Imagine this, it’s 3am, postpartum day four. Baby needs a diaper change, and like clock work, you pull out your arsenal and get to work. You are a bit drowsy, but muscle memory is kicking in now, so you undo the tabs, lift her bum, and wipe.

Wait. Is that blood?

Is that blood?!!!

Hah! Ah! Ah! Ah!. Chineke ekwela ihe ojo! God forbid.

You look closely. It’s not a smear, the type you could attribute to a nappy rash. It’s a streak. Red, unmistakable, on the wipe, and around your baby’s vaginal opening.

As a parent, an educated one, a medical doctor, who has experienced this, I can tell you that, the only thing that can help you navigate this experience without having a panic attack, is information. Because, between you and I, my brain also did a tango.

In Naija linguo, “Everywhere go first blur”. Your senses go on high alert. And in some cases, all the stages of shock are skipped to full on panic… “Epp me , epp me. My newborn is bleeding.”

All these feelings are valid. It’s your newborn baby girl, Achalugo, mummy’s angel, daddy’s princess.

Though enlightened, you still want to ensure that this is normal and not an event to escalate. You can’t afford to be complacent, and that is very understandable.

Here Are The Top Three Fears That Cross Your Mind As a Parent

1. Could this be an infection?

From the hospital? From birth? From the water? Has something gotten into her?What could be hurting my baby girl?

2. Did someone touch my baby?

This is a very valid concern and should not be dismissed. Sadly, in the world we live in, babies too are not spared. So, it will not be an overthought for a mother to consider this. Who carried my baby? Who held her while I slept? Who was alone with her?

3. Is this a spiritual attack?

Funny as it may sound to you, this is not a far-fetched thought in our African households, where people believe in the evil eye. And in this case, they already decide for themselves that no doctor can help them. Deep calleth unto deep. Spirit for spirit. Aura for aura.

Do we call these mothers dramatic? NO! That will be very obtuse of you.

Why?

Safeguarding is a natural instinct in parents, mothers especially. And a mother who is checking her newborn for signs of harm, is not paranoid. She is simply being a mother in a world where child sexual abuse is a real, common, under-reported and under-prosecuted problem. So, by all means, I am more pro ‘Over worry”, than “Under worry”. And because I recognise that the extent of your worry is heavily dependent on the amount of knowledge you have about the situation… I am going to educate you on what is normal and what is not, so you can tell the difference for yourself.

What is actually happening

She is having a withdrawal bleed.

Let me break it down. You see, in the last months of your pregnancy, your hormones were crossing the placenta into her body. Among these hormones are Oestrogen and its twin Progesterone. They cross over to your baby girl to help prime her uterus (womb) as they do yours. They build up the uterine lining, at levels far higher than what her own body can produce for another 10 years ( puberty).

Now when she is born, the cord is clamped and cut. That supply stops abruptly. The hormone levels wane gradually over the next few days. The result? The uterine lining sheds. This is exactly how it happens in menstruation. When progesterone levels fall after there is no fertilization, the uterine lining sheds, and that is what we call Menstruation.

In this case however, there was no ovulation, it was just the hormones that withdrew abruptly, causing the lining which they were initially priming, to shed (since the primer isn’t there to hold them together anymore).

That is called a withdrawal bleeding.

If you have ever taken the combined (Oestrogen and progestin) contraceptive pill, and have noticed some bleeding during the break week. Then you are already familiar with this phenomenon. Same principle, same physiology.

Nobody can tell you exactly how common it is, and that in itself tells you something. The studies that have been done are old, they used wildly different methods, and their estimates for visible bleeding range from three in a hundred to more than half of newborn girls. Which is a lot more common than you would guess from how rarely it is mentioned. Another understated fact is that while it might not appear to be visible in some newborns, it could still be there. Researchers have found microscopic blood in somewhere between a quarter and two thirds of newborn girls. Meaning: it is more common than you think. Most of it just never reaches the nappy.

It typically shows up between day three and day seven, and typically wanes off within ten days (or two weeks).

The Trifecta

Neonatal pseudomenstruation rarely arrives alone. It moves many times with a group of three other symptoms that can make the pattern unmistakable.

The white discharge.

Thick, creamy, sometimes present from the first days. Caused by the same hormones. This is not thrush, neither is it an infection. In some cases the hormone withdrawal affects the vaginal lining and produces whitish, yellowish or red-tinged discharge.

The breast buds.

Small firm lumps under the nipple, in girls and in boys, sometimes leaking a little milk. Same hormones again. It is not “witches” milk. It is not spiritual. It is not a sign of early puberty or “waywardness”. This is just a new baby undergoing something physiological and normal.

The swollen-looking vulva.

Puffy, prominent, more developed than you expected. Same hormones, and it settles on its own over the following weeks.

All these three findings are attributed to maternal hormones, and they are all temporary. They do not require anything to be done about them. They will resolve on their own whether you do anything or not. The down side is this, when you actually try to do something… you can end up hurting this child, sometimes fatally in extreme cases. Yes, death. And I know that’s not your intention.

So why did no one tell you this at the hospital?

This is the part that upsets me. You are entitled to this knowledge, but most times, it is not mentioned in our routine antenatal curriculum. Also, many times women do not attend antenatal classes due to different reasons, including the fact that hospital facility births are not as common as home births in many parts of the world. Understaffing, shortage of human resources, which affects the amount of time allocated to patients in many facilities.

So these gaps exist.

But it is no excuse. Every woman is entitled to health education. That is true health equity. In addition to discharge instructions on cord care, jaundice awareness, fontanelle care, bathing, etc, someone should have also said: Your daughter may bleed, and it will be fine.

This isn’t new information or a new generation thing. It has always been. It just never makes it into the routine antenatal class conversations. Just like adult vulvas, newborn vulvas are not given centre stage in health education. This counselling gap is an offshoot of the silence, shame and stigma (The 3 S’s) around female sexual and reproductive health.

The omission is not entirely harmless. Because many times people will try to fill that gap. And that is where the problem begins.

Here’s what people do instead

Because a panicking family does not do nothing. A panicking family always acts, and in the absence of information, these actions escalate, sometimes harmfully.

It starts almost reasonably. Salt water. Antiseptic solution. Native soap. A hot compress. Something to clean it, to dry it, to stop it.

Then it progresses. Talcum powder to keep the area dry. Oils. Ash. Herbal preparations rubbed onto the vulva of a four-day-old.

Then it gets worse, cotton wool or cloth, pushed in to stop the bleeding, into a narrow passage the width of a few millimetres.

In a bid to cleanse, and clean, some advance into scrubbing. The labia is held apart, forced open, cleaned inside, because the assumption is that the blood is dirt and the dirt must come out.

Then the oral preparations, herbal mixtures given by mouth to flush the baby’s system.

Then the spiritual route, because if medicine has explained nothing, something else has to.

And at the far end, cutting. Mutilation.

Yes, this is not a far leap. It is all connected to that one simple detail that was left out.

We live in a world where bleeding is interpreted as impurity, and discharge is usually seen as evidence that something is wrong down there. In some situations, cutting is maliciously offered as a correction. In Nigeria, national FGM prevalence among women aged 15 to 49 has been falling, but among girls aged 0 to 14 it rose between 2013 and 2018. UNFPA and UNICEF report that the overwhelming majority of cutting in Nigeria now happens before age five, which makes infants and age 0-5, the group at greatest risk.

About labial adhesions

It’s important to note that most newborns are protected from labial adhesions in the first weeks of life, because they still have maternal oestrogen on board. So the damage from scrubbing, harsh soap and applied substances may not always show up immediately. They many times show up a little later, once that oestrogen has worn off and the tissue is thin, unprotected and already inflamed. Adhesions typically appear from around three months onwards. So the vigorous cleaning you do on day four is not really paid for on day four. It may appear months later, when the labia have fused, the urine is spraying sideways and nobody is able to connect it back to the activities of the early weeks. So, mama go gently with her vulva.

How to care for a newborn vulva ( bleeding or not)

Clean only what you can see. That is the rule of thumb

Warm water. A soft cloth or plain water on cotton wool. No soap, scents or fragrances. Front to back. Outer surfaces only. Wipe the visible creases and skin folds, then stop.

If you must, gently spread the labia and clean out the creases. There is no need to go any deeper because the vagina cleans itself.

Do not scrub off the white coating. It is not dirt. That white coating is a residue from birth called the Vernix Caseosa. It is a creamy, waxy coating made of water, lipids (fats), proteins, and shed skin cells, it also has protective antimicrobial properties in the early days. If you for whatever reason insist on cleaning it off, gently use a clean cotton pad or bud, and wipe the visible labia folds with a good petroleum jelly or virgin olive oil.

Change nappies promptly when wet or soiled. Wipe the outer folds, only to remove faeces. Give some nappy-free time on a towel where you can. So that breeze can touch that area. Use a plain barrier ointment if the skin looks red or irritated. Just as advised in adult vulva care, skip scented wipes, bubble baths, antiseptics, powder and oils. Plain water wipes are best.

For the bleeding itself: wipe it off gently, change her, carry on. No pads, no packing, no treatment, no cleansing regimen.

That’s ALL.

When To Worry

While withdrawal bleeding is common and harmless, there are a small number of other things that could show up in roughly the same window and they are not harmless at all. Here is how to flag them.

Timing. Bleeding that begins after the first week, or is still going after ten days. Observe, and escalate if you suspect it isn’t normal. Better to over worry than under worry.

Volume. Anything heavier than spotting or streaking. Withdrawal bleeding is small. It should never look like a period. It appears more like a bloody coloured discharge than an active bleeding. Not bright red, a bit dark like period blood, but mixed with discharge.

Bleeding somewhere else as well. If bleeding is also happening from other locations, e.g: Oozing from the cord stump, blood in the stool, nosebleeds, bruising, or little red pinpoint spots on the skin. This combination is the one that needs same-day assessment. Vitamin K deficiency bleeding presents in the first week and again between two weeks and three months, and in its late form it causes bleeding into the brain in between a third and two thirds of cases. It is almost entirely preventable with the vitamin K injection given at birth. If your baby was born at home, or you are not certain she received it, visit the closest hospital immediately, to get the injection, and/or have your baby assessed.

She is not well herself. Vomiting, poor feeding, floppiness, not waking to feed, fewer wet nappies, not regaining birth weight, fever. Bleeding in a baby who is also unwell is an entirely different conversation. If in addition, there is anything unusual about how the genitalia look: an enlarged clitoris, fused or unusually formed labia, an opening that is not where you expect. Combined with bleeding or with vomiting and poor feeding, this needs a paediatrician immediately. Do not delay until your six-week check-up. It may be a condition called Congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH). A group of inherited genetic disorders that affect the adrenal glands, leading to a shortage of vital hormones like cortisol and an overproduction of male sex hormones (androgens).

A newborn with CAH can look healthy for the first week and then experience a salt-wasting crisis at around one to three weeks, with vomiting, dehydration and vascular collapse. It is treatable. It is also lethal when it is missed, and it mostly gets missed.

Finally, Fever, or discharge that is foul-smelling, green or yellow, in a baby who seems unsettled or unwell, should be reported. It could be an infection (vaginitis, urethral prolapse, a tumour). Also escalate and report, if you have reason to suspect that your baby might have been abused in any way.

Bottomline is this, the mother who wakes up at 3am and sees the blood stain on the wipe has two options, panic or observe. The path she takes after that is heavily dependent on the quality of information she has. That is why this article exists. Now you know… please spread the word and save a life with me.

Yours in Health

#DrZobo

Medically Speaking with Dr. Zobo is a mythbusting health education platform making sexual, reproductive and women’s health accessible, with a Nigerian and Subsaharan African lens, because access is not the same everywhere.

This post is health education, not a diagnosis or a treatment plan. If you found it helpful, please share. Got any topics you want broken down? Suggest in the comment section below.

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Dolly ran so women with Endo could fly.

That’s a part of Dolly Parton many people didn’t know, and I’ll tell you all about it.

Dolly Parton died on Tuesday, 25 August 2026, at home in Nashville. She was eighty. Her family said she went peacefully, after a short illness, surrounded by the people who loved her.

The tributes have been pouring in since.

Dolly was a warrior. Endometriosis, then, Cancer. She fought till the end. She made my childhood memorable with her music, from 9-5, to Jolene, to Coat of Many Colours, Islands in the stream, and her iconic I will always love you. She was a legend, a confident one, the wigs, the rhinestones, that wit that could disarm any room. May her beloved soul rest in Peace.

What is Endometriosis?

Simply put,

Endometriosis is when tissue similar to the lining of your womb starts growing in places it has no business being, like on your ovaries, bowel, or bladder, chest, lung, umbilicus, nostrils, palm etc.

That tissue, because it has endometrial (womb) cells, still responds to your monthly hormones, despite its location. So it swells and bleeds every cycle with nowhere for the blood to escape, which causes inflammation, scarring, and the kind of pain that can flatten your whole life.

Imagine being on your period and bleeding from your vagina, but at the same time, you’re stooling blood or Peeing blood, coughing blood, having nose bleeds.

Because the endometrial tissues in those locations are also bleeding.

Now add the pain, psychological and metabolic complexities

That was what she endured for years until that fateful day in the early 80’s.

Here’s what happened

In the early 80s something happened to Dolly Parton.

The silent battle she had been fighting for years announced itself on stage.

She collapsed while performing in Indianapolis.

Against her doctor’s advise, she’d later say.

Internal bleeding from ENDOMETRIOSIS.

It cost her her womb.

Following years of battling severe period pain, heavy bleeding, emotional problems and difficulty conceiving... She had a partial hysterectomy.

Her uterus was removed, sparing her vaginal tract. And with that went her dream of ever having children of her own.

She was 36.

“I can’t have children of my own” she responded to Gloria Steinem, who asked why she never had children, in a 1987 interview.

But she didn’t let that stop her.

Dolly gave back to society in many ways than one.

And one of those investments was in children.

Last October, the Dollywood foundation celebrated over 300 Million books donated.

Inspired by her father’s illiteracy and her love for children, her foundation gives every child in her hometown Tennessee and several states across the US, a book a month, from birth until they turned 5.- since 1995

What she couldn’t have biologically she made up for in society. The “Book lady”, as the children called her, was a beloved mother of many.

“Endometriosis. Hysterectomy” Before many people even knew what those were, Dolly gave it a voice and spoke openly about it.

Since the 80’s.

Hysterectomy shouldn’t be the first line of treatment, but for many women especially back then, it was.

It’s 2026, despite advancement in research and medicine. A lot is still unknown about this metastatic condition, which affects 1 in 10 women globally.

But one thing is sure it will get better. Why?

The silence and shame that once surrounded conditions like these are taking a backseat.

Women are speaking up, advocating, demanding, researching, funding and importantly refusing to stay quiet anymore.

And that audacity to challenge status quo, is all thanks to those who walked this bloody path before us.

Those who spoke up in a time when “silence was fashionable, when timidity was feminine and when shame was an ornament”.

Women like Dolly.

Who pushed on despite the pain!

Dolly ran so women with endo could fly.

If your periods are stealing your life from you, please go and see a doctor. Ask about endometriosis specifically if you suspect it, based on your symptoms. Take somebody with you if you need a second voice in the room. And if the first Doctor does not listen, go and find the second one. Get a second and third opinion if you can. Your symptoms should never be dismissed

You are not being dramatic.

Especially in a country with so many health barriers.

The average woman waits about seven years for a diagnosis. Some reviews put it as high as ten, across at least seven separate visits to a health worker. That is seven wasted chances for someone to look at a woman in pain and take her symptoms seriously, yet, women are repeatedly told they are being “hysterical”. It’s just normal. It will pass

Now bring it home.

For decades, we’ve been told that endometriosis is uncommon in African women. A 1989 study among Igbo women found it in 4.3 percent of pelvic operations, and this was reported at the time as the highest figure ever recorded in Nigeria. That number seems small yeah? Well, here’s what you should reflect on: more than 90 percent of those cases had not been suspected before the woman had the surgery

That is not a low prevalence, my people. It is clearly a low index of suspicion.

Equally, a study at University College Hospital, Ibadan, enrolled women undergoing their first diagnostic laparoscopy. Nearly half of them, 48 percent, had endometriotic lesions. Among the women who had reported both painful periods and pelvic pain, it was over 70 percent.

The Lancet made the same point in 2024. High diagnostic rates are being reported in Nigeria following laparoscopy, and yet the prevailing story is still that our prevalence is lower than in high-income countries.

With these few points of mine, I hope I have been able to reveal to you, that endometriosis was or is not rare here in Nigeria. We were just never looking out for it, as a healthcare system. And it’s not just endo, it is also every women’s health issue, metabolic, endocrine, menstrual. Many that are even ever diagnosed because these women sort help for infertility. Like that is the worst thing that could happen in these cases.

And the barriers are structural, not personal. Across sub-Saharan Africa, clinical awareness is limited, research funding is thin, and the diagnostic tools are invasive and expensive and concentrated in only a handful of centres. Long story short, you cannot diagnose what you have not been “trained” to suspect, and you cannot investigate what your patient cannot afford. We must nip these issues at the bud.

Dolly was a great woman. She never got to be somebody’s biological mother. So she became everybody’s. Today we celebrate her life, in death. A life which gave us unconditionally: good music, good performances, good examples, good words.

“Even when I lost, I feel like I’m winning.” That, was Dolly.

Rest in peace, Dolly Parton. Rest well, Book Lady.

I and the millions whose life you touched one way or the other, will always love you, Dolly. You will always be remembered fondly.

Yours was a life well lived.

Jolene could never!

If this piece struck a cord, if it put a name to symptoms you or a loved one have been silently carrying, then please go get it checked out. Forward it to the woman you thought of while reading. Awareness is power. Early diagnosis is key to a healthier life.

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I know how this season is. Applications, the race to meet deadlines. The urge to apply to everything. The desperation to take shortcuts… but please always be careful. Verify before you try to apply for anything.

The Commonwealth Scholarship Scheme is legit and oversees a couple of funded postgraduate opportunities. Find out more here. They recently took to their official pages to debunk the rumours that they were affiliated with the circulating “Commonwealth exchange scholarship council”.

People fell victim to it. Some even made it to the “interview” stage. Dashed hopes. and for some people, emptier pockets.

Do not fall for anyone or any site that tells you to pay an application fee for these scholarship opportunities. Also, please do not click links from third party sites you do not know. It’s always best to go to the main website of the scholarships, as I do in my blog posts. Some of them are phishing links used to scam you.

“The Commonwealth Scholarship” is not one scholarship. The Commonwealth Scholarship Commission in the UK (CSC) runs several separate schemes, each with its own eligibility rules, its own application route, and its own timetable. The CSC offers around 800 awards for postgraduate study and professional development each year.

Here’s a list of CSC award schemes ordered based on deadlines:

1. Commonwealth Fellowships 2027

Deadline: 25 August 2026, 16:00 BST (Applications opened 28 July 2026, 09:00 BST)

A short-term fellowship in the UK, not a degree. From 2026/27 the CSC restructured this into a two-strand programme.

Two strands:

Professional Fellowships — for mid-career professionals from eligible Commonwealth countries, undertaking professional development at a UK host organisation working in their sector.

Academic Fellowships — for academics who hold a PhD and work at a university in an eligible Commonwealth country outside the UK.

Eligibility:

Be a citizen of, or have been granted refugee status by, an eligible Commonwealth country, or be a British Protected Person

Professional strand: mid-career professional in a relevant sector

Academic strand: hold a PhD and be employed at a university in an eligible Commonwealth country

Both strands are open to candidates from all Commonwealth countries

Funding: £2,218 per month, or £2,753 per month for Fellows hosted in the London metropolitan area. Plus approved return airfare, reimbursement of the standard visa application fee, arrival allowance, and funding for conferences and professional visits.

