I had a friend in secondary school who never smiled with his mouth open. He’d laugh with his lips pressed together and cover his mouth with his hand when something was really funny. He had heavy calculus buildup, the hard yellowish deposits that form on teeth when plaque is left for too long, and he’d thought it was simply how his teeth were.

It wasn’t until I began studying oral healthcare that I learned the truth: calculus is not permanent at all. A simple scaling and polishing session could have resolved the issue. My friend spent years hiding his smile during his adolescence over something that could have been fixed in just one visit to the dentist, if only someone had been aware of that or believed that a dental appointment was worth the effort.

That memory has stayed with me ever since, and it’s a big part of why I eventually started a mobile dental service, taking oral health education and preventive care closer to people across Lagos, Abeokuta, Ibadan, and Ijebu.

The Problem Was Never Really About Teeth

I also grew up in a family where nobody ever had reason to see a dentist. Not because our teeth were perfect, but because a dental clinic simply wasn’t on the list of places you went unless something was badly wrong. That’s not unusual. It’s actually the norm for a lot of Nigerian households to not prioritise oral health.

What I’ve come to understand, both from my own upbringing and from the people I’ve met through this work, is that this isn’t really a teeth problem. It’s an information and access problem.

Many people aren’t ignoring their oral health on purpose. Many genuinely don’t know that regular visits matter, that certain things they assume are just how it is, such as stained teeth, calculus buildup, bleeding gums, or persistent bad breath, are…