Oseyiza Oogbodo Blog

Alhaja Ashiata Onikoyi Laguda is one of those people born in a period when survival rate for children that had sickle cell anaemia (HbSS) was virtually zero. She was born in 1927, thus she will be 85 years old this year, making her the oldest person living with HbSS. And despite her old age and condition combined, she is still so strong that she walks about, climbs up and down the stairs to her first floor residence, lives alone, etc. Even though most people who have HbSS are unable to do strenuous jobs, Laguda worked for the army in the secretarial department and also involved herself in trading, a business which comes with a lot of mental and physical stress. That she is still alive today is an amazing feat.   It was therefore important to meet with her to find out how she survived in a period that she should have been consumed. “Prior to my birth,” she disclosed, “my mother had had only one child who died soon afterwards. Before she could have me, it took her six and a hal...

We have heard of women who gave birth in strange circumstances. Examples include a woman who was headed to the farm, halfway there, she gave birth all by herself without any support and returned home to the wondering stares of her community. Another woman went shopping in the market and birthed her baby right in the market. Yet another woman was recently reported to have given birth in the popular BRT bus in Lagos. The above-mentioned births are strange because the notion of giving birth properly is for the pregnant woman to do so with the help of a professional midwife or a doctor. Suffice it to say that many women who were being assisted by professional medical practitioners even lost their lives in the process or gave birth to stillborn children. How then do we explain the case of the above-mentioned births? Do we just say they are strange or even miraculous? How do we even begin to describe the birth of Oluwadara by Damilola Wehbe? Due to the circumstances of Oluwadara’s birth,...

The world is definitely full of handicapped people, one of which is Willie Bestman, a blind musician. But unlike his internationally renowned colleagues, Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder who were born blind, he wasn’t born with that deformity which has been described as the most formidable of all handicaps. It is unsurprising that Bestman will never forget how he lost his sight. “I was lying on my bed one day in 1997 when I felt a bang on my eyes. My wife was with me. I cried out in pain and I couldn’t see clearly again.” That was in the evening. The following day, he and his wife went to an eye clinic “where it was diagnosed that my retina was detached. They said I would have to go to the United Kingdom to do the necessary operation that would restore my sight.” Bestman then found himself in the uncomfortable position of many who needed more money than they could afford for medical intervention. “The fees for the operation were way far above what I could afford,” he recalls sadly. ...

March 22 nd is a day that Ekom Mac Inem will never forget in his entire life. Indeed, he still remembers that the day was a Tuesday and that the incident that happened to him that makes the day unforgettable happened around 4pm. “I was coming back from school, Community Commercial School in Ikot-Ubo, Uyo on that day, March 22 nd . I was on an okada. I didn’t know that there was political campaigning going on. But when we encountered the campaigners, they attacked us.” According to him, he and the okada rider were attacked by the campaigners because the helmets they wore bore the inscription Godswill 2012. “The campaigners were the opposition to the Akwa Ibom State Governor, Godswill Akpabio. When they saw us wearing his helmet, they ran after us and stopped our okada. They asked for the helmets. When the bikeman refused to give it to them, they began to beat him. As I was pleading with them to leave the bikeman, they began to beat me too. They collected the helmets from us forcef...

There’s an organisation in Lagos that’s trying its utmost best to better the lot of handicapped Nigerians. Aptly named Competent Handicapped Industry and Vocational Training Centre(CHIVTC), it is not solely a business as its name suggests but also an advocacy organ for the empowerment of the handicapped. Having been founded in 1987, it is safe to say that CHIVTC has come to stay. It is also safe to say that it has been successful and remains on that course basically because of the efforts and passion of its founder, Dr Oluwatele Olaide Moruf. Surprisingly, or maybe not, Moruf is handicapped. He is blind and has been so since 1979. “I was seventeen years old when I lost my sight. I was living then with my uncle who was a battery charger. I was also learning the trade and one morning, I discovered that I just couldn’t see anything again. “We were at the shop and they told me to bring out a battery but when I told them I couldn’t see, they didn’t believe me and beat me instead becaus...