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By Maryam Ogunremi
On Thursday, while I was doing the laundry, I took off the bedspread for a change and to clean it. I do this often to make sure my skin doesn’t come in contact with residual germs on a dirty bedspread. I mean, the economy is already tough enough to survive and adding medical bills or extra skin care expenses would be excessive. So I detached it from the mattress and took some time to do laundry since I can’t afford a washing machine yet. As I said before, Nigeria’s current economic situation has its advantages.
Back to the bedspread story, please walk with me. I picked out a clean bedspread right after the laundry and put it on the bed with its pillowcases, but I couldn’t bear the trouble of laying it out because my time was up and I had to go to the office for the midnight news. So, I said to myself, “This will be my first call as soon as I get home. I’ll do this before I do other things around the house.” A fantastic plan you would say. I ran out of the house and went straight to work because I had to go to the office. Cutting costs because the economy isn’t good and I just shelled out a lot of money to fix my house rent that week. Under the scorching sun, I walked briskly towards the office. Thank goodness, I arrived at the office in about 2 minutes on hearing the news panting like an athlete, who had just finished a hundred meter run.
I stayed at work until 3pm, as I did in the morning, I put my legs up and went home. On the way home, as I pondered what to do immediately, my mind started coming up with reasons why I shouldn’t waste my energy hanging out the bedspread. I called them reasons and not excuses because they are completely authentic. Now, as of early 2026, the heat waves we are experiencing in Abeokuta, the capital of Ogun State in Nigeria, are definitely not part of God’s plans for His creations. I mean, the heat is off this planet. A sign that we must all be attentive to the climate. We should think about our actions before carrying them out, especially for people involved in garbage collection and bush burning.
Ok, back to the compelling points in my mind. It began by saying, “Why roll out the bed when we both know you won’t sleep on it. I mean, there’s been no electricity for days and you’ve been sleeping on the floor to relieve the heat. The last wash was a waste of energy since you haven’t slept on the bed more than twice and those times were only an hour or less. So, don’t roll it out and keep the mattress bare. By the way, no one is coming to visit you at home. It’s just you and you alone, why bother?”
“Hmmmmmm,” I thought, “actually you’re right, I can’t even stay in bed for 30 minutes in the heat we have right now.” Looking back, I said, “But the apartment won’t ‘give’ if I take photos in the room or if I’m on a video call with someone. Maybe I should just go ahead and set it aside for that.”
My mind immediately responded, “Come on! You barely take pictures and when was the last time you had a video call with someone? Lady, stop stressing and leave the bed alone.” I went through all this back and forth in my mind for the entire 20 minute walk home and decided to stay in my mind at the end of the day. Today is Monday and the bed is as bare as I left it on Thursday, with the clean bedspread neatly folded and placed beautifully on one side of the bed.
But yesterday, Sunday, my mind started taking me through a mental training on how we all tend to do things for the immediate need and not think about the long term. Due to the heat wave, making up the bed won’t be an immediate necessity, but if the weather changes drastically or the power company decides to raise the bar in terms of supply, I’ll start doing what I should have done a long time ago. The stress that I should have finished with a few days ago will now become extra because I will no longer do it when it suits me, I will do it with extra stretching. This will probably exhaust me easily and there is one hundred percent certainty that I will not do it with my best energy. Yes, I will do a shoddy job.
How does this affect you, my reader? This concerns each of us. Let me start with the voter registration process in Nigeria. Some of us don’t show up because we feel like it’s not about us or the lies spread by people who don’t even know what they’re saying when they say, “your vote doesn’t count!” Have we ever sat down and asked them to expand on their conspiracy theory? Voter registration is like the bedspread on the election mattress. If this is not well spread, everything else will go wrong. You won’t be able to vote. If you don’t vote, your vote won’t count. A vote cast will count and a vote not cast will not count.
Taking the question of the bedspread analogy from another angle, let’s look at training your child(ren). Their foundation is laying the bedspread, if you don’t do it early enough, you’ll do a shoddy job when trying to save face and end up ashamed.
You can compare my story to your work, spread your bedspread by training and retraining yourself so you can create space for growth, which will open doors to bigger and better opportunities. Stop trying to fit into every job opportunity you get. Have a vision for your career, be ready and when it arrives, you will fit right in.
A single act can make your life easy or make it difficult or make it shaky. Arrange your bed exactly how you want to lie on it.
Will I do it today? Of course, I’ll probably leave it like that until another laundry time for a wash. We could continue the process until our energy supply is stable – a dream Nigerians have had for years. It can happen.
Maryam Ogunremi is a broadcaster reporting from Abeokuta
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