Places: Around 40 fellowships. Approximately 30 for citizens of ODA-eligible Commonwealth countries; approximately 10 for citizens of non-ODA-eligible Commonwealth countries.

How it works: UK organisations apply to host Fellows and each runs its own bespoke programme. You choose a host programme from the published list and apply to that programme. Some hosts nominate from their own established networks; this is indicated against each listing.

Apply here

2. Commonwealth Startup Fellowship

Applications are now open for Commonwealth Startup Fellowships!

This is for ambitious startup founders who are ready to take their ventures to the next level.

The Commonwealth Startup Fellowship offers entrepreneurs the opportunity to:

• Enhance their leadership and entrepreneurial skills

• Access expert mentoring and tailored support

• Build valuable international networks

• Learn alongside fellow founders from across the Commonwealth

• Drive growth and increase impact in their communities and beyond

This is your chance to join a dynamic community of innovators working to solve some of the world’s most pressing challenges.

Apply now: https://cscuk.fcdo.gov.uk/scholarships/commonwealth-startup-fellowship-information-for-candidates/

Application deadline: 1 September #CommonwealthStartupFellowships

3. Commonwealth Master’s Scholarships 2027/28

Deadline: 20 October 2026, 16:00 BST (Applications open 8 September 2026)

Full-time taught Master’s study at a UK university, starting September/October 2027. This is the CSC’s flagship, highest-volume scheme.

Eligibility:

Be a citizen of, or have been granted refugee status by, an eligible Commonwealth country, or be a British Protected Person

Be permanently resident in an eligible Commonwealth country

Be available to start studies in the UK by September 2027

By September 2027, hold a first degree of at least upper second-class (2:1) honours standard, or a lower second-class (2:2) degree plus a relevant postgraduate qualification, usually a Master’s (its a combo)

Be unable to afford to study in the UK without this scholarship

Provide all supporting documentation in the required format

Additional notes on eligibility: There is no age limit. The CSC does not require IELTS, though individual universities set their own English language requirements. The CSC would not normally fund a second Master’s degree. If you are applying for one, you must justify why. MBA programmes are excluded.

Contextualised route for disabled applicants: Disabled candidates who can demonstrate potential to contribute to international development but who do not hold a 2:1 may be considered for a contextualised nomination through the Commonwealth Disabled People’s Forum nominator. Contact CDPF directly via the CSC’s NGO and Charitable Body Nominators page.

Funding: Full tuition fees, covered by agreement between the CSC and the university: scholars are not liable for any part. Plus approved return airfare, monthly living allowance, warm clothing allowance where applicable, study travel grants, and child allowance and disability support for eligible scholars. Stipend rates are reviewed annually; check the current figure on the CSC site.

Places: Around 700–800 awarded globally each year across all CSC Master’s routes.

How it works: You cannot apply directly to the CSC. Applications are submitted through an approved nominating body: either your country’s national nominating agency (the main route) or a selected NGO or charitable body. You submit two applications: one to your nominator and one on CSC Central. Nominating agencies set their own internal deadlines, which are usually earlier than the CSC deadline. Do your research

Here’s there link

4. Commonwealth Shared Scholarships 2027/28

Deadline: mid-December 2026 (Candidate applications are expected to open shortly after early November 2026)

One-year taught postgraduate courses at UK universities. Not for research degrees or undergraduate study. Around 180 new awards expected for 2027/28.

UK universities are currently bidding for allocations; that stage closes 15 September 2026. Candidate applications open once the successful courses are confirmed, and the eligible course list is published at that point.

Eligibility:

Be a citizen of, or have been granted refugee status by, an eligible Commonwealth country, or be a British Protected Person

Be permanently resident in an eligible Commonwealth country

Be available to start academic studies in the UK at the start of the 2027/28 academic year

Hold a first degree of at least upper second-class (2:1) honours standard, or a lower second-class degree plus a relevant postgraduate qualification

Not have studied or worked for one academic year or more in a high-income country

Be unable to afford to study in the UK without this scholarship

Provide all supporting documentation in the required format

How it works: Unlike the agency-nominated Master’s route, Shared Scholarships are university-nominated. You apply for admission to an approved course at a participating university and apply to the CSC on CSC Central.

Apply here:

5. Commonwealth Distance Learning Scholarships

Next deadline: expected March 2027 (The 2026/27 cycle ran 17 February to 31 March 2026)

Part-time Master’s study by distance learning on selected UK courses, studied from your home country. No visa, no relocation, no career break. Awards run up to six years given the modular structure of the courses.

Eligibility:

Be a citizen of, or have been granted refugee status by, an eligible Commonwealth country, or be a British Protected Person

Be permanently resident in a developing Commonwealth country

Hold a first degree of at least upper second-class (2:1) standard. A lower qualification plus sufficient relevant experience may be considered in certain cases

Be unable to afford to study the programme without this scholarship

Eligible countries have included: Bangladesh, Belize, Cameroon, Eswatini, Ghana, India, Kenya, Kiribati, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Rwanda, Samoa, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, The Gambia, Tuvalu, Uganda, Vanuatu, Zambia.

Funding: Full tuition fees, plus study support grants where required. There is no living stipend, because you remain at home.

How it works: Two applications. Apply for admission to an approved distance learning course at a participating UK university, and apply to the CSC on CSC Central. Universities make the initial selection of candidates, who are then approved by the CSC.

Participating institutions in the past have included: University of Edinburgh, University of Oxford, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, University of Birmingham, University of St Andrews, Lancaster University, Loughborough University, Bangor University, Leeds Beckett University, School of Advanced Study, University of Southampton, Imperial College London, and the Open University.

Candidate information

Eligible Course List

6. Commonwealth PhD Scholarships

Deadline: dates for the 2027/28 cycle to be published

Full-time doctoral study at a UK university, for applicants from least developed countries and fragile states in the Commonwealth, as classified by the OECD Development Assistance Committee. PhD scholarships run up to four years.

Eligibility:

Be a citizen of, or have been granted refugee status by, an eligible Commonwealth country, or be a British Protected Person

Be permanently resident in an eligible Commonwealth country

Hold a first degree of at least upper second-class (2:1) honours standard, or a 2:2 plus a relevant postgraduate qualification

Demonstrate strong research potential in addition to academic merit

Be unable to afford to study in the UK without this scholarship

How it works: Nomination-based, through a national nominating agency, a participating UK university, or a selected NGO, depending on the route.

Apply here.

7. Commonwealth Split-site Scholarships

Deadline: dates for the 2027/28 cycle to be published

For PhD candidates from low- and middle-income Commonwealth countries to spend 12 months at a UK university as part of a doctoral programme based at a university in their home country. You stay registered at home and complete part of your research in the UK.

Eligibility:

Be a citizen of, or have been granted refugee status by, an eligible Commonwealth country, or be a British Protected Person

Be permanently resident in an eligible Commonwealth country

Be registered for a PhD at a university in an eligible Commonwealth country

Hold a first degree of at least upper second-class (2:1) honours standard, or a 2:2 plus a relevant postgraduate qualification

Be unable to undertake the UK research placement without this scholarship

Apply here:

Every CSC scheme has these in common

The six development themes. Every CSC award is offered under one of six development themes, and your proposed study or fellowship must align to one. Applications that do not map clearly to a theme are systematically de-prioritised.

Financial need is assessed. Unlike Chevening, the CSC explicitly requires that you be unable to fund the study yourself. This is a scored criterion.

Development impact is the centre of the application. Selection weighs candidate merit, quality of the study plan, and potential impact on the development of your home country.

No age limit. No CSC-level IELTS requirement. Universities set their own English language requirements.

Everything runs through CSC Central. The CSC does not accept applications or documentation by email or post. Registration uses two-factor authentication, so you need access to a smartphone or a second email account.

References are due by the application deadline. There is no post-deadline window for referees like for Chevening.

All application routes can be found here: https://cscuk.fcdo.gov.uk/apply/

Main CSC site: https://cscuk.fcdo.gov.uk/

Note: Deadlines, stipend rates and eligible country lists are reviewed annually. Confirm everything, every figure on the CSC website before you apply.

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Hi, I am Chioma Nwakanma-Akanno, a medical doctor and reproductive health physician. I am a Chevening Scholar, and MSc Candidate at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, University of London. I currently serve as the Student Union SRC President and University Council member. I am a Mandela Washington Fellow, a YALI RLC Alumni, and a 2021 UNDP SGS Geneva Ambassador/Changemaker. I have also secured admissions into prestigious schools like the University of Oxford, where I was a shortlisted finalist for the Africa Oxford Scholarship (AfOX). I have had my fair share of rejections, but I have learnt through those experiences, and I want to share my learnings with you. If you’re ready to learn, then I’m ready to teach. Enjoy this Masterclass. Priceless, is the value.

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Iron has such a main character energy.

I already mentioned this in earlier posts, now, I’ll like to expand on it. Because a lot of people are deficient, and getting it wrong with their treatment.

Iron too is bloody selfish. It doesn’t like sharing attention with anything during supplementation. Calcium wants a turn, iron sulks. You drink your tea with the tablet, iron locks up. You take it with your morning dairy, iron goes on strike. It is the most abundant mineral deficiency in the world and it still behaves like it is doing you a favour by showing up (My friend, come back here jor!).

Most women walking around exhausted have never had their iron stores measured. Not merely their haemoglobin or PCV but their Iron stores. There is a difference, and that difference is where most people miss it.

Let’s dive in, so that after today, I will make an evangelist of you. Before I proceed, it is important to note that while I might be focusing on women here, this equally apples to everyone. Every age and Gender. Children inclusive.

Why iron matters more for women

Iron is the core of haemoglobin (Hb), the protein that carries oxygen from your lungs to every cell you own. No iron, no oxygen delivery. That is why the symptoms are so widespread and so easy to dismiss: fatigue, hair loss, dizziness, brain fog, muscle aches, breathlessness on stairs you used to climb without thinking, cold hands, poor concentration, low mood, restless legs, brittle nails, cracks at the corners of your mouth.

Every single one of those is a symptom women are routinely told to manage with rest, water and prayer. “Just relax. It’s stress. It’s normal”. But is it?

Women lose iron every month for roughly forty years. And its not just through menstruation. Pregnancy too. Pregnancy raises iron requirements substantially (for two, or more, in multiple pregnancies), and each pregnancy draws down stores that were often never replaced from the last one. Add closely spaced births, extended breastfeeding and a diet where the main iron sources are plant-based, and the math will stop “mathing”.

Don’t take my word for it. Nigeria’s 2018 Demographic and Health Survey data put anaemia prevalence at 57.8% among women of reproductive age, 57.4% among non-pregnant women and 61.1% among pregnant women. More than half of Nigerian women of reproductive age. This isn’t some niche clinical or anecdotal problem, it is a population-level one. PubMed

You do not have to be anaemic to be iron deficient

Your blood levels can be fine. Your Hb within normal range, yet you are Iron deficient. This is the part that gets missed and mixed most often.

Anaemia is usually the last stage of the cycle, not the first. Your body will strip its storage iron down to nothing before your haemoglobin starts to fall, because it protects red cell production to the very end. So you can have a “normal” full blood count, be handed a clean bill of health, and still be running on empty.

Iron deficiency without anaemia is estimated to be at least twice as common as iron deficiency anaemia, and it is unfortunately poorly recognised by clinicians despite that prevalence. PubMed Central

If your full blood count is normal and you still feel the way you feel, just know that it is not happening in your head. The test was helpful, but it hasn’t ruled out iron deficiency. It merely only answered a different question.

Ask your doctor to measure your ferritin levels

I know how it sounds. You shouldn’t have to ask. Your Doctors should offer those labs without you asking. However, the reality is that this is still unpopular in many country health systems. Mostly because they are not even covered by health insurance. Also, women’s health research has been so underfunded, that it has taken forever to learn the most basic things about our health. Many medics didn’t get this training foundationaly, and only now catching up alongside the system. So unfortunately, you might not be offered this if you never ask. Also medical gaslighting exists. Don’t let anyone dismiss your feelings about your health. Hence this post. Please ask. Or seek a second opinion.

Ferritin measures your iron stores. It is the single most useful test for iron deficiency and it is cheap, which makes its absence from routine practice harder to justify. Also, most nutrient deficiences overlap. Vit D deficiency can contribute to iron deficiency. So in addition to your Iron stores, please check other nutrients, including calcium and copper. Here’s a list of tests every woman should do.

Let’s talk about ranges. Another area you need to advocate for yourself.

Your lab report will print a reference range. It usually starts somewhere between 12 and 15 and runs up to about 150 or 200 for women. That range describes what is statistically common in a population. It does not describe what is optimal for you, and it is not the same thing as a diagnostic threshold.

I’ll explain.

According to the set WHO guidance any ferritin level below 15 µg/L is a marker of absolute iron deficiency in adults. However in practice, a cut-off of 30 µg/L is more often used in practice (because of its higher sensitivity, around 92%, with specificity around 98%). American Society of Hematology

So a ferritin of 20 sits comfortably inside the printed “normal” range and still means your iron stores are depleted. Summary: If you have the symptoms and your ferritin is under 30, that is a result that deserves a conversation with your Doctor. There’s no blanket treatment.

And now the part that matters enormously in our context– Nigeria

Ferritin is an acute phase reactant. Meaning that it rises during infections and inflammation, whether or not your iron stores are full. Malaria, chronic infection, obesity, autoimmune disease and recent illness can all push ferritin up. Malaria produces an acute phase response, and in settings where malaria is common this directly distorts the interpretation of iron status markers. Sage Journals

WHO guidance states that in individuals with infection or inflammation, a ferritin concentration below 70 µg/L in adults may be used to indicate iron deficiency. NCBI

In a country like ours where malaria is endemic, this is a call for your attention. A ferritin of 45 in a woman who has recently had malaria can look reassuring on paper and still be masking depleted stores. If there is any suspicion of inflammation, a CRP should be checked alongside the ferritin, and transferrin saturation below 20% points to iron deficiency even when ferritin looks acceptable. These tests might not be readily available in most Labs, and CRP might be expensive, but ask.

When it keeps coming back, stop chasing the tablet and find the cause

If your iron levels are repeatedly deficient, you might need to see your doctor for investigation rather than another prescription. Recurrent iron deficiency is a symptom. It most likely has a cause, and once you treat that… you are good.

Heavy menstrual bleeding is the leading cause in premenopausal women, and it is the most under-asked question in the consulting room. Bleeding beyond seven days, flooding, clots, needing to change protection hourly, or needing double protection are all worth reporting. Fibroids, adenomyosis, endometriosis, bleeding disorders and ocassionally copper IUDs could contribute to this.

Gut conditions interfere with absorption in the small intestine. Coeliac disease for example damages the duodenum, which is exactly where iron is absorbed. Helicobacter pylori infection reduces gastric acid and interferes with iron uptake, and it is highly prevalent across Nigeria. Inflammatory bowel disease, previous gastric surgery and long-term use of acid-suppressing medication all belong on this list.

Blood loss you cannot see matters too. Hookworm and schistosomiasis cause chronic intestinal blood loss and remain relevant across parts of West Africa. Regular NSAID use can cause slow gastrointestinal bleeding.

Poor intake is real, but it shouldn’t be the first differential. This often leads to complaint dismissal and late diagnosis

Haem versus non-haem iron

Unpopular but important is this knowledge. There are two kinds of dietary iron, and they behave completely differently.

Haem iron comes from animal sources. It is absorbed through its own dedicated pathway, absorption sits in the region of 15 to 35%, and it is relatively unbothered by what else is on the plate.

Non-haem iron comes from plants, eggs and fortified foods. Absorption is far lower, often in the range of 2 to 20%, and it is highly sensitive to everything eaten alongside it.

Why is this important? Because a diet can look iron-rich on paper, yet still leave a woman deficient. This is the reason why nutritional advice imported wholesale from a meat-heavy Western diet does not translate cleanly to a Nigerian plate. Nigeria, where we ration our meat portions based on seniority and rely heavily on non-heam iron to boost our stores.

And what no ne tauught us is that non-haem iron is nothing without vitamin C. That’s what activates it and helps our bodies digest it.

Nigerian Tailored Iron-rich foods

Haem sources: beef, goat meat, liver, kidney, chicken, turkey, fish, snail, periwinkle, prawns, blood-based dishes where they are eaten. ponmo does not count,

Non-haem sources: ugu, soko, ewedu, bitter leaf, waterleaf, afang, pumpkin seeds (power house), egusi, beans, brown beans, cowpeas, groundnuts, dates, tofu, iron-fortified flours and cereals, moringa, quinoa if you have access to it.

Vitamin C (Iron absorption partners): oranges, tangerines, grapefruit, lemon, lime, guava, cashew fruit, pawpaw, mango, pineapple, bell pepper, tomato, ugba paired properly, parsley, garden egg leaves, fresh scent leaf.

The point is the pairing. E.g: Beans with fresh tomato and pepper. Ugu with a squeeze of lime at the end. Moin moin with orange afterwards rather than tea. Let vitamin C be your bestie.

Do not overcook your veggies. Prolonged boiling destroys the vitamin C in foods. Add leafy greens late. You can prepare your soup stock or broth, and add vegetables freshly before meal. Fermentation and soaking of beans and grains reduce phytates which can limit iron absorption. Another reason why traditional preparation methods often do more for mineral availability than any supplement. Our pap, Moimoi. That soaking and fermentation really helps.

Iron does not like sharing attention

These reduce absorption when taken at the same time as iron:

• Tea and coffee. Tannins and polyphenols bind non-haem iron. Tea taken with a meal can cut absorption substantially. This includes the tea taken with breakfast every single morning.

• Calcium and dairy. Calcium is the one mineral with a well-established inhibitory effect on both haem and non-haem iron.

• Phytates in whole grains, beans, nuts and seeds. Concentrations are however reduced by soaking, sprouting and fermentation.

• Oxalates in some leafy greens, reduced by cooking and by discarding the first boil where that is culturally normal for that dish.

• Zinc in high supplemental doses, competes with iron for absorption.

• Antacids and proton pump inhibitors, which reduce the stomach acid iron needs.

Separate iron from any of these by two to three hours where you can. Side note: Copper rich foods also aid iron absorpton (google the copper rich diet in your country)

Taking the supplement properly

Most people are told to take iron with breakfast or food. There is better guidance available.

Take it on an empty stomach, in the morning, with water or a vitamin C source.

Consider alternate day dosing, and discuss it with your prescriber. When you take iron, your body releases hepcidin, a hormone that shuts the door on further iron absorption for up to about 48 hours. Dosing daily means each dose is fighting the hepcidin raised by the last one. In a randomised trial in iron-depleted women, cumulative fractional iron absorption was 21.8% with alternate day dosing versus 16.3% with consecutive day dosing, and cumulative total iron absorption was also significantly higher. Providing supplements on alternate days and in single rather than split doses optimises absorption. ScienceDirectThe Lancet

Less frequent dosing, better absorbed, and usually better tolerated. This is one of those areas where the evidence has moved faster than everyday practice.

One unpopular side effect of iron is black stool. It is harmless, it is expected, and sometimes catches people by surprise. Constipation, nausea and a metallic taste are also common and are the reason most women quietly abandon the tablets by week three. Tell your doctor about side effects instead of stopping, because the dose, the formulation and the schedule can all be changed.

Correction takes months, not days. Haemoglobin recovers first. Stores take considerably longer. Repeat the ferritin test before you repeat the prescription.

Three situations that need specialist input

Pregnancy. Requirements rise sharply and diet alone rarely covers the gap. Routine supplementation is standard antenatal practice, and correcting deficiency early matters for both maternal and fetal outcomes. Do not wait until the third trimester to raise it. Anaemia in pregnancy can be fatal for mother and child.

Children. Iron deficiency in early childhood affects cognitive and neurological development, and some of that effect is not fully reversible with later correction. Adolescent girls entering menarche (first menstruation) are the next high-risk window and are almost entirely unmonitored.

