Want to stretch your budget further and join the force of smart buyers? You are not alone to make it a new year’s resolution. Thankfully, platforms like Temu provide  access to a wide range of quality products at competitive prices, offering value for money.

For those already embracing the budget-friendly world of Temu, the hunt for bargains is second nature. However, savvy shoppers are always seeking ways to maximise their savings further. Recently, a Nigerian Twitter personality, Queen Bee (@Oyinajibade), shared an exciting discovery: Temu’s price adjustment policy.

In her post, Queen Bee exclaimed, ‘Wait, Temu is offering a refund for items that have dropped in price after I’ve paid. Mad o!”. This revelation has delighted customers and sparked widespread social media interest, demonstrating the significant value of this policy.

What is Temu’s price adjustment policy?

Temu’s price adjustment policy ensures you always get the best deal. Essentially, if the price of an item you’ve purchased on Temu drops within 30 days, they will happily refund you the difference. This policy is a good safeguard for your wallet, ensuring you’re not overpaying.

It’s important to note that this policy applies to exact matches (same size, colour, and seller) and price drops within the same country or region. The policy doesn’t apply to promotional items, clearance deals, or items that are no longer available. Also, remember that shipping costs are not included in the refund calculation.

A Step-by-step guide on how to apply

To apply for a price adjustment on Temu, you can:

• Go to ”Your Orders“

• Select the order you want to adjust

• Click ”Request a price adjustment“

For additional assistance, you can always reach out to Temu’s 24/7 customer service specialists via Temu.com or the Temu App Live Chat.

Other ways to save

Keeping an eye on homepage promotions is an excellent way to quickly find the most cost-effective products. Shoppers can also explore “Lightning Deals,” which are limited-time offers, and “Seasonal Offers” to discover items that align with their preferences. Temu, the direct-from-factory marketplace, offers year-round deals to help you enjoy shopping without breaking the bank.

Opting for  free standard shipping helps to minimise costs and avoid unexpected expenses. More so, joining conversations on platforms like X, Instagram and TikTok can also be beneficial. Other shoppers often share valuable tips, hidden gems, and information about new deals.

To significantly enhance their savings and make the most of this exciting shopping platform, Nigerian shoppers should effectively utilise Temu’s price adjustment policy and implement these strategies.

By Jerome-Mario Utomi

Reports have it that at Harvard Business School, United States of America (USA), the code of belief about entrepreneurship is quite simply this: It can be taught, and it can be learned.

Entrepreneurship is, to use HBS’s quasi-official definition, “the pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources currently controlled.” It is not so much a set of skills as it is a process, a belief, and a commitment. It is a mode of thinking and acting – a war of observing the world, of figuring out how to change it (hopefully for the better), and, perhaps most important, of becoming the person who is capable of implementing the change.

Likewise, there is a veiled agreement among critical stakeholders that one of the outstanding boards in the present day Nigeria is visibly capped with skills, belief, commitment, mode of thinking and in vigorous pursuit of opportunities to sustainably remove obstacles on the part of its targeted beneficiaries.

Without regard to resources currently controlled, is the Barrister Chiedu Ebie-led governing board and management of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), a Federal Government’s agency created in 2000 by enabling Act, to offer a lasting solution to the socio-economic difficulties of the Niger Delta and to facilitate the rapid and sustainable development of the region into an area that is economically prosperous, socially stable, ecologically regenerative and politically peaceful.

Adding context to the discourse, when crude oil was discovered in the region more than 50 years ago, the people could not have imagined that they would bear the brunt of the country’s main source of revenue. They expected that the exploitation of the rich natural resources they have in their environment would bring them development and prosperity. But alas, it has been a very painful experience for the people of the region.

Essentially, it is not as if past administrations in the country did not, at different times and places, make efforts to address the region’s challenges, but noble as those efforts were, considering the level of underdevelopment in the area, such effort appeared too insignificant and short of what is required to cater for the region’s development. More particularly, the effort remains a far cry from what was needed to exorcise the ghost of youth unemployment. This ugly narrative persisted in the face of concerns raised by the global community who were chiefly not convinced that what now rested administrations were doing was the best way to solve the problem of the Niger Delta.

