datum just a rough idea of time.

The idea ignores the detail

The rough idea which probably is a kind of estimation or approximation works fine for some things but cannot be applied to all things – unfortunately, throughout my secondary and tertiary schooling in Nigeria there was this knock down saying in Yoruba – Idea la need – this translates crudely to – you do not have to be correct, you do not have to be exact, you do not have to be precise, if it is general, it is fine. [Google]

If you were off target you never got upbraided for not laying down the necessary meticulous steps to get things right because once you found it was wrong you were encouraged to accept the result – a a rough e ni – which translates to nobody would notice you were wrong we can con our way through saying it is fine.

Being very religious, too many disputes can result from people quoting inappropriately from Scripture and many times to suit their own intentions rather than contextualise their reference with appropriate interpretation. The verse gets mangled and listeners endure error with reverence.

A screw loose is left loose

I started my career in Electrical and Electronic engineering and it was interesting to see that when we fixed stuff there could be one or two screws left on the table if the device seemed to hold together, it was left as is – but the screws came from somewhere – I would dismantle the whole device and find where the screws go, but I would be – effico – overly efficient, facetious and pedantic; it is important.

Because, our television went for repairs and when it returned the channel range selectors had been left off exposing live voltage parts which I found my brother twiddling with a screw-driver; he was on a wooden stool but I was angry that we could not get those bits returned and by the time I cautioned my brother sternly I was already in receipt of a terrible electrical shock – touching him.

A recipe of the inedible

We have a society that does not covet the precise and is less bothered about measurements because we seem to have a sense of what is sound and what is not – the precision of cooking recipes in Western food is not easily translated to our cooking – if you had a cookery book you would probably hear the joke – a cup of water, a cup of rice and a cup of salt.

Surely, our secondary school organic chemistry class would have made it clear that one carbon molecule can be the difference between life and death. We were clearly warned that methanol was poison whilst ethanol was ingestible.

Methylated spirit is common whilst alcohol was taboo, the teachers did not want students disregarding the nominally single carbon molecule thereby gulping down methylated spirit – the information was probably imparted in fear rather than as a standard exercise in knowledge transfer.

Against the Nigerian way

Where I portend to suggest an alternative view, I am Western; where my cousin tries to run his department prudently, efficiently with probity and anti-corruption principles he gets called Bature – Hausa for white man – Why doing things right or thinking differently and hopefully objectively should set one apart as to be castigated escapes me.

Crudely, the Nigerian way could subsequently lead to Nigerian losses, Nigerian suffering and Nigerian deaths – that is not to say that some Nigerian ways have not lead to successes, developments and innovation but I would wager that the principals of those ways do not dwell in the malaise of inexactitudes.

Not surprised

So, to find that My Pikin had di-ethylene glycol rather than propylene glycol was not too strange because when a raid was conducted at the premises of the company some containers were falsely labelled one thing for another. [Wikipedia][Wikipedia][AfricanLoft, Coker]

That is beside the point, if there were quality control tests to ensure the exactness of content to the order, and no assumption that what had been done by rote could at times go wrong, if tests included those for batch toxicity – none of the tragedy that ensued would have happened.

Surely, people in the pharmaceutical field would have been aware of historical issues with contamination and adulteration especially in this case and instituted tests and controls to ensure they do not get caught out – this gives substance to the possibility of criminal conspiracy – more than 3 people should be in court.

When I was an intern of 15 at the West African Breweries, I instituted a simple quality check of 12 random cartons of beer twice a day at the end of the conveyor belt and it was amazing what we found from packaging to content – it fed back into the system with corrective action.

Quick profits are bad profits

We need to move on from the shady deal that seems to save lots on the short term but could lead to dire consequences on the longer term.

Indeed, the work of NAFDAC is commendable and is needed just as the FDA is an essential organ of government in the United States but its work seems to be absorbed on preventing criminal activity usually after victims have been laid out on slabs – it is progress, but they need more teeth to monitor the full channel of product management. [NAFDAC][Wikipedia]

I remember when my siblings were growing up they were given Ashton & Parsons Teething Powders; to have a home grown solution create such tragedy is outrageous in the least, but it also means that if we want to replace foreign products with local products we need to adopt the exacting standards of these more developed companies to be viable and prevent criminal sanction. [ExpressChemist]

Therein is the real issue behind the My Pikin saga and there is bound to be more like that until we adapt for exactness in our many walks of life.