Sickle cell disease. I need you to read this carefully, because people always get the advise backwards in both directions. People living with sickle cell disease are anaemic, but that anaemia is haemolytic, not usually nutritional. Iron overload is a real danger, and develops in sickle cell disease mainly when repeated blood transfusions are given. On the other hand too, in the absence of repeated transfusion, iron deficiency is actually described in non-transfused populations. Both states exist. Which one applies depends on transfusion history and on tests, and ferritin is difficult to interpret in sickle cell disease because of chronic haemolysis and inflammation. American Society of Hematology

The part that is not about your diet

It is tempting to read all of this as a personal responsibility problem. Eat better greens. Squeeze more lemon. Remember your tablet.

But look at what the evidence actually shows. Ferritin thresholds that flag deficiency were largely derived and validated in populations where malaria and chronic infection are not endemic, which means the standard cut-off are least reliable here where the burden of anaemia is heaviest. Nigerian food composition data for our own staple vegetables is patchy, and much of what circulates is drawn from small studies reporting dry weight values that then get quoted as though they describe the fresh bunch of ugu in your kitchen.

Meanwhile more than half of Nigerian women of reproductive age are anaemic, and a full blood count that misses the entire pre-anaemic stage remains the default screening.

This is not a knowledge gap in women. It is a gap in what gets funded, what gets measured, and whose exhaustion gets taken seriously enough to investigate. WOMEN’S HEALTH DESERVES TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY.

What to do with this

Ask for a ferritin, not just a full blood count. Ask for a CRP alongside it if you have been unwell. Read your own number rather than accepting “normal”. If it is under 30 and you have symptoms, that is a conversation, not a closed case. If it keeps dropping, ask what is causing the loss rather than just accepting a repeat prescription. Pair your iron with vitamin C and keep it away from your tea and other iron inhibitors

And if a doctor tells you that you are fine because your haemoglobin is fine, you now know enough to ask the next question.

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Class dismissed.

Yours in health,

#DrZobo

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Yes five hours. And everyone was sat. Attentive. Enlightened. Inspired, myself inclusive.

Yesterday’s Career Convos masterclass was one for the books.

Firstly, I apologize to those of you who couldn’t get in. The class was capped… on purpose. I wanted to give attendees my undivided attention. And as much as possible, I tailored the class to make it practical, giving room for Q & As. I had planned to deliver the class in 3.5 hours, and by the 4th hour… everyone was still thirsty for more, so with their blessing, I continued.

It was everything I expected and more.

You see, for the longest time, I had always wanted to do this. I have a wealth of experience and knowledge that I simply shouldn’t leave this world with. I get tons of DMs for mentorship and constantly get overwhelmed trying to balance everything going on in my life. Career, Family, Academics, Hobbies etc. Additionally, I am a really good teacher. Yes. After “humbling” my way out of this compliment for years, I have decided to toot my own horn.

The truth is that there are a lot of free and helpful resources out there for prospective applicants. But the fact remains that what a lot of people require is handholding. This journey, application and the programme (if successful) is not one that you can simply do alone. That inspired me to put together this Masterclass. I already give out helpful tips, guidance and pointers through different media, including this newsletter. However, I saw an opportunity to intentionally support the next generation of Cheveners, not just give you the “what” but to show you the “how”. And that I believe I achieved yesterday.

And I have those 30 students to be thankful for. You see, a teacher’s biggest encouragement is enthusiasm. And their greatest reward is to see their students win. I had winners in the room. In more ways than one, Chevening or not… I am so excited about what life holds for them. I was thrilled to see clarity dawn on them. I had people rewriting their essays, re-analysing their application and applying the tips in real time.

The Feedback?! I pray I do not recover. Let’s suffice it to say that this teacher slept well. With a heart full of gratitude. That satisfaction comes from Obedience. That is my sermon to you today. If God has placed something in your heart to do? Don’t overthink it. Don’t overanalyse it. If you feel that conviction and it is a safe gamble…? Go for it.

I had helpers, I had support, I had encouragement. Friends and family who referred and reshared. Prevail, who assisted with the community management. And friends who themselves paid the commitment fee to learn. I don’t take it for granted.

Paid? Yes. For I have learnt that where a man’s treasure is, there his heart lies. Even though this Masterclass was not paid, I made it donor-based with a minimum commitment fee of £5. This means you can donate anything you want, but not below £5.

Just like many equally passionate people, I have facilitated value-packed free classes that had a low attendance. Not because, it wasn’t a need, but because, sweet talk it all you want, people tend to abuse privilege. It is our default inclination as a people to take value for granted if it comes without a price.

You see, no one owes you anything. The resources you see readily available for you by alumni and mentors are seeds of goodness. You are not entitled to it. I do not speak what I do not practice myself. People are entitled to their time, and if anyone decides to give you a bit of it, they reserve the right to demand due compensation as they deem fit (legally). It is up to you on the receiving end to opt in or out.

Nothing is free, really. It might cost you nothing, but it takes from the giver, everytime they share. Time, logistic costs, rest, sleep, hobbies, dates, or in my case… dissertation. Nothing is really free. The least you can do, is to utilise this value to the max, for your own good.

Yesterday, I didn’t put a price on my time, I let people put a price on their seriousness to learn and I was impressed.

That commitment fee bought them exclusive access into my exclusive Chevening mentorship community. It gave them a customizable planning toolkit to guide this application and any other one ahead. It got them my attention for 5 hours. It got them a view of some of my winning documents, my essay writing tips, style, strategy, recommendation letters, my failure stories, my lessons, my hacks, and my comeback. I taught them how to turn the “simple moments” into impact stories. They got templates, and heartwarmingly, they grew their network. I’m content.

Don’t take my word for it. Here’s some feedback out of the many ‘Thank yous”

Will I continue sharing my helpful tips here, yes, as time permits, as I know it is beneficial to many of you. However, if you want that extra… my time…there’s an opportunity to access that class.

I have also made available the workbook slides and editable toolkits for you. Here is the link. It gives you access to the recording.

If you want to be a part of my exclusive mentorship community… then keep your eyes out for some news this week.

Whatever you choose, I’m rooting for you. As I always say, your dreams are as valid as your audacity. Your audacity to pursue, to stay resilient, to make the most out of whatever resources you have.

If this is your first time here… then welcome.

I am Chioma Nwakanma-Akanno, a medical doctor and reproductive health physician. I am a Chevening Scholar, and MSc Candidate at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, University of London. I currently serve as the Student Union SRC President and University Council member. I am a Mandela Washington Fellow, a YALI RLC Alumni, and a 2021 UNDP SGS Geneva Ambassador/Changemaker. I have also secured admissions into prestigious schools like the University of Oxford, where I was a shortlisted finalist for the Africa Oxford Scholarship (AfOX). I have had my fair share of rejections, but I have learnt through those experiences, and I want to share my learnings with you. If you’re ready to learn, then I’m ready to teach. Subscribe to my newsletter, catch up on the previous posts and enjoy this Masterclass. Priceless, is the value.

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Yes, you don’t need a first class to apply to Chevening. This is one the most frequently asked questions I’ve received in recent weeks. I understand that there are scholarships that are very particular about first class. There are also many others which, while they claim to be eligible to all grades, are very partial to first class graduates. However, that is not the case with the Chevening scholarship. Does this mean Chevening is not interested in your academic performance, of course not. However, they are more interested in what you have done with the knowledge and experience you have acquired so far. They want to see effort, development and a thirst for more. They look out for people who don’t just speak “I”, but also “We”.

It is open to first class graduates, as well as those who graduated with a second class upper division. In some cases, second class lower division can be considered with a very strong application. There is no upper age limit. Other attributes that do not matter to them include, your gender, sexual orientation, religion, marital status, parenthood or pregnancy, caste, or class. It is very inclusive, even of people who have a previous Masters degree (As long as you were not previously funded by a UK government scholarship).

All these make it one of the most competitive, because the net is wide.

If you don’t have a first class and you want your application to stand out, here are some things you must consider and do. Now this is not just for those with less than a first class. It is for everyone. However, this is to say that if our grades are a concern for you, then you have to take this even more seriously. If a first class graduate does 60%, you have to go the extra mile to 100%. Not because they automatically stand a better chance, but because this is a highly competitive scholarship and you want to ensure you come with your full arsenal.

But I am an undergraduate:

Before I proceed, I must highlight that this scholarship is only for Masters programmes in the UK. There are equally undergraduate scholarships available, unfortunately the Chevening scholarship isn’t one of them. Also, if you graduated after October 2024, you are ineligible to apply in this 2027/2028 cycle. This is simply because the Scholarship updated its eligibility criteria to include 2 year post grad work experience. So you must have completed your undergraduate degree two years before the deadline of the application, and hold about a minimum of 2800 hours of work experience. I will explain this practically in my Masterclass today. Register if you are applying this cycle. Here’s what I’d do if I was not yet eligible to apply for Chevening.

1. I would seek out other scholarships that are not strict on postgraduate work experience

2. I will do my research on Chevening and prepare ahead for when I am eligible in a few years. Preparation is the best strategy you can have. Start now to make your application stronger with some of the tips I will list below. You have an edge.

What makes your application stand out?

Research:

This is the part no one will do for you. Visit the Chevening website now to know if you are eligible or not. Many people start from the back and work forwards, only to meet disappointment when they discover for example their country is not Chevening eligible. Or that they don’t have enough work experience (< 2,800 hours of post grad experience). Or that their school of choice requires an early application, an application fee they cannot afford or a document requirement they cannot meet. Do your research into the scholarship and the schools and courses of your choice. Reach out to the student ambassadors of your school, I was one for my school, LSHTM (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine). They will respond to your email enquiries. You don’t want to apply for Chevening, only to find out an irregularity with one or more of your three school choices. Do your research now. Read this post to learn more.

Work experience:

Most times people hear this, their minds immediately go to paid work. However, the Chevening scholarship recognizes the following work experience: Full-time employment, part-time employment, Voluntary work, Paid or unpaid internships. Every work experience matters. Don’t look down on any of them.

Storytelling:

You have 4 essays to write, across 4 categories, Leadership, Relationship building, Study in the UK (course choices), Career. Ensure that they are aligned with the UK’s priorities. Then please, avoid the temptation to list or merely mention what you have done. Four questions to ask yourself, before you begin your application;

They want you to demonstrate what you have done and I wrote extensively on how to achieve that here. Remember to be authentic and avoid use of AI in essay writing. Keep to word limit. Check for grammatical errors. Write in a separate document outside the application system, so you don’t lose it. You can paste it when you’re done. Save your application as you go.

Certifications:

Get more post graduate certifications that are relevant to your career path. Some are entirely free, some require a token for certificates, some are subsidized or even funded. Stay learning. Stack skills. The more relevant skills and certification you have, the better your chances. There will be opportunities you can seize to insert this into your application

Publications:

Yes, write. Opinion pieces and articles, thesis or research work, publications are a good way of establishing thought leadership.

Secure admissions:

Firstly, no you don’t need to have secured an admission before you apply for Chevening. This is because Chevening understands the technicalities and timelines of UK masters applications. Some also do not open applications until mid September or October. That said however, I will encourage you to please apply early, if you can. Even though I cannot prove it, your application has better chances if you have secured an admission or at least applied before submitting your application.

If it comes down to two people with equally great essays and applications, examiners look through the entire application for tie breakers. This could be one. Could. Don’t let that discourage you though because, on all my applications I never had admission at the points of submission. However, we are talking about improving your odds against a sea of equally qualified people, yeah. So, try, but don’t let it distress you if you don’t.

Now imagine listing a school as your first choice and you get chosen for the interview, you are happy, only that the feeling is mixed because your first choice served you a “love letter”. What do you do?. This was me, by the way. This is why it is great to apply on time, it is also why Chevening allows you 3 choices, and as a two-factor authentication, Chevening allows you swap one of your school/course choices at the point of interview. That saved me. Even though I got admissions into my second and third choices, I swapped my first choice to another Russel group school, which I ended up attending.

Documentation:

International Passport should be up to date. Transcript, Degree certificate, Resume/CV. Get all these ready. Start early especially if you are in Nigeria where strikes and other administrative hiccups can disrupt your best plans. Highlight any distinct academic achievements you might have. E.g: You had a distinction in a particular course or module, even though you didn’t graduate with an overall distinction. That’s why you should have a Master Resume.

Recommendation:

Your referees are important. Select people who know you personally and are well placed to speak about you. You must not submit the reccomendations at the point of submission, but they should be available before your interview. Avoid generic recommendations. The more personalised, the better. Get ready to send a draft template to your referees in case they are too busy to draft one for you.

Interview:

Confidence, emotional and social intelligence. Seize every opportunity to squeeze in an experience that wasn’t clearly discussed in your essays.Understand that every question, no matter how casual is an assessment. Give it your best shot. We will speak more on this during the interview period.

Have a back up plan:

Now this doesn’t mean you are faithless. It just means you are smart enough to recognise that this is a competition. And a rejection from one doesn’t equate rejection from all. Research and apply to other scholarships and school funding opportunities that are available to you.

Hi, I am Chioma Nwakanma-Akanno, a medical doctor and reproductive health physician. I am a Chevening Scholar, and MSc Candidate at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, University of London. I currently serve as the Student Union SRC President and University Council member. I am a Mandela Washington Fellow, a YALI RLC Alumni, and a 2021 UNDP SGS Geneva Ambassador/Changemaker. I have also secured admissions into prestigious schools like the University of Oxford, where I was a shortlisted finalist for the Africa Oxford Scholarship (AfOX). I have had my fair share of rejections, but I have learnt through those experiences, and I want to share my learnings with you. If you’re ready to learn, then I’m ready to teach. Subscribe to my newsletter, catch up on the previous posts and also ensure to secure a spot wherever you see my masterclass. Priceless, is the value.

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That lesson is in Emotional Intelligence. You might be academically intelligent, but are you emotionally intelligent? Culturally sensitive? Socially aware? These are non-negotiable muscles you must exercise if you must go far in life.

Now before I proceed, I must first establish that if the lens with which you approach this post is hazed with bias, you will stumble. So, relax, I am for everybody and for nobody.

Background: In a trending video, a young lady while attempting to ask the Chairman of the United Bank for Africa (UBA)/Heirs Holding group, Mr Tony Elumelu a question, addressed him as “Tony”. There was seemingly nothing wrong with that… except that Mr Elumelu clearly had a problem with it. Gently but firmly he corrected her. I quote, “No you won’t call me Tony. You will call me Mr Elumelu, or TOE or Mr Chairman. I don’t subscribe to that kind of Oyibo life, ok?”.

Stay with me.

I have had the time to examine reactions to this event. Some for and many against. The mixed reactions are understandable. The researcher in me, didn’t want to draw conclusions from social commentary, so I decided to apply a skill I learnt this past year in the principles of social research—it is called INTERPRETIVISM.

You see, social science operates on probabilities, contexts, and social constructs rather than absolute, unchanging laws. Claims are judged by empirical evidence, validity and reliability, rather than black-and-white truth. Interpretivism views social reality as constructed by human meanings. It suggests that “truth” depends on “Culture, Time, and Perspective”, making absolute universal truths harder to claim.

Calling your boss by his first name? Is that wrong?. My response is, “It depends”. Contexts shape outcomes. So I decided to analyse the context of this particular situation.

How are bankers trained to address colleagues:

From what I gathered, it varies significantly with your office culture. In the Westernised corporate model seen in many global organizations and tech-adjacent financial firms, a first-name basis ( with no Sir, Ma or Oga) is encouraged. The rationale being that titles are often thought to create psychological barriers that hinder open communication, innovation and teamwork. So their goal is to foster an inclusive, democratic environment where great ideas can flow regardless of hierarchy.

However, some banks as well as Nigerian organizations, operate in the Traditional Nigerian corporate model. Superiors are addressed with formal prefixes (Mr, Mrs, Ms, Dr etc), or by their specific ranks (MD, ED, Chairman, GM etc). Even the mid level employees commonly address their older colleagues and supervisors as “Boss, Oga etc”, just to maintain those professional boundaries. The rationale for this model, is that it aligns with the Nigerian cultural belief that addressing an elder by their first name is disrespectful, dishonorable and signifies a lack of home training.

In the work place, none of these two models is superior to the other. The goal is efficiency, so whichever aligns with the culture of your company, you are expected to stick to it. The challenge however arises when some organizations try to mix the two. Confusion sets in. The DUPLICITY is questionable, unfair and morally wrong. “This is the corporate culture but…”. It is inconsiderate of how it will affect the one’s who have the responsibility to perform respect.

Now arguably, titles or the absence of it, do not prevent or protect from disrespect. A rude person will always find a way. Yes. However, not everything is viewed from the lens of right or wrong, sometimes the best route to go is “appropriate”. What is appropriate in your organisation or context?

In her context, they had just finished what I believe to be an intensive training programme, equally inclusive of the ethics of the organisation. Therefore any actions she exhibits is a heavy reflection of the lessons she must have received in that training programme. Now I know that a student’s performance isn’t always a direct reflection of the teacher’s capabilities. Exams will testify. However, agree or not, it tells badly on a teacher if a student doesn’t understand the basics, and what’s more basic than greeting?

Here is my hypothesis:

Two things. Either the trainee fumbled outside the bounds of what she was taught about appropriate addressing, OR, she demonstrated exactly what she was taught. This part I’ll leave to those with more context, to approve or reject. It is simply my assumption that it is either of the two. If the former were the case, she really messed up, but we all make mistakes init?. If the latter were the case, then she was not wrong in that situation as she was doing as instructed, no matter how heavy it must have sounded in her mouth. And if anyone is to be held accountable, it should be their instructor (s).

HOWEVER, in the light of limited evidence, this is the only place I can ‘fault’ her.

When a person tells you how they would like to be addressed, you simply respect it. Address them that way, no questions. She aced this. Quickly corrected herself.

Now when a person corrects you, after you have made an obvious error in judgement, the right and courteous approach is simply this… First apologize, then proceed with effecting the correction. That acknowledgement is everything. It is a short but loud statement that says, “This was wrong on my part, now I know better, I respect your boundaries”. That is not only courtesy, it is also a sign of emotional intelligence.

See, anyone can make a mistake, especially in high pressure situations like that. I remember recently when Nigerian musician Tems misaddressed the Obamas on the international stage (Mr and Mrs Obama), even mixed up their daughters’ names. She quickly came out to apologize, expressing how mortified she was at the error, stating that she was so tensed that she fumbled. Understandable. We all make mistakes.

What sets you apart is “what happens next”?

I have seen comparison videos with an old video where Maya Angelou, equally reprimanded a young girl who called her “Maya”, and rightfully so. She later on apologised to the young girl for being short on her. You know one difference I observed between these two similar situations? The girl in Maya’s case, immediately apologised, acknowledged Maya, before proceeding to effect the correction and ask her question. Her posturing was also remorseful and teachable. I’m sure this contributed to Maya’s sting of regret at being a bit heavy handed in her approach.

In the Nigerian case, could he have simply ignored or used an alternative approach? That is open to debate. However I will never instruct or police a person’s decision to reinforce their boundaries whenever they seem fit. I dare say Mr Elumelu handled it well, he was assertive, firm but gentle in his approach. He communicated clearly: You might be subscribed to the Western culture, however, I do not subscribe to it. I might be Tony to others, but to YOU, I am Mr. Elumelu, TOE, or Chairman.

The follow-up? This was where she missed it, and where many young people do and will miss it.

Its five components according to Goleman are; self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy and social skills. The first two are about managing yourself. The last two are about managing relationships, and motivation is the engine in between

Applied in this case, it could look something like this:

1. Self-awareness: I am a young person with a budding career, living in Nigeria, speaking to an older Nigerian, my boss. I seem to have offended him with my address.