Understandably, there is some truth in those concerns as expressed just as there is presently, a silver lining in the horizon. What we have today is an exact opposite! Niger Delta people of goodwill are equally of the view that what the region is experiencing this time around may no longer be the second half of a recurring circle, rather the beginning of something new and different.

Aside from the fact that the new governing board and management have to their credit, a well-established healthy relationship with critical stakeholders within the region and beyond, also worth underlining and of course, a lesson other agencies and commissions must imbibe, is the frantic efforts to put the Niger Delta in order via youth empowerment, human capital development and democratised infrastructural provisions.

A delectable account further indicates that the policy thrust and programmes coming from the new governing board and management of the agency amply qualify as development-based. This particular point partially explains why this piece is interested in the ongoing developmental strides in the region.

Prominent among these projects, programmes and initiatives are the building of partnerships, lighting up the region, initiating sustainable livelihood, improving youth capacity and skills base, executing efficient and cost-effective projects, including the Project Hope for Renewed Hope, reducing carbon emission, and improving peace and security.

From what development professionals are saying, a programme is development- based when it entails an all-encompassing improvement, a process that builds on itself and involves both individuals and social change. It also requires growth and structural change, with some measures of distributive equity, modernisation in social and cultural attitudes; a degree of political transformation and stability, improvement in health and education so that population growth stabilises, and an increase in urban living and employment.

Viewed broadly, it is public knowledge that throughout the early decades, the world paid little attention to what constitutes sustainable development. Such conversation, however, gained global prominence via the United Nations introduction, adoption and pursuit of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which lasted between 2000 and 2015. It was, among other intentions, aimed at eradicating extreme poverty and hunger as well as achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality, reducing child mortality and improving maternal health, among others.

Without going into specific concepts or approaches contained in the performance index of the programme, it is factually supported that the majority of the countries, including Nigeria, performed below average. And, it was this reality and other related concerns that conjoined to bring about 2030 sustainable agenda- a United Nations initiative and successor programme to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)- with a collection of 17 global goals formulated among other aims to promote and cater for people, peace, planet, and poverty. It has at its centre, partnership and collaboration, ecosystem thinking, co-creation and alignment of various intervention efforts by the public and private sectors and civil societies.

Very remarkable is that all the NDDC’s projects/programmes were crafted in line with the above initiatives. If in doubt, checkout the agency’s scheme known as Holistic Opportunities, Projects and Engagement (HOPE); It is primed to provide a platform to empower youths of the region on sustainable basis, designed to create a comprehensive resources database of the youth population of the Niger Delta to enable NDDC see clearly what the youths want in their strive for sustainability in conformity with international best practices and development.

The project HOPE’ initiative is positioned for creating youth employment opportunities, especially in agriculture through support to small-holder farmers in order to ensure operational growth while shifting from traditional to mechanized farming methods.

“Because of the arable wetlands, rainfalls and other favourable ecological factors to plant various crops and vegetables at least four times within a farming season, the agency is proactively moving away from the oil economy to the agricultural sector which can accommodate our youths in large numbers is the agricultural sector.”

For me, NDDC’s solutions to youth unemployment and development of climate for sustainable future and innovation will assist to promote the critical thrust of governance and maximise the benefits citizens derive from governance.

For example, talking about youth unemployment in Nigeria, a report recently put it this way: “We are in dire state of strait because unemployment has diverse implications. Security wise, large unemployed youth population is a threat to the security of the few that are employed. Any transformation agenda that does not have job creation at the centre of its programme will take us nowhere”.

As we know, youth challenge cuts across, regions, religion, and tribe, and had in the past led to the proliferation of ethnic militia as well as youth restiveness across the country.

What the above information tells us as a nation is that the ongoing creative and transformative leadership at NDDC calls for collective support and it should be used as both a model and template by all strata of government in the country, for correcting public leadership challenges via adoption of approaches that impose more leadership discipline.It is in doing this that we can achieve sustainable development as a nation.

Utomi, a Media Specialist writes from Lagos, Nigeria. He could be reached via [email protected]/08032725374.