2. Self-regulation: This is an embarrassing situation. Especially since this might have been how we were taught to address him. It doesn’t excuse the fact that I was wrong. I will not show any visible signs of frustration or try to defend myself right now.

3. Motivation: My goal here is to secure a permanent role and build a good working relationship with my employer. I will not let anything derail me from my purpose.

4. Empathy: This means a lot to Mr Elumelu. If it didn’t he wouldn’t have called it out. I can only imagine how it feels having a younger, potential employee misaddress you publicly. Even though this was not my intent, it is culturally inappropriate. My words though innocent, are not acceptable to him.

5. Social Skills/Awareness: How do I remedy this? What’s a common ground I can use to manage this situation better? A remorseful body language, an apology, a clear acknowledgement of my error in judgement?.

   “My sincere apologies, Mr Elumelu. This was a grave error on my path. I have duly taken note of it for future references”, or a simple “My apologies, Sir”, “I’m sorry”. There are many variations of a sincere apology, as the situation and time provides. The bottom line is this… your social intelligence is a priceless commodity here and your ability to artfully navigate this situation will stand as testimony for or against you.

I recently took a cohort of African leaders on this course in the Impact Training Room Fellowship.

Dear young person, in many life situations you will not get a training. You are thrown right into the ring. You know what will save you? Emotional and cultural intelligence. You don’t learn it in a day. Experience hones it. It teaches you the what, when, where and how of social relations. Culture is a way of life of a people. And no matter how much you want to bash our elders for being sticklers for honour and titled respect… it doesn’t remove from the fact that it is their way of life. If you want to partake in that life, in any form, then you must adapt. It costs you nothing, except maybe your bruised ego. Many Nigerians and Africans, especially the older ones might have a Westernised aesthetic, but you see inside… DJ is playing Osadebe.

I have worked closely with many notable figures, within and outside Nigeria. In a recent instance, I am the only student on the highest governing board of my postgraduate school LSHTM, University of London. The number 1 school of Public health in the United Kingdom. I work and serve alongside the biggest names in the UK and the world. Against my natural will, most times I address them by their first names, because they insist, it is their culture and I respect it.

But even inside that same institution, I have people who despite their best attempts at getting me to call them by their first names, will never hear it escape my lips. I kindly decline, and ask for a middle ground, cos in my words “I’d hate to offend the gods and my mom”. I’ll usually negotiate a middle ground, resorting to titles “My chief”, “Dr”, “Doc”, “Boss”, “GM”, “Ichie”, “Capacity”, “Director”, and very soon they will get used to it. Why? They are Africans, and we have a culture that I would never like to forget. A culture of honour, and that honour opens doors and sharpens wisdom. Yes, many might not pick offense if I address them by their first names, but an African is an African, they reward honour, howbeit unconsciously. There is an unconscious bias towards people who truly respect and honour others. It happens to the best of us. It has taken me far in life. Don’t mistake it for praise singing, Nah. It doesn’t even have to be hierarchical or age-based, honour is palpable. I do this for everyone, younger, age mate, older.

I can tell you that respect is not always in titles, sometimes it’s in tone, it’s in timing, it’s in body language, it’s in reactions, it’s in availability, it’s in sacrifice, it’s in intention. For you see, call them by their pet name, they won’t mind, but one way you can disrespect a Brit or American, is lateness or unaccounted absence. They might not say it, but they will note it. With exceptions to cases of emergency or unforeseen circumstances… It simply means you do not respect their time and life enough to show up as and when agreed. They don’t mind lateness, if you give them an early notice. The average Nigerian on the other hand will wonder if truly you are as important a person as you say you are, if you show up on time. Fashionably late exists for a reason. A mentality I don’t subscribe to, but the truth none the less.

All these point to one thing. Situational awareness. Always be conscious of your contexts. And if ever in doubt, it is better to err on the side of caution. You could ask people how they’d like to be addressed (pronouns inclusive), or do your research ahead. You could observe how others address them, or simply use an appropriate formal title, and await a correction if any. Networking events are intentional about avoiding these embarrassing situations with preferred-name tags and pronoun badges.

Institutionally, it might be permissible, but contextually, let nuance be your guide. That is Cultural intelligence.

Someone once asked me what I prize most in my life and my short and quick response was “Human relationships”. For you see my greatest investment is not in money, it is in people. There are powerful rooms you will enter, not because you are the most qualified, but because of your social capital. You’ve heard that your network is your networth, well that speaks to your Social Capital. It’s akin to finance. You cannot reap if you don’t sow. You cannot liquidate, if you don’t invest. You cannot withdraw if you don’t deposit. However, unlike finance, its currency is not money, it is respect, it is regard, it is Honour. Mutual, genuine, and intentional.

I know you want to succeed. I know you are intellectually sound. But, life responds to, and moves in the direction of your ability to navigate complex situations. So, I’ll ask again. How intelligent are you? Answer that in your quiet corner, and correct course if need be.

Well this is certainly a deviation from my daily newsletter on scholarship tips. But I’m sure you can agree that it is relevant because. In the famous words of John Wooden, “Ability will get you in the room, but character will keep you there”. Talent opens doors, character, sustains success.

In all, I call on us all to extend some grace to the said lady, we can only assume, but we might not fully understand the context of her situation. I hope she learns from this experience and forges ahead as a strong leader that I’m sure she has been trained to be.

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“Hey Doc, I don’t think I have the required community leadership experience for the application.” Someone dropped this comment on a recent post. To that I replied, you just might have it. I’m about to show you how.

Here’s the thing many times I have heard someone say that, they ended up having a wealth of experience under their belt. The problem however is that most people, Nigerians I daresay underestimate their experiences. We often confuse leadership experiences for leadership positions, and while those could be the same thing for some people, it is not always interchangeable. Simply put, all leadership positions are leadership experiences, but not all leadership experiences are leadership positions. In most postgraduate scholarship applications like Chevening, the focus is more on your leadership experience than just positions. The question they need you to answer is this:

You don’t need a title to create impact. You don’t ned to be the CEO, Executive Director or Founder. I need you to look within you, what responsibility have you been given, or taken that you delivered on. That is a leadership experience. A leader is simply someone who guides, directs or has command over a group, or organization. It refers to one who leads by example, fosters strong relationships with individuals and teams alike, ensuring that their full potentials are reached and the organizational goals are achieved. You don’t need the highest organizational titles for this. Being a leader could mean you are the CEO, Founder or Director. It could also mean you are a teacher or the class financial secretary, Choir leader, you could have been the class rep, first child, professional, a community manager, it could be paid, it could be a volunteer or internship experience… Anything. As long as you are meeting a need and inspiring others to do same.

I’ll give you an instance, during my Mandela Washington Fellowship, I know someone whose experience was being a Whatsapp admin manager for a growing group of about 200 survivors of sexual gender based violence. She was a survivor herself. She had no office, she had no administrative “structure”, just a burning passion to ensure the next woman is saved from the horrors she had to endure as a young woman. She got in. Why? She demonstrated that it was not merely a Whatsapp group. The community howbeit virtual, was meeting a need and had potential for scale beyond the e-platform. Today that movement that started during COVID 19 pandemic, has left Whatsapp and is a groeing advocacy and mitigation platform for SGBV. I once wrote a viral tweet years before I met this lady. Read it below and digest it slowly.

It is less about what you do, but more about how you demonstrate what you do. So, how can you do that? Here are my top tips

1. Be authentic:

One of the most interesting things about me is being “Dr Zobo”. My ability to combine storytelling and humour to break down complex health issues, educate my community and influence people to make better, informed health decisions. Despite being one of my most impactful projects, guess what?... I did not include it in my earliest essays. “Somebody shout God forbid”.

Well, what the gods forbade, I bid. Why? I trivialised it. “It’s just a social media thing”, “It’s not serious enough”. Not serious enough? A page that was grossing 10 Million weekly views across all platforms. Those views, lives that were being transformed one health myth bust at a time. It baffles people every single time I share this story. But yes, I held back and when I finally included it, I downplayed it. Just an honorary mention and I moved on to the other equally impactful aspects of my work, that I felt were more “serious enough” for an application of this magnitude. It happens to the best of us, Impostor syndrome, they call it. You see your achievements as subpar, you fill you are not all that, you feel somewhat of a crook, an impostor. You say to yourself, “it comes naturally to me, surely it can’t be the ONE.”, “It was just a volunteer experience, I wasn’t even paid for it, It was self funded. Surely it can’t count.”. “It was just 20 people, definitely I won’t be selected.’ Does this sound like you? Most likely. Believe it or not, it was me too for a long time.

One day, after reviewing my essay, my friend who was a Chevening alumni said to me “Chioma, this is a good essay, but it is not you. I feel you’re holding back a lot. Relax your grip and let your true self shine through”. I asked her, “Who is my true self?”. She said, “Dr Zobo. That is the you we know and most connect to. That is how you started. That is your why.”

I said “Say no more. Hold my Zobo”. Then I went back and really wrote for the first time, not holding back, not downplaying any aspect of my experience. And within 2 years, I won the Mandela Washington fellowship and the Chevening scholarship, back to back. About AI, I can tell you I have never written an essay with any AI support. As you can tell, I’m a good writer. I enjoy writing. However, I acknowledge not everyone is like me. My advice will be this, tell your story organically first, then if you must, use AI to structure and check for grammatical errors. That is considered responsible use. AI can’t tell your story, and the people you want to copy are not you either. They can detect AI generated essays and will penalize you. Be authentic. I can’t emphasize this enough. There may be a thousand people doing what you do, but no one does it like you. That is your unique selling point, let it shine through.

2. Show don’t tell:

You see, when I said I wrote. It wasn’t something like this,

That is not bad, but it isn’t good enough, especially for Chevening. It is not an avenue for you to tell a lengthy sob story either.

Impact storytelling is different. It should be detailed but concise enough to meet the word count. Logical but emotive, unique but structured.

About structure, you have most likely heard of the STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) approach, well I raise you the SPARK (Situation, Problem, Ambition, Result, Kicker) approach. None is superior to the other, you just need to know when to use each, and I find that the SPARK guides me better in impact essays. It is my personal choice. Lets say I was using this to talk about my work in cervical cancer advocacy

• Situation: Establish the stakes immediately. Introduce the community or region where you noticed the problem. Setting a serious, urgent tone.

• Problem: Identify the root cause of the issue. Explain that the tragedy wasn’t just the disease itself, but oher determinants like: lack of financial resources, awareness, and access to preventative care.

• Ambition: Share your personal turning point. Explain why you felt compelled to step up as a leader, detailing your vision to transform fear into action through XYZ: E.g: fundraising, early screenings, and youth vaccinations.

• Result: Quantify your success with hard evidence. State exactly how much money you raised, the number of women screened, and the number of young girls vaccinated, proving that your leadership directly saved lives.

• Kicker: Connect your past success to your future potential. Explain how this specific experience shaped your leadership philosophy and how you will use this scholarship to scale your impact and save more lives in your next chapter.

Check out this sample.

I wrote this right now in one sitting off the top of my head. It’s a first draft and it can be further refined, but I believe you get the gist now. Compare this to the first and you can judge which stands a better chance. I have personal practical frameworks, and I plan to share more in my masterclass. If you are serious enough, you can begin to adjust your essays based on this update. Bring your rough draft to class and we will work on them together.

There’s more. In my next newsletter, we will discuss how to put together your experience and evidence. An important aspect of your application. Before then, subscribe, to be one of the first who hear from me. If you have any questions, leave a comment and I will be in touch.

Hi, I am Chioma Nwakanma-Akanno, a medical doctor and reproductive health physician. I am a Chevening Scholar, and MSc Candidate at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, University of London. I currently serve as the Student Union SRC President and University Council member. I am a Mandela Washington Fellow, a YALI RLC Alumni, and a 2021 UNDP SGS Geneva Ambassador/Changemaker. I have also secured admissions into prestigious schools like the University of Oxford, where I was a shortlisted finalist for the Africa Oxford Scholarship (AfOX). I have had my fair share of rejections, but I have learnt through those experiences, and I want to share my learnings with you. If you’re ready to learn, then I’m ready to teach. Subscribe to my newsletter, catch up on the previous posts and also ensure to secure a spot wherever you see my masterclass. Priceless, is the value.

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Yes, love letters, that’s what I call them. Call it psyching and you won’t be wrong. I just know that I refused to be defined by rejections. So for every one I got, I took a deep breathe, wiped a few tears, reflected, readjusted and reapplied. Because I knew more than anything that I was Chevening material and I was eligible. I wanted it and I was going to get it. I finally got the Chevening scholarship on my 4th application.

You see, No matter how smart and high-flying you are…one thing is sure on this application journey… Rejections. No, it’s not a curse, it’s just a necessary evil, a necessary part of your process. This isn’t peculiar to the Chevening scholarship, it applies to other opportunities. Maybe not now, maybe not a lot, but certainly.

“God forbid!”. Amen, I pray too, however, every achiever will agree on one thing, if you are yet to have a rejection…? You definitely have not applied enough times. Opportunities, grants, investment proposals, jobs… they serve rejections on a rolling basis. However, the difference between those who win and those who lose… is resilience, or in many cases the lack of it.

Notice something. “Rejections”, not “Failure”, that’s what I’ve called them and it was intentional. Because one of the things you must do early in this journey is to “Define failure, before it defines you”. I wrote extensively on that here. For me, I defined failure as “not trying”, “holding back”, “talking myself out of opportunities”, “not stretching myself to capacity because of fear of rejections”, simply NOT TRYING. Because the greatest sting of failure for me, is regret. I may feel sad, but I can bear the thought that I was not accepted into a programme. What I cannot live with however, is the knowledge that maybe, this opportunity could have been mine, if only I had applied, put myself or my best feet forward. And even in those times, I don’t wear failure as an identity, I mourn the loss, get up and brave the next adventure, armed to the teeth with the knowledge I have gained. We live to fight (apply) another day.

The fact that you’re reading this already speaks volumes, you are not a failure. So, I charge you today to define failure before it defines you. I know it’s tempting to give up, but I encourage you to try one more time. If like me, this is something you really want, go for it. The love letter is not your identity, you just need to reassess your peculiar situation and know how to better your odds this time.

Enough motivation. Let’s dive in.

Disclaimer: These are my personal reflections and I do not speak for the FCDO.

I know you might have been attracted by my story of resilience and journey of 5 years, but I won’t glamourise it. I will hold your hands as I tell you this truth. “ My dear friend, don’t make the mistake of thinking your odds get better with each application. They don’t.” Mr A can apply 11 times and still be unsuccessful at it, while Ms B can apply just once and get in.

Let’s talk about strategy

Success comes when opportunity meets preparation, we have recited this mindlessly for years, but it doesn’t make it less true. When your strategy aligns with the scholarship priorities for the year, your chances improve remarkably. Here are some of my top tips from mistakes I made in earlier applications.

1. Research:

   As much as people will try to share tips with you, the onus lies on you to research, read that Chevening website thoroughly. It is your greatest resource. Research your schools of choice and ensure that your top three courses align. Your first choice cannot be “MSc Public Health” the second “MSc Cyber security”. While it can be different schools or the same school, the courses have to be similar in context or sector. Do your homework. There are a lot of helpful, free, resources online. Don’t apply as a novice. Familiarise yourself with the programme, its requirements, and those who have been selected. Understudy them. Find out what makes them unique. As I always say, I’m yet to meet a Chevener who was not worth the investment. I did this poorly in my earliest application, little wonder my first love letter.

2. Alignment:

   In Chevening, just like many applications, there is usually a focus area for each application cycle/year. Discover what they are and tailor your work to align with their priority areas IN YOUR HOME COUNTRY. Generally Chevening priorities include: Promoting growth and prosperity, building climate resilience, strengthening security and stability, and supporting development for more inclusive and effective societies. However, every country has theirs. For example I know that in recent years, in addition to its other priorities, the UK has had growing interest in the Nigerian creative economy. It’s your job to discover it. In the meantime, here’s where you can discover your country’s UK priority areas.

   1. DFID website development tracker.

   2. The DFID news and communications section

   3. Social media pages of the UK embassy/High Commission in your home country

   4. The UK government website- worldwide services section

   Using practical examples, I’ll be sharing more on how to tailor your application intentionally in my Masterclass this Saturday (22nd August, 2026). Because it’s one thing to know the areas and another to actually align and communicate that. So, discover the areas that align with the work you do and bring them to class.

   Why is this important?

   Two key things

   1. As I said in my previous post here, you are expected to return home. Therefore you must demonstrate how studying in the UK will benefit you and your home country, and importantly, how it can help advance relations between the UK and your home country.

   2. It will be relevant when writing your career essay, and hopefully for your interview.

   I hope this helps you see that it isn’t just about writing beautifully worded essays like I did all those years.. This is a business transaction of some sort. They are spending thousands of pounds on you, you must communicate why you are WORTH IT.

That’s my assignment for you today. Get a sheet of paper, or your e-notebook. List all the things you do or have done. Write out all the sectors that they intersect, then visit all these sites above to know what the UK is funding in your country. As my friend Hamza will say, “Follow the money”. As the Bible will say, where a man’s treasure is, that is where his heart lies. That is the priority. Find out if any aligns with your work and if it seemingly doesn’t. Then my friend, make it align. How? Be in my class this Saturday.

I’ll leave you with as a hint: “Ngozi is a period health advocate, the UK doesn’t fund menstrual healthcare in her home country, but a key focus area is climate resilience. Ngozi is heart broken, she sees no hope in sight. She decides the Chevening application is not for her”. Is there truly no hope in sight for Ngozi? What would you do differently if you were in her shoes? Ponder on this until we speak again. If you are willing to, please share your thoughts in the comment section, so we can learn together. I will be there to join the conversation.

There’s more. In my next newsletter, I’ll share the HOW of impact storytelling. An important skill for your essays. Before then, subscribe, to be one of the first who hear from me. If you have any questions, leave a comment and I will be in touch.

Hi, I am Chioma Nwakanma-Akanno, a medical doctor and reproductive health physician. I am a Chevening Scholar, and MSc Candidate at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, University of London. I currently serve as the Student Union SRC President and University Council member. I am a Mandela Washington Fellow, a YALI RLC Alumni, and a 2021 UNDP SGS Geneva Ambassador/Changemaker. I have also secured admissions into prestigious schools like the University of Oxford, where I was a shortlisted finalist for the Africa Oxford Scholarship (AfOX). I have had my fair share of rejections, but I have learnt through those experiences, and I want to share my learnings with you. If you’re ready to learn, then I’m ready to teach. Subscribe to my newsletter, and also ensure to secure a spot wherever you see my masterclass. Priceless, is the value.

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Chevening is not for everyone. Yes, read that again.

This is not some ego-trip, it’s reality. The Chevening scholarship is not for everyone. Take it from someone who applied 4 times, before she got a “Yes”. Deferred that Yes for an extra year before she finally took it up in 2025. Stick with me, cos I’ll be sharing what I learnt along the way, both from personal experience and from my interaction with fellow Cheveners. The Chevening scholarship applications officially opened on the 4th of August 2026 and will close on the 6th of October. An early start gives you time to put in a stellar application. If you’re considering applying for the Chevening scholarship or know anyone who is, this is the post you need to sit with. Share it with every young person interested in accessing fully funded scholarships in 2027

Disclaimer: These are my personal reflections and I do not speak for the FCDO.

What is Chevening?

It is the UK government’s scholarship programme that allows leaders to pursue a fully funded one-year taught Masters course in selected UK universities, after which they return to their home countries to apply the knowledge gained. Note the highlighted words. That is exactly where the eligibility lies.

So who is Chevening for?

I’ll use the highlighted words to quickly elaborate on this. This is something a lot of people realise too late after they have committed time and resources that could have been profitably deployed elsewhere. Hopefully, it will help you make an informed decision.

1. UK Government:

   This scholarship is funded by the UK government, not your country. They will be investing thousands of pounds into your education. And the application is free. These cover tuition, visas, an economy return flight (to and fro the UK), some course-related field trips, feeding, housing, transportation, health insurance. For just the student (the applicant). Therefore your application must justify why you are worth their investment. One way is ensuring your work can be tied to one of their interest areas (released per year on the website, or check FCDO funding interests in your country). The selection is not done by nominations but by a direct application via the Chevening website. National governments play no role in any part of the process. This leaves no room for manipulations, sorting, or inducements. Candidates are selected solely on the strength of their applications. This assures you of its integrity. Please beware of scammers, anyone or website asking you for money to sort this application is fraudulent. The application is free, and it is STRICTLY MERIT-BASED. I won’t sugar-coat it, while it is the most accessible scholarship for Nigerians, this is arguably one of the most competitive scholarship applications in the world. Nigerian applications alone run into tens of thousands, with only 20-39 selected and the numbers have dropped significantly following recent funding cuts. This means… many applicants will be disappointed by rejections, because bringing your best foot forward is the bare minimum. You must demonstrate why your foot must be chosen amongst the sea of equally great feet. If you are not ready for competition, or if the UK is not your preferred postgraduate destination, then sit this one out.

2. Programme:

   Delivered through the FCDO Foreign Commonwealth Development Office, this is not just about funding your academics. They scholarship body has also developed a programme that caters to your leadership and development needs. They don’t want you to depart the UK with merely a certificate, but also the qualities required to administer the knowledge acquired successfully in your local communities back home. This programme comes with strict commitments, some compulsory, others optional. Some social, others academia-focused. In all, this programme doesn’t just give you the money and standback. They plan to hold your hand every step of the way. I will recommend you attend as many as your time allows and never miss the compulsory meetings. They give you the opportunity to build your capacity and expand your network. If you want a solo-ride MSc, this isn’t the one for you.

3. Leaders:

   Now this is the most important part that fueled my earlier statement. The Chevening scholarship isn’t just interested in academically sound students, that is important. However, it is particularly interested in leaders who are already doing the work. Impactful work. Read that again. Chevening is one of the few scholarships where you can be selected despite graduating with a lower second class or even a third class in peculiar cases, as long as you can demonstrate that you have gotten better (another degree, PG certifications, Diplomas, or even a previous Masters). It is also one of the scholarships without an age-limit. Yes, we have had a 60 year old Chevener. They want impact makers, not just people who hope to do something, but people already doing something about the problems they have identified. Those are the true leaders. And no, leadership here doesn’t merely mean “a title”, but community responsibility. No experience is too small, as long as lives are being measurably impacted. If your plan is to go do your Masters with the hopes of gaining experience to help you figure out your life’s purpose. Chevening isn’t looking for you. The reason is simple, they want to develop your capacity enough to enable you confidently return and scale the impact of your work or any other work you already do, with the ultimate goal of developing the community (ies) you already serve.

   If you are fresh out of University, and have no work history, this isn’t for you. The scholarship clearly states that you must have at least 2,800 hours of work experience, acquired after the completion of your undergraduate degree. This is roughly about 2 years of post undergraduate work experience, averaging about 35 hours per week (or in a different time period, not strictly 35 hours per week, as long as the cumulative is not below 2,800). If you are applying in 2026 for the 2027/2028 session, then it means you should have completed your undergraduate degree before October 2024. This work experience is inclusive of Full-time employment, Part-time employment, Voluntary work, Paid or unpaid internships. So, you have options and little excuse. Read up more here. If you do not fall into any of the categories above, you are not eligible.

4. One-year taught Masters programme:

   Firstly, it is your duty to secure an admission. Chevening doesn’t do that for you. Some scholarships may allow you to apply to universities through their portal, some schools may also allow you to automatically apply for or access certain scholarships through their application portal, however, Chevening isn’t one of them.

   Secondly, your choice course must be a one year taught masters programme, with a Fall (August-September) resumption date. Not a 2 year course, Not a research degree course, or a Doctorate programme. Your course website will have this information.

5. Selected UK Universities:

   As I said earlier, it must be a school in the UK specifically, not Europe. The United Kingdom. It is your responsibility to research, apply and secure the admission. This involves meeting any requirements: English Language requirements, application fees (if required, as not all schools require a fee to apply), any other entrance tests. You must have this admission ready before your Final award letter is issued in June next year. Chevening doesn’t mandate you to already have this admission before applying, so by all means apply for the scholarship, but ensure you put in your top 3 choice universities in the application form. This means you must have done your research to know the schools and courses you want, and to ensure that they are eligible for a Chevening scholarship. This you can do by running your school choices via the Chevening course finder

6. Return:

   I’ll keep it simple, if you are looking for an immigration route or shortcut, I’ll strongly advise against applying. If your plan is to start a PhD or or get a job in the UK right after graduation? This isn’t for you. There are many other opportunities that are not strict about the return clause, seek them out. Chevening expects you to return at the end of your course, because you signed a contract you must respect. This doesn’t mean you cannot return to the UK after this. You can, but for immigration related purposes, at least 2 years is required.

7. Dependants:

   I have added this as a clause, as it’s one peculiar to me. Yes, Chevening allows you to bring dependants, but all costs are on you. While they may provide some support for their visa application, it doesn’t include finances. You must meet all Home office requirements for dependants, including of proof of funds. And upon return, you all must go back to your home country.

Here’s the thing, there is an opportunity for everyone, but you must put in the hours and do your research to find your fit. The Chevening scholarship application is two-phased, the first stage is the application form, inclusive of documents and essays, and the second stage is the interview for successful candidates. I’ll talk more on this in my next newsletter. Before then, subscribe, to be one of the first who hear from me. If you have any questions, leave a comment and I will be in touch.

Hi, I am Chioma Nwakanma-Akanno, a medical doctor and reproductive health physician. I am a Chevening Scholar, and MSc Candidate at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, University of London. I currently serve as the Student Union SRC President and University Council member. I am a Mandela Washington Fellow, a YALI RLC Alumni, and a 2021 UNDP SGS Geneva Ambassador/Changemaker. I have also secured admissions into prestigious schools like the University of Oxford, where I was a shortlisted finalist for the Africa Oxford Scholarship (AfOX). I have had my fair share of rejections, but I have learnt through those experiences, and I want to share my learnings with you. If you’re ready to learn, then I’m ready to teach. Subscribe to my newsletter, and also ensure to secure a spot wherever you see my masterclass. Priceless, is the value.

Thanks for reading Convos with Dr Zobo! Subscribe for free and share with a friend. Let’s grow together. Drop a comment or a question. They encourage the conversations to keep flowing.

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Hey, I know you’re probably running against some application deadline, but pause briefly and read this before you click send. You might have some edits to make.

Very recently I shared a thought provoking piece criticising a subtle form of racism we face as Africans in academia or development, by way of back-handed compliments. You should read it if you haven’t. Today I turned the lens inwards, because we must equally subject ourselves to scrutiny. Not because there is ever a justification for racism, far from it.

In the words of Larry Hirschfeld, “My proposal neither denies this variability nor implies that it is trivial”.

Racism is condemnable in all forms (subtle, covert, loud, aggressive). However, in some ways we as a people fuel and tolerate its weaponization, howbeit naively. I’ll attempt to shine some light on one part in this essay.

I’ll start by telling you the story of an animal.

Firstly, here’s a question for you, without thinking or a web search, say out loud the dirtiest animal in the world. I’ll wait.

Now, in the same way, say out loud the top cleanest animals you know.

Great. Well done.

Without asking, I am willing to bet two things:

1. That for the former, >85% of readers would give the answer as “PIG”

2. For the latter, nearly 95% of you will not think to say “PIG”, even though it is arguably one of the cleanest animals in the world.

Surprised? I was too when I learnt this fact, just 2 years ago. If in doubt, ask google or better still, “Chatjipiti”.

A Pig. The Pig. The one we have been raised to know… as filthy? The one animal turned into an adjective. An adjective which if directed at you can cease your appetite and have you reflectively hugging your knees to your chest. Well, yes, that one. It is, in fact, a clean animal.

How?

According to zoologists and farmers, pigs are one of the cleanest animals because they instinctively separate their bathroom spaces from their sleeping and eating spaces. The common idea that pigs are filthy comes from their habit of rolling in mud, which they actually do to cool down and protect their skin rather than to be dirty. In fact, it is said that young piglets try hard to keep their sleeping straw neat and free of waste. They are clean by nature, however, captive or farm pigs only live in messy conditions when humans trap them in small pens without enough room to keep things tidy.

Moral of the story. Branding matters.

If you are unintentional, you fast become the story people believe of you. The story that has been repeated so many times that even though it is at logger heads with your reality, it becomes your identity.

Nigeria. Africa. What’s our brand?

Over time we have been framed as the skeletal, hungry, destitute, fly-infested, hopeless demography. A contrast from the rich heritage we have, the hardworking, innovative and resilient people we are. In his essay titled “How to Write About Africa”, Binyavanga Wainaina wrote, “Among your characters you must always include The Starving African, who wanders the refugee camp nearly naked, and waits for the benevolence of the West. Her children have flies on their eyelids and pot bellies, and her breasts are flat and empty. She must look utterly helpless.”

How do we change this stigma-laden narrative of us? You may ask. Well, it is not merely by challenging it confrontationally. But by overriding it systematically, through the same pathway that established it. Storytelling. A story for a story. Aura for aura.

In her famous speech, “The danger of a single story”, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, alerts us to be wary of the danger of one-sided stories. In this essay I challenge you to seize every opportunity to tell our own side of the story… ethically. In a way that upholds our humanity, without making light of our unique challenges and collective struggles.

Framing. Branding

Somewhere in the world, someone is penning down a proposal, grant application or essay, seeking support for a community they serve in Africa. The opening sentences might read…

“I grew up in a poor community bounded by thick impenetrable forests, meters away from civilization, and one day, as the strong hammattan winds carried its dust through our netless windows, I heard the wails of yet another mother lose her child to Malaria. I decided, I was done being an observer. That day my NGO was born”

Well intentioned, but not intentional. It moves the heart, yes, but at what cost? The dignity and agency of your people, in the mud. It’s not a lie, but it’s not the entire truth, and that blurred margin is exactly what makes it enticing, entertaining, and addictive to those who get a high from helping poor Africa.

I call it development/LMIC p0rn. But academics call it Deficit Framing. Where people are described by their problems and not through the lens of their grit. It is a hook. It can get the audience to pause, read and feel pity. Poor, destitute, hopeless. Everything missing, everything broken, and there’s You… the saviour.

The response? “Awww, poor Africa. Here, come take a few bites.”. For when people are misrepresented, and silenced, it creates room for exploitation.

Ethical storytelling, on the other hand, calls out the struggle but emphasizes the strengths. Rewriting the scene above, an alternative variation could be:

“I come from Antwigza, a rural community of cocoa farmers. Though miles from the city, Antwigzans have historically developed a self-sufficient ecosystem that makes them thrive independently of urban areas. One of the beautiful attractions of my community is its vast plantains and evergreen forests. However with this cultural jewel comes one of nature’s deadliest animals… mosquitoes. Sadly, our children are most affected, many times fatally despite the efforts of our traditional healers. Following yet another heartbreaking incident, watching a mother hold their lifeless child, I decided it would be immoral of me to remain a bystander. This single decision birthed my advocacy journey into malaria prevention, diagnosis and treatment.”

Message passed. Steeze and stateliness preserved. The resultant response? “What a people. In situations where many would understandably throw in the towel, they kept hope alive. Never giving up, resilient, Despite having the odds stacked against you. You shouldn’t do this alone, we will support, hand on hand. We shall stand with you”

Ethical storytelling is participatory. A post by Temilade Salami, described it as a balance between:

• Struggle + Strength

• Pain + Possibility

• Context + Voice

It is not either or… Na collabo.

A good communication brief should challenge stereotypes, not reinforce them. Opposed to using the fear or shame tactic, it should be critically analytical of contributory contexts, and most importantly, hopeful.

Ethical advocacy challenges us to move beyond the model of the benefactor and beneficiary, to one of mutual respect and shared humanity. Your story shouldn’t merely document, it should challenge and inspire your audience to reflect critically about the demography you represented.

An essay I read recently made me pause and reflect, it was titled “Silent Voices, Loud Voices. A Comparison of Ethnological Treatments of Verbatim Accounts from Informants”. The essay highlighted that there are three main ways a layperson or ethnographer who enters or encounters a strange culture can get to know or feel it. One is by simple observation, one is by participation, and the third is by discussion– talking to the members of that culture about what is going on. And because the activities and relations of a people can be difficult to decipher, the third way– discussion, is especially useful. Why? Because the voices of these people, their own words, are at the heart of of fieldwork, and are a constitutionally significant part of observations that make up successful ethnographies.

Applied to this discussion, it simply means that in our bid to advocate, we must be intentional to centre the voices of the communities we represent. It is a co-creation at best, and people own what they help create. We must ensure to honour, respect people, highlighting their agency and resilience as much as we can, irrespective of their demography. Additionally, resist the urge to exaggerate. Be honest, but assertive. You can state the facts without hurting their self-respect. Your positionality shouldn’t be Saviour, but Partner.

And hey relax, this isn’t an accusation, it is a call for sober reflection, for I, as I type cannot pretend to be irreproachable. This essay is to the person in the mirror. I am on a journey to unlearn publicly, years of social and cultural conditioning that have stolen from us as a people. I invite you to join me.

I am not making a case to sugarcoat the story of Africa. It is simply a call to adjust the existing frame, through our African lens. To see beyond our problems, and magnify our strengths. For true partnership is mutual, and Africa… has a lot to offer. It’s a call for collaboration over dependency. For in highlighting the lives and smiles behind the struggle, that is how we rewrite the story of Africa, ethically.

And so my fellow Africans, whenever the opportunity presents itself to tell the story of Africa, no matter how small the stage, ensure that you tell it authentically, unapologetically from a vantage point, and never ever, from despondence.

Yours in storytelling

Chioma

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“You speak surprisingly well.”

Well, surprise surprise. I am African, and educated. Beats your “expectations”?. I am glad. However, compliments that come via a backhand, are exactly the type I have no interest in. No thanks. For without that adverb, the compliment could still stand, but as we Nigerians say… “agenda, must agend”.

You see, I come from a lineage of people who read Sizwe Banzi is dead before age 7. The lineage of people who frantically raised their hands with the hopes that they’d be selected to read aloud the longest comprehension paragraphs in class. The people who mastered their hand and eye coordination by playing square, ten-ten and rubber bands… who sharpened their mental faculties by memorizing story books, word for word. The ones who use words like parambulate, expatiate, tautology, discombobulate, vamose, vex, and elucidate …in casual everyday conversations.

I come from a generation of people who read the Oxford dictionary for the fun and status of it. Who strained our eyes in the night light, to finish fat novels overnight, so we could swap it for thicker ones. I come from a lineage of people who made their children read newspapers and summarise, who scripted and played imaginary scenarios like the class acts they were. A lineage of people who studied comprehension as a core part of the English language. A generation of people who got rewarded for each new word and meaning. Who owned a dedicated book, with pages split in two, and on either side; “New words” and “Meaning”. A people who authored their own story books as kids, even though many were left unpublished.

I am a girl who still fondly remembers the day she learnt the word “Fruition”, as a JSS2 student who sat across from Mrs Okpi, her English teacher, who reviewed her essay for a competition. While she didn’t later win the prize money, she at least learnt that the word “Patronise” was not the compliment she thought it was. A girl who signed off handwritten letters with “Doxology”. I come from a lineage of people who, in addition to their native language, mastered the language of the colonizers, so that when we are denied emancipation, it will not be because we were not understood.

A people who learnt the English language from Top to Bottom, normalising the complex and commonising the simple. The lineage of people who these days are compelled to dumb down their writing, lest they sound too sophisticated for their skin tone. People who are made to write a test to assess their ability to communicate in their nation’s official language. A language they’ve known all their lives. “Here’s my money, now let me prove that I can speak in the only language you can understand.”

So when I write and you call it AI… when I speak and your response is astonishment… it says more about you, than I. For the real surprise? Is that you cannot fathom my vocabulary is inclusive of words you left to gather dust in your dictionary. Intelligence can be performed, but intellect, cannot be acquired. Like my ancestors before me, that ability is innate, to not just learn, but to question. And you, have a lot of learning to do, for you see dearest, our brains do not speak black or white, they are a knowledge bank, regardless of skin, they function, and just like yours… with layers of grey matter in between.

Yours in surprise,

Chioma

No AI was used in the development of this piece. Surprised?

This prose has been sitting in my drafts for a long time, but with the recent events and conversations around Africans and Blacks in academic spaces… I felt there was no better time to express my thoughts than now. Rest in Peace, Professor Jason Atta Kwei Arday.

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“What if I layer it. Three sunglasses? Won’t that protect my eyes.” Somebody asked me, completely sincerely

Not two. Three. Because to the best of their understanding, stacking enough tinted plastic between yourself and the Sun, could dilute the retina-damaging rays of the sun.

I laughed. And then I stopped laughing, because underneath that question is a real misunderstanding about what sunglasses are for and what an eclipse actually does to a human eye. By this evening, several million people will be standing outside making a decision about their eyesight based on whatever they happen to believe about it.

So let me be useful, as usual.

Why is tonight’s eclipse different?

This is the biggest solar eclipse visible from the UK in 27 years. The last one this deep was August 1999, when Cornwall sat in the path of totality. Tonight, depending on where you are standing, somewhere between 90 and 96% of the Sun will be covered.

The next one on this scale is 2081. The next actual total eclipse expected in the UK is in 23 September 2090.

So this is genuinely a once in a lifetime evening for most of us. Far be it from me to tell you not to watch it, however, I am going to tell you how to still have your central vision intact by tomorrow morning.

How does the eclipse affect your sight?

I’ll try to keep it simple.

Your pupils respond to whatever light is available. Bright room, they constrict. Dim room, they open up to let more in (dilation). This is involuntary and automatic, and don’t even bother cos you cannot control it.

During an eclipse, the light noticeably drops. It starts to feel like an overcast evening is coming on.

So naturally, your pupils open (dilate).

Despite the light dropping, the Sun behind that Moon has not become any gentler. It is exactly as fierce as it was an hour ago. The only thing that has changed is your eyes, which have simply widened to let more light in.

That is why an eclipse is more hazardous than an ordinary sunny afternoon. On a normal day, the brightness itself protects you. You squint, you wince, you look away, your pupils shrink. This evening, like most people you may be staring at the sky, directly feeding your eyes with the unseen rays, naively unaware that even though the sky is dim, the protection it offers is superficial and misleading. It will be more than your eyes are used to even on the sunniest days, and every one of those defenses I mentioned earlier will be quietly switched off while the threat stays exactly the same. More intensity, more risk.

What happens when the light lands

Your lens has one job, and that job is to focus.

So when you look up, your lens gathers that intense light and focuses it onto a very small area at the back of your eye. That area is your retina, and specifically the macula, which is responsible for your detailed central vision. The vision you are using to read this sentence.

The solar energy delivered there causes photochemical injury to the retinal cells and photoreceptors. The light damages those cells at a chemical level, breaking the “machinery” that turns light into signal.

We call it solar retinopathy.

Why should you worry?

Your retina has no pain receptors.

There are no nerve endings in there to tell you something is going wrong. So while the damage is happening, you feel nothing at all.

There is no sensor to make you go “ouch” and look away. No moment where your body steps in and overrules you. People often say it felt completely fine at the time, and then hours later, or the next morning, something is off.

And by then the damage is already done. There is no window in which you get to change your mind.

What people notice afterwards

Blurred central vision. Distorted vision, where straight lines look bent or wavy. Altered colour vision. A dark or blank spot sitting right in the middle of whatever they look at.