By Mike Omuodo

A phone vibration drew my attention to an incoming message – a friend had sent a message with an attachment and a note reading, “This is so sad and needs to stop! The message was followed by some crying emojis.

Curious, I opened the attachment. It was a photo of some of the carnage in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) – to be precise, the photo of corpses of those killed in the DRC’s never ending war, piled like some wastes from a city garbage truck. My heart bled for the children and women of DRC, the main victims of this horrendous war!

The war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has killed over 6 million people over decades, stands as a stark reminder of the continent’s internal and external challenges. Despite Africa’s rich history, cultural diversity, and growing potential, the persistent violence in the DRC represents a failure of both African leadership and the international community to address a crisis that undermines the very notion of African unity, independence, and self-determination.

The DRC, endowed with an abundance of natural resources—diamonds, gold, copper, coltan—should be one of Africa’s most prosperous countries. Instead, it has become a battlefield where local militias, foreign corporations, and regional powers exploit its riches, leaving its people in poverty and suffering. This is a direct affront to the vision of African sovereignty, which seeks to ensure that African resources benefit Africans and not external actors or corrupt elites.

The inability of African nations to decisively intervene and resolve the conflict in the DRC highlights a painful reality: while African leaders have championed unity and cooperation through platforms like the African Union (AU), they have largely failed to protect one of their own from decades of exploitation and war. The silence and inaction of many African governments on the DRC crisis is a scorn to the idea of Pan-Africanism, which promises solidarity and collective action in the face of injustice.

The war in the DRC is also a reflection of how foreign interests continue to meddle in African affairs, undermining Africa’s sovereignty. Since colonial times, external powers have exploited the DRC for its natural resources, leaving the country in a state of perpetual conflict. Today, multinational corporations and foreign governments continue to benefit from the illegal extraction of the DRC’s minerals, funding armed groups and prolonging instability.

African leaders have a moral and political obligation to assert Africa’s control over its own resources and territory. Allowing foreign actors to dictate the fate of one of the continent’s richest nations not only diminishes the sovereignty of the DRC but also weakens the entire continent’s ability to defend its economic and political interests.

Failed Governance

At the heart of the DRC crisis is the failure of governance. While external actors have played a significant role in the conflict, internal divisions, corruption, and weak leadership within the DRC have exacerbated the situation. Successive governments have struggled to maintain control over vast portions of the country, allowing warlords and militias to fill the power vacuum.

However, the broader failure lies in the inability of African leaders to come together and address these internal issues through diplomatic pressure, peace-building, and robust intervention. Instead, some regional powers have been accused of further destabilizing the country by supporting rebel groups and exploiting the chaos for their own gains. This lack of leadership not only prolongs the suffering of millions of Congolese but also erodes trust in Africa’s ability to solve its own problems.

Strategic Imperative

This war shouldn’t be seen merely as Congo’s problem but as a moral and strategic imperative for the entire African continent. The ongoing conflict undermines Africa’s collective goals of peace, security, and economic development. It destabilizes a region that is critical to the future of Africa, limits economic growth, and diverts attention from pressing continental issues such as poverty alleviation, infrastructure development, and healthcare.

Allowing the DRC to remain in a state of war or even degenerate further into the abyss reflects poorly on the African Union and regional organizations like the East African Community and Southern African Development Community (SADC), which have the capacity to mediate and intervene. If African leaders do not act now to stop the violence and build sustainable peace, it will signal a failure to live up to the founding principles of these organizations and African independence itself.

Reclaiming sovereignty

This war is not just a humanitarian catastrophe; it is a direct challenge to Africa’s ability to assert control over its own destiny. The conflict has exposed the fragility of African sovereignty and the vulnerability of the continent’s vast resources to external exploitation. To truly live up to the promise of a united, independent, and prosperous Africa, African leaders must rise to the occasion, reclaim the DRC’s sovereignty, and bring an end to this senseless war.

Inaction or passive diplomacy will only deepen the wounds and prolong the suffering. It’s time for Africa to lead by example, assert its political will, and save the DRC from becoming a permanent scar on the continent’s legacy. The war in the DRC cannot be allowed to continue as a scorn upon Africa’s sovereignty.

The writer is a pan-African Public Relations and Communications expert based in Nairobi, Kenya