Some people do recover significantly over the following weeks or months. Some do not. Retinal damage can be permanent, and there is no specific treatment that simply reverses it. Steroids have been tried, without established benefit.

This is not a health condition you take a tablet or two for. That is why prevention is the only real cure here.

Now, about your sunglasses

They are designed to reduce glare. Their whole purpose is to make bright light comfortable enough to function in.

But comfort does not equal protection, and this is exactly where the two come apart.

By taking away the discomfort, sunglasses make it feel bearable to keep looking, while harmful solar radiation carries on reaching your retina. They give you a false sense of safety. In that sense they are worse than nothing at all, because nothing at least makes you flinch and take care.

Two pairs will not fix that. Neither will three. Neither will a tinted window, a phone screen, a smoked glass, an old film negative, or peering between your fingers. Also, I must include here that using a bowl of water too, while widely practiced, isn’t entirely protective cos the reflection can also hurt your eyes.

Every one of those change how it feels, however none of them stops the rays reaching your retina.

The fake glasses problem

This one is urgent, because demand is high today and counterfeits are circulating.

The standard you want is ISO 12312-2. The difficulty is that counterfeiters simply print that marking on the frame, so the marking on its own proves nothing.

So do this instead. Buy from a reputable astronomy retailer or a recognised supplier, not a random marketplace listing or someone selling on the street. Then test them indoors before you go anywhere near the Sun. Put them on in a normally lit room. Through genuine eclipse glasses you should see essentially nothing. If you can make out objects with any clarity, they are not eclipse glasses and they will not protect you.

Then check the surface. Scratches, pinholes, tears. A damaged filter is no filter, however good it was when you bought it.

Is there a safe second tonight?

No, there is none in the UK.

Inside a path of totality, there is a brief window when the Sun is fully covered and it is genuinely safe to look unaided. However, that is not the case for this eclipse.

We, in the UK are outside that path. Nowhere in the UK reaches totality, which means the Sun is never fully covered here. Even at 96%, that remaining sliver is still the Sun, still at full strength, still being focused onto your macula and putting it at risk.

So please, keep the glasses on from start to finish.

So how do you safely watch it

1. Certified glasses, from a reputable source, tested indoors, undamaged, worn the whole time.

2. Watch it indirectly, which is free and completely safe. Pinhole projection onto a piece of card works beautifully. So does a kitchen colander, which will throw dozens of tiny crescents onto the pavement. Keep your back to the Sun and you look at the projection, never at the source.

3. Watch a live stream. The Royal Observatory Greenwich is broadcasting free on YouTube and Facebook from just after 6pm.

One absolute rule regardless of what you have on your face: never look at the Sun through a phone camera, binoculars or a telescope, even with eclipse glasses on. Those media concentrate light, and will burn straight through the filter and into your eye. Optical equipment needs its own solar filter fitted at the front.

The times

In London the partial eclipse runs from 6:17pm to 8:06pm and peaks around 7:13pm, with roughly 91% coverage. It shifts by a few minutes wherever you are, and coverage climbs as you head south west, reaching about 95% in Cornwall. The Sun will be low in the western sky, so you want a clear western horizon.

One last thing

I write a lot about the ways health information fails people, and this one has a particular shape to it.

Almost everything else your body does badly, it tells you about. Pain is information. It’s your body’s alarm or warning system. It’s your body’s way of conversing with you.

The retina however is one of the very few places where that conversation never happens. The damage happens silently, and you don’t find out until much later.

So tonight, the best protection you and your loved ones can have, is not a feeling, it is this knowledge, in advance.

By all means, go and watch it. It is the best one we have had in 27 years and most of us will not see another. Just ensure you are intentional about protecting yourself. And wait… do I need to remind you to use a sunscreen? side eye.

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“What? How? Is that not an STI? But I’ve never had sex.” She weeps

A woman books her first antenatal appointment. Routine screening. Her hepatitis B result comes back positive.

The focus is not first how do we protect this baby?

It is who gave it to you?

That question while medically relevant– yes, identifying the source is important for contact tracing, prevention and relapse mitigation– it is socially devastating. The foundation is its strong link to the tag “sexually transmitted”, a blanket naming that rarely reflects all the nuances and contexts of infections. We in doing so, indirectly taught an entire population that a positive result is akin to a confession.

It is not. Let me show you why.

What “sexually transmitted” actually means

The label describes the most efficient route of transmission for a group of infections. It does not describe the only one.

We do this elsewhere without confusion. “Food poisoning” doesn’t mean food is the only way to encounter salmonella. “Airborne” doesn’t mean a virus can’t also survive on a surface. But with sexual health, the label collapsed into a moral category, and once infection returns positive , people stop asking sensible clinical questions about it.

So here are the routes. Five of them, and only one makes the news.

Route 1: Skin-to-skin contact

Several of the most common infections in this group don’t require penetration, ejaculation, or fluid exchange at all. They require contact between skin or mucous membrane.

HPV is the clearest example. Human Papilloma Virus. The commonest STI to exist yet. It has low and high risk strains. Low risk causes genital warts. The high risks are responsible for severe diseases like cancers: Throat, anal, penile, vulvovaginal, cervical. It transmits through genital skin contact. Condoms lower the risk substantially, but they cover a limited area, and HPV lives on the skin the condom doesn’t reach. This is not an argument against condoms, it is an argument for adding vaccination and routine screening to your prevention strategy rather than relying on barriers alone.

Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV) transmits the same way, and adds a complication: viral shedding happens without visible sores. This simply means that it can reactivate and replicate on the surface of the skin or mucous membranes. During this time, the virus can be transmitted through direct skin-to-skin contact (including kissing), even if there are no visible blisters, sores, or symptoms present. A person with no symptoms, no blister, and no idea they carry it, can still transmit it. This is why so many people are certain their partner must have been unfaithful, but that’s not always the case. They might just be silent carriers.

Syphilis transmits through direct contact with a chancre, the painless ulcer (sore) of primary infection. If that ulcer is on the mouth, kissing transmits it.

Mpox (deserves an honorary mention). It spreads through close, prolonged skin contact, and also through contaminated bedding and clothing. Nigeria has had ongoing transmission since the virus re-emerged in 2017, and recent Nigerian research found evidence of past mpox exposure in healthy adults with no recorded illness, meaning it has been circulating more quietly and more widely than case counts suggest.

Extras: Pubic lice, scabies, and molluscum contagiosum, not necessarily STIs but can be transmitted via that route too. All of them move through close contact and, for some, shared bedding, towels and surfaces.

Route 2: Mother to child

This is the route that in my opinion, is not emphasized enough. One that should end the blame conversation permanently, especially in Nigeria.

Hepatitis B. Nigeria carries the largest hepatitis B burden in Africa. And in Nigeria, as across the region, a large share of chronic infection is acquired at birth or in early childhood — not through sex. An infant who acquires hepatitis B has a far higher chance of developing lifelong chronic infection than an adult who acquires it, which is precisely why the timing of prevention matters so much. Another reason why early antenatal care is important and encouraged.

Nigeria has recommended a hepatitis B birth dose since 2004, a vaccine given within 24 hours of delivery. It works. Evidence shows the birth dose dramatically reduces mother-to-child transmission, and combining it with hepatitis B immunoglobulin for babies born to infected mothers reduces it further still.

HIV transmits during pregnancy, delivery, and breastfeeding. About breastfeeding, thanks to antiretroviral therapy, this transmission route has been made overwhelmingly preventable where treatment is accessible, and in many cases,, exclusive breastfeeding is encouraged.

Syphilis crosses the placenta. Congenital syphilis causes stillbirth, prematurity, bone and neurological damage. It is entirely preventable with a single test and treatment during antenatal care.

Herpes transmitted during delivery causes neonatal herpes, which is rare and serious.

Chlamydia and gonorrhoea transmitted during delivery cause infant conjunctivitis — a leading preventable cause of childhood blindness historically, and the reason for eye prophylaxis at birth.

Every infection in this list is detectable through antenatal screening. Which makes the strength of a country’s antenatal screening programme a direct determinant of how many children are born with preventable disease. Dear policymakers, take note.

Route 3: Blood and shared instruments

Hepatitis B, hepatitis C, and HIV are bloodborne. Contrary to popular belief, Hepatitis B is the most transmissible of the three by this route by a wide margin, and it survives outside the body far longer than most people assume.

Common sources of infection:

• Unsterile injections and reused needles

• Unscreened or poorly screened blood transfusions

• Tattoo and piercing equipment

• Traditional scarification and “circumcision” performed with reused blades

• Barber clippers

• Manicure and pedicure instruments

• Shared razors and, less commonly, shared toothbrushes (bruised gums and oral ores)

The barbershop and the nail salon deserve a special highligh, because they are the most normalised risk on this list. If clippers or cuticle tools break skin and are not properly sterilised between clients, that is a plausible transmission route for hepatitis B. Question is, do you have your own clipper or cuticle set? Can you verify and vouch for the sterilization process of your hair salon.

It’s also worth mentioning that Hepatitis C is primarily bloodborne, and sexual transmission is relatively inefficient.

Route 4: Oral and anal sex

Yes, these are forms of intercourse, and they can transmit infection.

Gonorrhoea and chlamydia: The most commonly diagnosed bacterial STIs in Nigeria. They infect the throat and the rectum. These infections are frequently completely silent: no discharge, no pain, no sore throat. And they are frequently missed, because if the only sample taken is a vaginal or urethral swab, a throat or rectal infection will not appear. A negative test at one site is not a negative test at all sites. So symptom or not, all sites must be swabbed to be rest assured.

Herpes moves between mouth and genitals in both directions. Meaning, a cold sore in the mouth during oral sex can produce genital herpes. Also, those cold sores are not malaria, get it checked out. This is why you should be careful who you kiss and who kisses you, however platonically. Especially, your babies.

HPV transmits to the oral cavity and is linked to a rising incidence of throat cancers.

Syphilis in addition to genitals, transmits through oral contact, as highlighted earlier.

Also note that: Shared sex toys used without cleaning or a fresh barrier between partners transmit several of these.

If you have had oral or anal sex and have only ever been tested at one site, you have not had a complete screen. Ask for extragenital testing.

Route 5: Childhood and household contact

Most people carrying HSV-1 (Herpes Simplex Virus-1), acquired it in childhood, long before any sexual contact, through kissing from relatives, shared cups, shared utensils. It is so common that in many populations the majority of adults carry it. Later in life, that same virus can cause genital herpes through oral sex, which produces the confusing scenario of a “new” infection from a decades-old exposure. In simple terms HSV one acquired years ago, can reactivate and infect a partner in the future.

Hepatitis B also spreads horizontally between young children through everyday close contact involving minor cuts, scratches, and open skin.

Molluscum contagiosum in children typically spreads through skin contact and shared towels.

What this is not

Correcting a myth is not licence to adopt a worse one.

You are not catching gonorrhoea from a toilet seat. You are not catching HIV from a swimming pool, a handshake, a mosquito, or shared cutlery. These organisms do not survive the journey, and an intact skin is a genuine barrier.

Why this matters

1. Testing is not a proof of character. “I’ve never had penetrative sex” is not a substitute for a hepatitis B result. Get tested. If you have never been screened, you do not know your status. That is true regardless of your history.

2. A positive result is not proof of infidelity. For hepatitis B especially, the most likely explanation in Nigeria is transmission at birth or in early childhood. For herpes and HPV, transmission from an asymptomatic partner years earlier is entirely ordinary. This is also why early screening is encouraged with every new partner.

3. Vaccination is the part people are skipping. Two of the biggest infections here are vaccine-preventable, and both vaccines exist in Nigeria:

• HPV entered Nigeria’s routine immunisation schedule in October 2023 as a single dose for girls aged 9–14, rolled out in two phases covering the whole country. If you have a daughter in that age band, this is free and available.

• Hepatitis B has a birth dose recommended within 24 hours of delivery, followed by the doses in the routine schedule. Adults who were never vaccinated can still be vaccinated, ask at your primary health facility.

4. Antenatal screening is the highest-yield intervention on this entire list. Hepatitis B, HIV, and syphilis screening in pregnancy prevents infections in babies who have no other protection. Where that screening is patchy, children are born with preventable disease. Always enquire about this.

🩺 When to see a doctor

Book a test if:

• You are pregnant or planning a pregnancy and have not been screened for hepatitis B, HIV, and syphilis

• You have never had a hepatitis B test; regardless of sexual history

• You have had oral or anal sex and have only ever been swabbed at one site

• You have any new genital sore, ulcer, unusual discharge, or rash

• You share razors, clippers, or use salons where you cannot verify sterilisation

• You have had a transfusion, tattoo, piercing, or injection where sterility was uncertain

• Your partner has tested positive for anything on this list. And yes, partner testing and treatment is essential to prevent relapses.

Seek care the same day for severe pelvic or abdominal pain, fever with genital symptoms, painful genital ulcers with difficulty passing urine, or any genital symptom during pregnancy.

Sources :

• Nigeria HPV vaccine introduction, routine immunisation, October 2023, phased rollout — NPHCDA / Gavi / Frontiers in Public Health (2026)

• Hepatitis B burden in Nigeria and birth-dose coverage — Pan African Medical Journal, Healthy Beginning Initiative, Benue State cohort (2024)

• Hepatitis B birth dose policy since 2004; birth dose impact on mother-to-child transmission — Gavi VaccinesWork (2025)

• Mpox in Nigeria, ongoing transmission since 2017 and occult exposure findings — Nature Communications / University of Cambridge (January 2026)

• WHO guidance on prevention of mother-to-child transmission of hepatitis B (2020)

“Chi, I can’t wait to stop bleeding every month. I envy women who have stopped menstruating”.

A friend said that to me a while ago, and oh well, I understood the origin of her frustration. However, I was quick to remind her that it wasn’t rosy on the other side either. And in fact most women walk into menopause not knowing what to expect. Many do not. even understand when, how and why it happens.

“I can’t explain how I feel. I feel so hot. It’s like i’m having a heat stroke. Body aches, bone pain. It feels like something is traveling from my head to my toe. I can sleep well at night. I sweat so much. My chest hurts. My vagina is dry. My vulva is shrinking. Sex is so painful. My brain is foggy”

Nobody prepares a woman for what her body goes through during menopause and we are fixing that. Last time I wrote about the ten tests worth your money before menopause. This is the other half, the half that gets neglected more. So much so that many doctors and nurses were not sufficiently taught about menopause in medical school.

One of the significant things that happens during menopause is the drop in oestrogen. Yes, every thing that characterises menopause is because, that one hormone that had always been a girl’s girl’s simply packed it’s bag and left. Ghosted. And this drop comes with consequences, grievous enough to affect women’s quality of life. It ranges from increased infections, cervical disease, and moves towards her heart, her blood vessels, her bones and her bladder.

That’s why, in addition to the list shared earlier, their screening list must be adapted to capture the intricacies of menopause.

I have watched women drop out of the health system entirely at 52, having decided that whatever the clinic was for, it was for the reproductive years, and those are over. It is one of the most expensive assumptions in women’s health.

1. Blood pressure, Lipids and a cardiovascular risk score

When: Blood pressure every year, no exceptions. Twice a year, or with home monitoring, if it has ever been raised. Lipids every three to five years, yearly if you're on treatment or have diabetes.

Why it earns its place:

Three vital reasons.

1. Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in women. Not breast cancer, not any gynaecological cancer, not childbirth. Heart conditions and attacks. shocker? The American Heart Association puts it at roughly one in three deaths among women. Cardiovascular disease now accounts for roughly one in ten deaths in Nigeria, with ischaemic heart disease and stroke sitting among the top contributors to mortality.

   About sudden cardiac arrest, Here’s why we should all be concerned:

   When a woman’s heart stops beating outside a hospital, her chances are worse than a man. The reasons may shock you. Firstly, her cardiac arrest is less likely to be witnessed, because it often happens at home, unsupervised. Secondly, even though a defribillator can fix her rhythm, she is roughly half as likely to have a shockable rhythm by the time help arrives.

   There is also a body of work showing women receive bystander CPR less often in public, and the reasons given by researchers are not disappointing but not shocking. Rescuers hesitate over touching a woman’s chest. They fear being accused of assault.

   Let that sink.

   Women are dying on pavements because strangers are worried about how it looks. Quite ironic, given that when it’s most required in the larger society, such thoughtfulness is seldomly exercised about women’s boundaries and safety.

   Well, it is what it is, but let’s focus on what we can actually fix this week. Your blood pressure (and cholesterol as you’ll see later), two of the very few things standing between you and that scenario, and both are silent killers.

2. It is the cheapest test on this entire list and it prevents the most catastrophe. High blood pressure rarely shows symptoms at all until it takes a kidney, an eye, or a pregnancy.

3. Whatever protection oestrogen was giving your blood vessels, it stops here. Blood pressure climbs sharply through and after the menopause transition. It is the single biggest driver of stroke, and it is one of the most treatable things in all of medicine. Which is what makes leaving it undetected so painful. Cholesterol shifts unfavourably at the same time.

What to ask for: Ask for an overall cardiovascular risk estimate that combines your blood pressure, cholesterol, smoking status, age and diabetes status, and then ask what would move it.

Note: One high reading is not a diagnosis. Ask for a repeat on a different day, or better still, invest in a BP machine and take home readings over a week, before anybody starts you on tablets.

It’s not enough to say “it’s not my portion”, or it’s for old people. Hypertension is common in Nigerian adults and a large share of people carrying it have simply never been screened.

2. HbA1c

When: Every one to three years. Yearly if you have ever been told you were prediabetic, or if you had gestational diabetes decades ago.

Why: Diabetes risk rises after menopause.

If you had diabetes in pregnancy: It does not matter that it was twenty-five years ago. That history carries a substantially raised lifetime risk of type 2 diabetes. Bring it up yourself, because the clinic will not know unless you share that history.

3. Mammogram

When: Every two years from 40 through 74. Past 74, still keep having the conversation at every hospital appointment and report any uncomfortable symptoms.

Why: Most breast cancers are diagnosed after menopause. Don’t stop screening because your periods stopped.

Breast cancer is the commonest cancer in Nigerian women, and it tends to present younger and also at a later stage here than in caucasian populations.

And a normal mammogram does not override a lump you can feel. Cancers do appear between scheduled scans. If something has changed, say so, regardless of when you were last screened.

4. Cervical screening

When: Continue to age 65. Please ensure that your last screening was closer or at age 65, and it was clear before you can exit the screening system.

Why: HPV acquired decades ago can persist or reactivate, and a meaningful proportion of cervical cancer is diagnosed in women over 65 who stopped screening too early.

After hysterectomy: It depends entirely on what was removed and why. If your cervix was left in place, you keep screening. If it was removed for a non-cancerous reason such as fibroids, you usually stop. If there was any pre-cancer involved, please do not stop. If in doubt, ask for your operation note to know the details of your procedure.

5. Bone density scan (DEXA)

When: From 65 for all women. Earlier if you had early or surgical menopause, a low body weight, long-term steroids, a parent who fractured a hip, heavy smoking or drinking, or a fracture from a fall that shouldn’t have broken anything.

Why: You lose bone fastest in the first years after your final period. The usual first sign of osteoporosis is a broken bone, and a hip fracture in an older woman is a life-altering event. The loss of independence that follows is very often permanent.

The access problem: DEXA is not widely available across much of Nigeria and West Africa, and where it exists it is expensive. If you cannot get one, ask your doctor about a fracture risk assessment, using your history. It is not as good, but it is far better than nothing.

6. Vitamin D

I wrote about vitamin D at length in the pre-menopause post, including what it does and does not do for mood and for PMOS. This one is closely linked to number 5.

When: Around the time of your DEXA, or sooner if you have risk factors. Some risk factors include, very dark skin combined with limited sun exposure, mostly indoor living, fully covering clothing, a larger body, malabsorption conditions, long-term steroids, or a previous fracture from a minor fall. Repeat only if it was low and you are being treated for it.

Why: Vitamin D is what allows your gut to absorb calcium. Without enough of it, the calcium in your food largely passes straight through you and ends up a waste. Your body then resorts to taking what it needs from your bones instead.

At a point in life when you are already losing bone faster than at any other stage, and that is bad news.

It also matters for muscle. Deficiency is associated with muscle weakness and poorer balance, and in older women falls are the event that turns thin bones into a broken hip.

Warning: Vitamin D on its own is not a fracture prevention programme. Large trials giving supplements to adults who were already reasonably replete did not show meaningful fracture reduction.

What it does is correct a deficiency that would otherwise undermine everything else you are doing. So the sequence matters. Check the level. Correct it if it is low. Then do the things that genuinely build and hold bone, which are weight-bearing exercise, resistance training, enough protein, enough calcium, and treatment if your DEXA warrants it.

One thing specific to us: More melanin means less vitamin D produced per minute of sun exposure, and skin synthesises it less efficiently with age anyway. A Nigerian woman of sixty who works indoors and covers up is not automatically topped up by living in a sunny country. That’s a common but costly assumption.

On doses: I can’t put numbers on a public post. I’ll advise you get the level, then get the correct dosing from a doctor who has seen it, especially if you are also taking calcium.

7. Bowel cancer screening

When: From 45. Either a stool FIT test every year, or a colonoscopy every ten years.

Why: Bowel cancer is rising in women (alarmingly in younger peopletoo), it is highly curable when caught early, and colonoscopy can remove the polyps before they ever become cancer. That makes it prevention, not just detection.

The catch: The stool test is cheap, done at home, and skipped more than almost any other screening test, because people find it undignified. Please, close your eyes and do it.

8. Kidney function: creatinine and urine ACR

When: Yearly if you have high blood pressure or diabetes. Otherwise every few years.

Why: Kidney damage is silent until a large proportion of function is already gone. The urine albumin-to-creatinine ratio picks it up years earlier than a blood test alone, and it is routinely left off the request form.

What to say: “Could I have a urine ACR as well as the creatinine?” If you have hypertension or diabetes it should never be optional.

9. Thyroid function (TSH)

When: If you have any of the symptoms below. Also, if you can afford to, get a baseline test ( an initial test to check your levels without the presence of symptoms).

Why: Fatigue, weight change, brain fog, low mood, feeling cold, hair thinning. Every one of those gets attributed to menopause. Sometimes it’s a thyroid instead, and that is a medication away from resolved. This potential overlap is the entire reason to check once rather than assume. A woman can spend five years being told she is just menopausal while carrying a treatable condition.

10. A genitourinary assessment, and a conversation about vaginal oestrogen

This is the one almost nobody gets offered, and it is the reason I wanted this post to exist separately from the last one. I want you to e an evangelist of this gospel.

When: Ask at your first postmenopausal check, and any time you have urinary or vaginal symptoms.

What we are actually talking about: After menopause, oestrogen falls. This usually leads to the thinning and drying of the tissue of the vulva, vagina, urethra and bladder. It also shifts the vaginal microbiome away from the lactobacilli that keep it protected. This whole cluster of symptoms has a name now: Genitourinary Syndrome of Menopause, or GSM.

It shows up as vaginal dryness, burning or itching, painful sex, urinary urgency and frequency, and recurrent urinary tract infections.

Why recurrent UTIs deserve your full attention: A meaningful proportion of postmenopausal women get repeat urinary tract infections, and recurrence rates after a first infection are high. That’s why you or your mothers may have been battling recurrent infections. In older women, recurrent UTIs drive antibiotic resistance, hospital admissions, sepsis and death.

What the evidence says about vaginal oestrogen: Low-dose oestrogen applied vaginally as a cream, pessary or ring is the most effective treatment we have for GSM. Cochrane review evidence shows vaginal oestrogen reduces recurrent urinary tract infections compared to placebo. It works locally, with minimal absorption into the bloodstream.

What changed?: For years these products carried the same boxed warning as systemic hormone therapy, listing heart disease, breast cancer and dementia. That warning came from a study of systemic hormones, not local ones, and it terrified two generations of women and their doctors out of a safe, effective treatment.

In 2025 the US FDA convened an expert panel which unanimously recommended removing it, and the labelling has since been changed.

you know what this means? Women have spent years on repeated antibiotics, or in pain during sex, or simply enduring, because of a warning label that did not apply to the medicine in the tube.

What to say: “I have urinary and vaginal symptoms since menopause. Can we talk about local vaginal oestrogen? I know the boxed warning has been removed.”

If you’ve had breast cancer: This needs an individual conversation with your oncologist rather than a blanket answer either way. Do not let anyone give you a flat no without discussing it, and do not assume a yes.

Bonus: A mental health screening.

I brought this here again from the previous post, because it’s worth reiterating. If available in your country of residence, ask for PHQ-9 and GAD-7. They are screening questionnaires and is covered by insurance. It takes about four minutes, and depression and anxiety are roughly twice as common in women. Perinatal mental illness is one of the most under-detected conditions in maternity care anywhere in the world.

Nobody will offer it to you unless you ask. Which is exactly the argument for asking.

Worth Highlighting

Bleeding after menopause is not trivial. Treat as urgent.

If you have not had a period for twelve months and then you bleed, even once, even a single spot, even only after sex, that is not your cycle returning and it is not stress. It needs assessment, usually a scan and often a sample of the womb lining, as soon as possible.

Most causes turn out not to be cancer. Thinning of the womb lining after menopause is a very common and very treatable explanation. But postmenopausal bleeding is also how womb (uterine) or cervical cancer announces itself, and these when caught early are highly survivable.

The delay is what kills. And the delay is almost always because somebody decided not to make a fuss.

So by all means Mama, make a fuss.

Were you ever offered vaginal oestrogen? Or told the risks without being told the warning had been withdrawn? Tell me in the comments, because I suspect I already know the answer.

Send this to the older women in your life, and that lady who is gradually approaching menopause, so she can arm her self with knowledge.

Medically Speaking with Dr. Zobo is a mythbusting health education platform making sexual, reproductive and women’s health accessible, with a Nigerian and Subsaharan African lens, because access is not the same everywhere.

This post is health education, not a diagnosis or a treatment plan. Screening intervals differ between countries and health systems, and your own history may change what is right for you. Take this list to a doctor who can examine you and look at your actual results.

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It is always said with love. That’s the part that makes it hard.

Nobody, to the best of my knowledge, offers a newborn water out of malice. The reverse is the case. It comes wrapped in care, usually from a woman who has raised children, grandchildren maybe, and fought battles she has yet to speak out loud. Give am small water. Throat go dry. The baby has been crying. The room is hot. Mind you, baby is most likely wrapped in layers of swaddle clothing. The weather is degrees high. Somebody has to do something, and well.. water feels like doing something. Especially in Nigeria.

Mama, Grandma, let me hold your hands gently while I say this. Your baby does not need it. Your newborn, your infant, does not need that extra water. Not in Harmattan. Not in the scorching sun. Definitely not advised anytime below 6 months old. I know what you’ve been told, I know how long it’s been practiced but believe me when I tell you that the small water we keep offering out of love is doing more harm than almost anything else we hand a newborn.

I’ll know well because not only am I a medical doctor with special interest in reproductive health, I am also a mother of two. A boy and a girl. Breastfed and received no water until 6 months. Why was it important to mention their sexes? Because, people will go the extra mile to convince you with every ammunition in their arsenal, including the fact that one gender has different feeding requirements to the other. Take it from one who equally fought an “army”. The fact is, just like every pregnancy, every baby differs, and their feeding patterns will differ too. Some feed more frequently, some are more fussy, some are colicky, others are the opposite. All these are valid, but no reasons why you should compromise on the quality of your breastfeeding.

While our grandmas mean well, they are most times custodians of harmful postpartum practices, of which water supplementation and force feeding fall under. They do not know better, and hopefully this piece will give you better insight into why you must resist this practice, firmly but gently. If you can, share this information with them, so they can learn, pass it on to their peers and possibly do better with their future grandchildren.

Let’s start with some biology

Breast milk is already about 87% water.

Yes. You are not feeding your baby a dry meal. Every feed is food and drink in the same package.

The milk at the start of a feed is thinner and more watery. As the breast drains, the fat content climbs steadily, so the milk at the end is the rich, filling part. This is one continuous gradient, not two separate milks, which is why the old advice to watch the clock does more harm than good. It creates anxiety when baby’s feeding doesn’t match the deadline.

Mothers are encouraged to feed baby at least every 2 hours, but also follow your baby’s feeding prompts, not just a timer. Feed as frequently as baby requires. Every baby is different.

“But the weather is hot”

Hot or cold, it doesn’t matter.

Studies in hot, dry climates found exclusively breastfed babies stayed properly hydrated on breast milk alone. Harmattan, or Sokoto sun. Still no water for baby.

The only person who needs a drink here is you, mama. The goal is to stay hydrated. And while we are here, let me clear a second myth that usually accompanies this one: forcing extra litres will not increase your supply. By all means, drink water, juices, soups, stews, eat porridges, lactation inducing foods. But importantly, drink to your thirst. That is enough. Don’t go beyond your limit.

If baby seems hungry or thirsty, the answer is the same: breast milk. They are not adults. They are built for this.

What the water actually does

A newborn’s stomach is about the size of a small egg.

Sit with that for a second.

Whatever water goes in takes the place of milk. Water has no calories, no protein, no antibodies.

So every time you give baby water, you have filled the baby but fed the baby nothing. They are satisfied, they stop crying, but they are undernourished. That is the fastest road to malnutrition, and in babies that is a death warrant.

I know that is not your goal, mama.

The feedback mechanism people rarely connect

This is how “my milk dried up” begins.

Breastfeeding supply is sustained through a biological mechanism. The more frequently you feed or pump, the more your brain is conditioned to supply milk. Fewer feeds means less stimulation. Less stimulation means less milk.

So that water you give does not just replace one feed. It quietly reduces your supply.

And two months later we are sitting with a woman saying “my breast milk just dried up,” as though it were weather, nature, or magic. It didn’t happen suddenly mama, it’s simply the law of diminishing returns. Demand and supply. It was set in motion, feed by feed, or more accurately, less feed by less feed. In some cases, despite doing everything right, supply could still stop, in this case, lease see your doctor or lactation specialist.

The under-reported risk

Newborn kidneys cannot handle plain water.

Too much dilutes the sodium in the baby’s blood. It shows up as lethargy, low body temperature, irritability, and in severe cases, seizures.

It has a name. Water intoxication. It is not common, but it is not rare enough for comfort either, and it is almost entirely preventable.

And the water itself?

We hand babies the very thing we are protecting them from.

Anything other than breast milk in the early days raises the risk of diarrhoea, and plain water is the most common one given in Nigeria, and much of West Africa. Glucose water, gripe water and agbo all count.

Your adult immune system may be built to handle this. Your baby’s is still very weak, and it stands little chance against the bacteria these liquids may carry.

We spend so much energy on diarrhoeal disease. Oral rehydration, sanitation campaigns, immunisation drives. And then, in the first fortnight of life, we hand the child a cup of the exact thing. Do you know how many under-5 children we lose to daily to diarrhoea in Nigeria alone? ~101 children. Yearly? ~ 36,800-150,000, in a sea of nearly 300 million annual cases. From rota virus and other germs linked to unsafe drinking water. You know what’s been found to be protective? Breastfeeding. Only about 6% of breastfed babies under 6 months are affected and that number jumps to about >16% from 7 months when water and other foods are introduced. Source

And if you formula feed

Formula-fed babies don’t need extra water either.

The water is already in the correctly mixed feed. Adding more, or over-diluting to stretch a tin, is dangerous. Read the label, follow the scoop ratio exactly, and use properly boiled and cooled water.

I want to be clear that this is not a post about formula versus breast. A correctly fed baby is the goal. Stretching a tin to last longer, is a decision made under financial pressure, not ignorance, and the answer to it is support, not shame.

“Our mothers did it and we turned out fine”

I am glad you turned out fine. Millions did not.

The babies who did not survive are not here to trade words. You are only hearing from the ones who made it. And that my dear, is not evidence. It is simply a missing witness list.

Nobody is posting “my mother gave me water at three weeks and I transitioned to the great beyond.” That absence gives us a pseudo proof of safety. Now, hopefully you know better.

And our mothers, they did bury babies. We simply called it something else. The endless diarrhoea (afo osisa). The child who did not come to stay (ogbanje). The harm was always there, sitting in plain view, and we had no name for it, so we christened it spiritual… mysterious.

Exceptions do not make rules

You survived a risk. You did not disprove it.

Somebody’s grandfather smoked till ninety. Someone’s grandma pushed a 5kg baby out of her vagina and went to the farm the following day. People walked out of crashes without seatbelts.

These are exceptions. They will always exist, but they are far too few to make the rules. Risk is a probability, not a promise, and you do not get to test it on a newborn. That is cruelty.

So how do you know the baby is fine?

Six to eight wet nappies in 24 hours. Pale urine, not deep amber. Steady weight gain. An alert, responsive baby.

Not merely a dry-looking mouth. Not grandma’s worry or the hot weather.

Water starts at six months, in small sips, alongside food, alongside continued breastfeeding into the second year and beyond. Before that, you are the tap and the plate. You are the whole snack, mama. Also, rely on your instincts, they are hardly wrong.

One last thing, and it is not for the mothers

This year’s World Breastfeeding Week theme is Breastfeeding for a Sustainable Start in Life: Strengthen What Works. Not invent something new. Strengthen what already works.

Here is what we know about Nigeria. Over 90% of mothers breastfeed. Only around 29% manage exclusive breastfeeding for six months, and only about 36% put the baby to the breast within that critical first hour. According to UNICEF, just 12 of our 37 states offer six months of paid maternity leave.

These numbers tell a clear story. The willingness is there. The support is not.

You cannot exclusively breastfeed for six months on three months of leave. I attempted it and I struggled. My health physical and mental took a hit. You cannot express milk in a market stall, or in a staff room with no lock and possibly no fridge. You cannot latch well if nobody in that hospital had ten minutes to show you how. And then, when it falls apart, we tell her she did not try hard enough, and she carries the guilt for a policy failure.

So yes, I will keep saying no to the “small water”. But I am not only talking to the mothers and the grandmothers. I am talking to the ministries, the employers, the hospital administrators who think a lactation room is a luxury.

Strengthen what works. We already know what works. We have simply never funded it.

If this was useful, send it to whoever needs to see it. Mothers, Fathers, Grandmas, Aunties, Healthcare workers, Employers, Policy makers. Because contrary to what we believe, a successful breastfeeding journey is one not walked alone, it takes a willing, supportive and proactive village.

Dr Chioma Nwakanma-Akanno writes on sexual, reproductive and maternal health.

Nothing here replaces care from your own doctor or midwife. Follow her on all socials @DrZobo.

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I know how we love to spend today. Self care, brunches, selfies, long soaks, chocolates and flowers. I’m taking nothing off your list. Just adding to it. Yes, cos self care includes prioritizing your health. And you know what’s even better? Doing it with your girlfriends. So, don’t just note this for yourself, send it to the group chat, turn into a challenge, a commitment. Cos girls that screen together, live healthy enough to slay together. Going beyond the surface to ensure they are as good within as they are outside, that is true friendship.

I’ll tell you why I thought to do this. My personal and professional experience has taught me that women are extraordinary at organising care for everyone else, but themselves. The children’s immunisations. Hubby’s blood pressure tablets. Mother’s clinic appointment. Then they finally arrive in front of the doctor, years late with something that was screenable the entire time.

So here I am utilizing one of the underestimated forces of all time… girlfriend groups, to break the cycle. Share this, and book that appointment together.

First, know what a screening test is

A screening test is done on somebody who feels completely well. That’s the whole point of it. Very unAfrican, I know. We don’t look for what’s not missing. Well, we now better now, “Ignorance isn’t always bliss”, especially in health. So, we are breaking the generational trauma.

If you already have symptoms, that’s not a screening, it’s an clinical investigation. We want to normalise early detection, because not only does it improve your outcomes and quality of life. It is also cost-effective. Yes, prevention is cheaper than cure. Honestly, you don’t require so many tests, if you are without symptoms. Some tests can screen for multiple conditions. So unless requested by your Doctor, here are some tests I genuinely believe are worth every penny and I’ll tell you why.

Three questions before you pay for any test:

1. If this comes back abnormal, what happens next, and is that next step actually available to me? Any test with no follow-up isn’t screening, it’s an express ticket to anxiety.

2. If it comes back normal, does anything I do change? If nothing changes either way, you bought reassurance. A normal screening result of today can change in the future if certain prevention guidelines are breached.

3. Is this recommended for someone with my age and my history, or is this a generic list?. Important because, there are time and age-sensitive tests, which will be a waste or a risk if recommended untimely.

Note that while this seems tailore to my premenopausal girlies, it still applies to every woman. Next, I will be writing my love letter to our ladies approaching or in menopause. Subscribe for it.

Right. Let’s get into it.

10 tests Worth Your Time and Money Before Menopause

1. Blood pressure

When: Every one to two years from 18. Yearly from 40, and yearly if you’re on the combined pill or you’ve ever had raised blood pressure in pregnancy.

Why: Two vital reasons.

1. Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in women. Not breast cancer, not any gynaecological cancer, not childbirth. Heart conditions and attacks. shocker? The American Heart Association puts it at roughly one in three deaths among women. Cardiovascular disease now accounts for roughly one in ten deaths in Nigeria, with ischaemic heart disease and stroke sitting among the top contributors to mortality.

   About sudden cardiac arrest, Here’s why we should all be concerned:

   When a woman’s heart stops beating outside a hospital, her chances are worse than a man. The reasons may shock you. Firstly, her cardiac arrest is less likely to be witnessed, because it often happens at home, unsupervised. Secondly, even though a defribillator can fix her rhythm, she is roughly half as likely to have a shockable rhythm by the time help arrives.

   There is also a body of work showing women receive bystander CPR less often in public, and the reasons given by researchers are not disappointing but not shocking. Rescuers hesitate over touching a woman’s chest. They fear being accused of assault.

   Let that sink.

   Women are dying on pavements because strangers are worried about how it looks. Quite ironic, given that when it’s most required in the larger society, such thoughtfulness is seldomly exercised about women’s boundaries and safety.

   Well, it is what it is, but let’s focus on what we can actually fix this week. Your blood pressure (and cholesterol as you’ll see later), two of the very few things standing between you and that scenario, and both are silent killers.

2. It is the cheapest test on this entire list and it prevents the most catastrophe. High blood pressure rarely shows symptoms at all until it takes a kidney, an eye, or a pregnancy.

It’s not enough to say “it’s not my portion”, or it’s for old people. Hypertension is common in Nigerian adults and a large share of people carrying it have simply never been screened.

Note: One high reading is not a diagnosis. Ask for a repeat on a different day, or better still, invest in a BP machine and take home readings over a week, before anybody starts you on tablets.

2. Cervical screening (Pap Smear or HPV test)

When: From 25, then every five years if normal. Self-collected swabs are now an accepted option in several guidelines, which matters greatly if (understandably) the speculum is the reason you’ve been avoiding this. So ask your doctor about your options.

Why: Cervical cancer is one of very few cancers we can almost entirely prevent, because we can find and treat it at the pre-cancerous stage.

Nigeria records roughly 13,000 new cases and over 7,000 deaths a year. It is the second commonest cancer in Nigerian women. The overwhelming majority are found only once they are advanced.

If you’re vaccinated: You still need to screen every 5 years. The vaccine covers the highest-risk strains, not all of them. Vaccination is advised for girls from age 9-15. Please parents, don’t joke with this. HPV is the commonest STI known to man. It’s important they are safeguarded before sexual contact in the future. I am vaccinated and I screen.

What to say: “Is HPV testing available here? If not, where is the nearest centre that offers it? And is self-collection an option?”

3. Full blood count and ferritin

When: Every one to two years. Sooner, and specifically ask for ferritin, if your periods are heavy, if you have fibroids, or if you are permanently exhausted.

Why: Ferritin measures your iron stores, it differs from your blood/haemoglobin levels. This is exactly why so many women are told their blood count is “fine” while they are visibly running on nothing. Your blood levels can be normal and you are Iron deficient.

Around ~58% of Nigerian women of reproductive age are anaemic. This is arguably more.

What to say: “Could I have ferritin added, not just the full blood count? And could I have the printed numbers rather than a summary?”

One important thing: Heavy periods that cause anaemia are a reason to investigate the periods. Not just to prescribe iron. Iron alone treats the symptom, not the underlying cause.

4. Fasting glucose or HbA1c

When: From 35 for most women. From 25 if you have PMOS, a larger body, a first-degree relative with diabetes, or you had diabetes in a pregnancy.

Why: Type 2 diabetes runs silently for years, and the damage to nerves, kidneys and eyes begins during that silence. Caught at the prediabetes stage it is frequently reversible. Caught late it is permanent.

If you had diabetes in pregnancy: This is not optional, and it is the most commonly dropped follow-up in all of women’s health. Gestational diabetes carries a substantially raised lifetime risk of type 2 diabetes. You need a test at six to twelve weeks after delivery, then at regular intervals for life. Many women are not told this.

5. Lipid profile

When: A baseline in your twenties, then roughly every four to six years if it’s normal.

Why: Cholesterol is not an old woman’s problem, it’s simply a carried over consequence. Early screening is the cheapest way to pick up inherited high cholesterol, which is far commoner than people assume and very treatable.

6. The full infection panel (STIs)

When: At every new partner, and before any planned pregnancy. HIV, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, syphilis, chlamydia and gonorrhoea, Trichomonasis.

Why: I know we tend to commonly focus on HIV for good reason, however, it’s important to note that, that’s not the only or worst infection a partner can pass on to you. Chlamydia for example is usually completely silent, and it is a leading preventable cause of blocked tubes (a leading cause of infertility). Hepatitis B is vaccine-preventable, treatable, and passable to a baby at birth (which is preventable if it’s known in advance). Syphilis in pregnancy is devastating and entirely curable. It can also cause blindness in children. Reasons 1 million and one, why cheating should be a deal breaker.

Note: Testing is not an accusation, it’s care. Frame it with a partner as something you both do before a pregnancy, in the same category as knowing your genotype. If a man treats a routine test as an insult, sis, That. Is. Information. Too. Also note that if found positive, partner notification, testing and treatment is important. Going back to an untreated partner is as good as no treatment at all.

7. Genotype, blood group and Rhesus status

When: Once in your life. Ideally before you choose a partner, and always before pregnancy. Yes, because human or test errors happen.

Why: Haemoglobin genotype changes reproductive decisions. AS + AS reproduction carries a high risk of sickle cell anaemia for each pregnancy. Additionally, a Rhesus negative status is indicative of the special care you must receive in pregnancy, and after any miscarriage or termination, to protect future pregnancies. That care is a RhoGAM shot: an injection given to pregnant individuals with Rh-negative blood to prevent Rh incompatibility with an Rh-positive baby. It works by stopping the immune system from creating antibodies that could attack the baby's blood cells, thereby safeguarding both the current and future pregnancies

Note: Results from small laboratories are not always reliable, and misreported genotypes have caused real harm in this country. If your result is going to drive a major decision, have it confirmed at a reputable centre.

8. Thyroid function (TSH)

When: When you have symptoms, before a planned pregnancy if you have risk factors, and during fertility or recurrent miscarriage investigation. Not every single year in a well woman.

Why: Thyroid disease is several times commoner in women and it disguises expertly. As low mood. As unexplained weight change (gain or loss). As irregular or heavy periods. As infertility. It is one of the genuinely satisfying diagnoses, because it is so often correctable.

9. Vitamin D, and let’s talk about it properly

Underrated but highly important.

When: Once, if you have risk factors. If you are melaninated (dark skinned), plus limited sun exposure. If you’re mostly working indoors or fully clothed. If you have a larger body, malabsorption conditions, PMOS, pregnant, recurrent miscarriage, persistent bone or muscle aches. Then repeat only if it was low and you’re being treated.

Why: Vitamin D behaves like a hormone. Your body makes it in your skin from sunlight, converts it in the liver and kidney, and then it acts on receptors found in tissues all over the body, including the ovary, the endometrium and the placenta. That is a very different thing from vitamin C.

On hormonal regulation: Because those receptors sit in reproductive tissue, vitamin D is involved in the machinery of ovarian steroid production, follicle development and endometrial receptivity. Deficiency turns up repeatedly in women with irregular cycles, and in fertility clinics. What we cannot yet say confidently is how much of the association is cause.

On mood: Low vitamin D is consistently associated with depression in observational studies. Largely due to its receptor presence in the mood regulatory area of the brain and also its relationship with neurotransmitters like serotonin. So it can cause low moods, muscle and bone pains, dizziness, brain fog etc. This however does not make it an antidepressant. Don’t treat if you have no deficiency. Get help if you observe any symptoms.

10. Breast: know yours first, then image it

When: Know your own normal from your twenties, including how your breasts feel at different points in your cycle. Mammogram from 40, every two years. Earlier and more intensively if you have a strong family history, and that should be assessed properly rather than guessed at.

Why : Breast cancer is the commonest cancer in Nigerian women, and it tends to present younger and later here than in the populations most screening guidelines were built on. That is precisely why family history should be taken seriously instead of waved off.

What to look for: A new lump. Skin dimpling or puckering. A nipple that has newly turned inward. Discharge from one nipple, especially if bloodstained. Persistent skin change or scaling. A lump in the armpit. Any of these means a clinic visit now, not later.

A normal mammogram does not override a lump you can feel. Cancers do appear between scheduled scans, and dense breast tissue makes mammograms harder to read. If something has changed, report it, regardless of when you were last screened.

Two Bonus Tests

An abdominopelvic ultrasound

When: Once as a baseline, reasonably in your late twenties or thirties. Then again whenever symptoms give a reason.

What it is: A scan of your abdomen and pelvis. Usually done over the abdomen with a full bladder, sometimes internally, which gives a much clearer view of the uterus and ovaries.

Why: Fibroids. By fifty, up to eight in ten Black women will develop them. A population-based ultrasound study in Nigerian women found them in around 45%, which is close to one in two. Also Ovarian cysts: many are physiological, and should be left alone. However a routine scan could catch a problematic one before or in the early stages of torsion.

A mental health screening.

If available in your country of residence, ask for PHQ-9 and GAD-7. They are screening questionnaires and is covered by insurance. It akes about four minutes, and depression and anxiety are roughly twice as common in women. Perinatal mental illness is one of the most under-detected conditions in maternity care anywhere in the world.

Nobody will offer it to you unless you ask. Which is exactly the argument for asking.

Why must I ask?

You will have noticed how much of this article is about asking. Ask for ferritin. Ask for HPV testing rather than just a smear. Ask for the actual numbers.

It’s not an editorial choice, it’s just the sad reality of how deplorable our health system is, especially towards women’s health. Preventive health shouldn’t be solicited. It should be available and accessible to all. Yet so much falls on us.

It all hinges on funding and research prioritization. That’s why we must not stop advocating.

It’s also very vital because symptoms like fatigue, heavy bleeding, pain and brain fog are the symptoms most likely to be filed under stress, hormones, spiritual attack or nothing. And so the crisis arises when nothing becomes something, too late.

None of it is your fault and none of it should be your job. But until the systems catch up, knowing which test to ask for by name is the single most effective thing you can carry into a consultation.

So carry it. And give it to your friends.

Pick one test each. Book it this week. Not next year.

Which of these had you never been offered? Comments are open, and I read all of them.

If this was useful, send it to the friend who looks out for everyone but herself. That is genuinely how this changes.

Medically Speaking with Dr. Zobo is a mythbusting health education platform making sexual, reproductive and women’s health accessible, with a Nigerian and Subsaharan African lens, because access is not the same everywhere.

This post is health education, not a diagnosis or a treatment plan. Screening intervals differ between countries and health systems, and your own history may change what is right for you. Take this list to a doctor who can examine you and look at your actual results.

It’s a powerhouse that seals deals without an attorney

The books say it’s the joint between her legs and thigh.

I’d later learn it was her lifeline to the most high.

You see, my mama’s knees, they are two in number.

But it’s chased more thousands than I can remember.

To no one it bends but the supreme being

And when she stretches to stand, its before kings.

You see, my mama’s knees… they are dark

Pigmented melanin, an evidence, like battle scars on a soldier’s back.

For every time I came running, seasons high or low

She said I got you, let me talk to the One I know

Because, you see my mama’s knees are not mere biology,

They are history, they are love, they are tongues in between limbs, proficient in spiritual neology

And as balm to bruised skin, I pledge

That when next they bend to kneel, pearls rolling down her face, it will be for in gratitude for the blessings of a new age.

Amen I say, heads bowed, and knees kissing earth

As all those years I had seen my mamas knees do without regret.

Happy birthday, Mother. My Star. My Doctor. My Friend. Long and well may your life be. You are rich, in God, community and me. I love you more than words can say.

Your daughter

Kirikiri Star

© 2026 Chioma Nwakanma-Akanno

It was dark and cold as we made our way into the city of Aba. A journey scheduled to end at 6pm still had us thirty minutes away from the agreed meeting point at 10pm. It was an excursion, and I was in Primary 4.

The day had started off exciting. We boarded the train from Aba to Port Harcourt in Rivers State. It was my first time on a train, talk less an interstate trip. We had fun, chatting and watching the scenery roll past our window, our teachers with us for guidance’s sake.

The ride took about two hours. Slow. We arrived at the Port Harcourt station around 5pm — already an hour past the original return time our parents had agreed to. We were given a tour, and soon it was time for the journey home. We all piled into the school bus and headed back to Aba.

An estimated forty-five minute trip quickly became a three-hour one. A combination of stormy weather, bad roads, impatient drivers, and more bad roads. Keep in mind that cell phones were unpopular then, so there was no way for the parents and the teachers to reach each other. As a mother now, I can imagine how unnerving this must have been for the parents and guardians left with no option but to wait — fingers crossed, prayers up. They had no way of knowing the fate of their children. And so they stood.

On our end, many of us had slept off. But as we made the final bend that signaled the school compound, we stirred. I looked out the window to see the sky wailing. The rain was blinding, and everywhere was dark save for the compound lights over the car park. We could see people outside, happily craning their necks, as though to catch a glimpse of their child in the bus.

“Everyone wake up. Carry your bags and wait. If you hear your name, come out and follow your parents.” And so the exeat process began.

Names were called, and I wondered if no one had come for me. Maybe it got too dark and they went home. Maybe the rain was too much. Maybe, maybe, maybe…

“Chioma Nwakanma!”

I glanced up, eyes wide. Who had come? One of my uncles, perhaps? A driver?

That’s when I saw him. Standing under the rain, holding the umbrella out for me.

“Daddy, you came. You waited!!!” I ran to him and threw my arms around him.

“Who else were you expecting? I’m your dad. You must be hungry — I got you meat pie from Mr Biggs. There’s Viju milk and water too.”

“Thank you, Daddy,” I said, tearing into the pie as we journeyed home to the sonorous voice of Panam Percy Paul. His favourite car album.

Two decades later, and the memory remains vivid.

And this was a recurring theme in my life. He always came through.

In JSS3, I arrived home late from boarding school owing to a bad traffic jam. With no way to reach me, my mum flew into panic mode. When I finally stepped into the house — into a tight hug of relief from her — I asked, where is Daddy? She said he had gone out to search for me. His travel bags were still by the door. He had just arrived from Abuja to hear that “Chioma hapuru school since 3pm. 9pm olatabeghi.” No more needed to be said. He drove round Aba with his friends, searching every park for me, until he got the call that I was home.

Responsibility. And he required no praise for it. It’s my job. I’m your dad.

Daddy never missed a visiting day when mum couldn’t make it. For my brother, he would drive his overheating car with a 20-litre can of water in the boot, cooling the engine every thirty minutes to make the three-hour journey to Uturu each month. Yes — my dad visited me every first Saturday of the month at university.

Then I had the crazy, unpopular dream to go and learn makeup at the House of Tara while studying Medicine. He queried, but he funded. My hair business — he invested. My first major account — he opened. As long as he was in the city, I would use his personal car and driver to any speaking engagement.

Then came my traditional wedding day. When I danced to take the cup, my eyes swelled, and when it was time to go… this hard girl broke down in tears. How does one simply leave the life she has always known and move into a new one? What do you mean I have to leave my Daddy?

He gave me a hug and said, “This will always be your home. In fact, don’t worry — you will go to your new home in my car.” And that’s what he did, just so I had a piece of him with me. “Nna, you’re now my son. Please take care of my daughter. Don’t ever make her cry,” he said, as he handed me over to my husband.

Two days later, we were on our way back to my father’s house, because I learnt my dad had been down, and a few tears had been sighted. “Who would ask me how I’m doing? Who will take care of me like Baby? Who will ask me hard questions?” My dad had refused to eat. So I returned home and assured him I’m always a call away. My husband and I stayed over and left the following day.

Even now, as an adult and a mum, I have had to call on my dad for counsel and comfort. Not caring that I’m a whole wife and mother, Daddy will still call, and send me money unprovoked. “Send it to your grandchildren, Daddy. Don’t worry, I’m fine.” That was how we resolved the issue.

Yes, growing up, we’d run into our rooms when we heard the car horn. Yes, he might act unperturbed when the tellers arrived. But never did we go to bed wondering what would become of us tomorrow. He never hit me, but his scolding voice would leave you transfixed — shivering and repentant. He may not have been the most expressive person, but he was a father. He always came through.

We misunderstood him a lot growing up. He was imperfect, but he tried. As an adult, I am learning to give more grace. He acted within the knowledge he possessed. He fathered the way he had seen and thought was best. His greatest fear was raising irresponsible children. And thankfully, he didn’t. Plus, he married well, too.

Now I see him as a grandpa, and I watch him express himself the way he couldn’t when all the pressure and responsibility sat on him as both a dad and a first son. “Total Grandpa,” as my son fondly calls him.

“Mummy, stop calling grandpa Daddy. He’s not your Daddy. He’s my grandpa.”

“Yeah, I know. He’s your grandpa, but he’s my Dad.”

“Wow, that’s so cool. But how is he your dad? Is my daddy your dad too?”

“Oh well, when you put it like that… but no, your daddy is YOUR dad. And Grandpa is MY dad.” It didn’t make sense to his 2-year-old mind, but I had to try

My daddy, still struggles to admit weakness or accept help, because to him, I’ll always be his baby. Yes, my Daddy calls me Baby, till date. I used to find it embarrassing growing up. Looking back from where I am now, I wonder why. Because each time he called me Baby, he was sending me a message: Who else were you expecting? I’m your Dad. I got you.

And what could be more endearing and reassuring to a girl than that.

Thank you for always “gotting” me, Dad. And thank you to all the exemplary dads — like my husband — who always “got” their babies. We celebrate you today.

Happy Father’s Day, Daddy.

Signed, Baby.

Foot note:

𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐨𝐧𝐞’𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐲 𝐃𝐚𝐝𝐝𝐲...𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘥𝘢𝘥𝘴 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘶𝘱. For teaching me that Fatherhood is first responsibility, before it’s a title. A testament that children will always remember, no matter how long it takes. For a present father becomes a lifelong memory.

I dedicate this as well to my husband and all great men who understand the weight of what it means to be called DADDY. The dads who choose their family single everyday, because showing isn’t flashy, buts it’s one of the greatest gifts a child can receive.

Xoxo

Chioma

Yesterday, I spoke at a student-led career panel at LSHTM and it left me reflective. As usual, the panelists covered the basics—applications, career pathways, rejections, navigating uncertainty—but one tip I shared stayed with people long after the session ended:

“Define failure early, before it defines you.”

It wasn’t the most technical advice I gave, but I believe it was the most human. And judging by the feedback I got after , it struck a nerve.

Why Was This Relatable?

Failure is that one experience that cuts across ambition, background, and stage of life. Whether you’re a student, early-career professional, or established expert, you’ve met it—and most likely will again.

What differs is not if we fail, but how we “fail”. Our interpretation is key.

For many people, failure is rejection. A closed door. A sign to stop.

For me, failure means something else entirely.

My Definition of Failure

I define failure as the inability to try.

It’s the decision not to apply for the role you’re qualified for. Not submitting the idea you believe in. Not following through on the goals you set for yourself. Not putting yourself forward when the opportunity is within your control.

In short: not trying.

Everything else? That’s just a hiccup. A curveball. A temporary disruption—not a verdict on your worth or your future.

This definition has changed how I move through my life and career. It means that as long as I show up, take the shot, and engage with opportunities I believe I deserve, I cannot truly “fail”.

The Real Enemy: “What If”

This mindset didn’t come in a day, it came from observation and experience.

I’ve seen some of the brightest, most capable people held back by impostor syndrome. People who were more than ready, yet convinced themselves they weren’t. I know this, because I’ve been one of such people, and honestly, its a daily struggle.

However, if I’ve learned something about myself it is that; I handle rejection far better than I handle regret.

Rejection fades. You process it, learn from it, move on.

But regret… it stings, and boy does it linger.

That quiet, nagging question—“What if I had just tried?”—is heart-wrenching and in my experience, far harder to live with. I do everything to avoid that space.

Life already comes with enough uncertainty, and I believe it is an injustice to self, to stand in our own way.

When “No” Becomes a Full Stop

I remember someone telling me he would never again be applying for an opportunity, because he believed he was not qualified. His reason? He got a rejection. His first. I can never forget the look on his face when I disclosed that before finally getting a “YES”, I had equally applied to the same opportunity and gotten a rejection, not once, but 4 times. Every rejection to me was feedback, one I leveraged to improve upon my future applications.

One pattern I’ve noticed repeatedly is how quickly people internalize rejection. The first “no” arrives, and suddenly:

• Confidence dips

• Self-doubt rises

• Ambition shrinks

In many cases, people don’t just face rejection—they allow themselves become defined by it.

But, the truth is that rejection is not the problem. The problem arises when we allow it to rewrite our identity.

That’s why I chose, early on, to define failure on my own terms.

Failing Forward

Let’s be real, no matter your definition, failure hurts. So don’t make the mistake of thinking failure is a cruise for me. I just like you, don’t enjoy failure.

However, when things don’t go my way, I feel it, deeply. I shed a tear or two, I question myself. I replay my decisions.

But I don’t stay there. I never allow myself to wallow in self pity for long.

That ability to reflect, extract the lesson, make necessary adjustments and try again with even more clarity?…That’s the hack.

Failure, in this sense, becomes functional. It’s not an endpoint; it’s feedback…data.

Growing up, I am fast realizing that failure, is a necessary part of the journey—but not the summary of it.

The Only Standard That Matters

Defining failure, helped me redefine my standards. And the only standard that truly matters to me is my peace of mind. There’s a quiet freedom in deciding that the only person you need to convince is yourself.

External definitions of failure are valid, but they pale in comparison. The missed titles, delayed timelines, unexpected detours: all those start to lose their weight when your internal standard is clear.

If I’ve tried, if I’ve shown up, if i’ve stretched myself, if I’ve acted on what I can control, then I’ve done my part.

Everything else is just part of the process.

Over to You

Oh well, there, I’ve shared my definition of failure. Now I’m curious—what does failure mean to you?

Read my Medium Article on this

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