TAIWO ALIMI captures the tales of a group of visually-impaired young men and women, daring to learn, hope, live and dream again. He brings to the fore their plight in an otherwise hostile society and the courage of one lone woman, championing their cause, welfare and education.
Christopher Essien, 22, has been to hell and back – that is speaking figuratively. Standing before The Nation on Sunday crew, he is over six feet tall; his eyeballs are clear and radiate excitement and enthusiasm. He looks well-fed and his voice is equally cheerful, making this reporter wonder to himself: What is he doing here? Here in this context refers to Bethesda Home for the Blind (BHB), a settlement that has become home to 72 visually-impaired students. They have come from different parts of the country to reclaim lost grounds, time, pride, and glory in an otherwise, hostile society.
Founded by Mrs. Chioma Ohakwe, a deeply religious social worker in 2005, Bethesda Home for the Blind prepares these special students to adequately face the world through formal education – reading and writing, and vocational skills acquisition such as music, hand-craft, moral teaching and philosophy.
Standing before the young man, Christopher, it was hard to believe he was totally devoid of sight, as his gaze seemed to pry through this reporter. To clear his doubt, he had to ask (though embarrassingly) that ‘Can you see me?’
But his answer in the negative was calm and calculated, even as he managed a smile. “No I can’t see you. I can’t see anything.”
His story looks pretty much like your typical Nollywood movie plot, yet his is real.
A vibrant youngster with lofty dreams of conquering the world, his eye problem started six years ago when he turned 15. As the first-born of a family of nine – five boys and two girls, he was in the final lap of preparation for his West Africa Examination Council (WAEC) examinations, when fate played a ‘blind’ joke on him. His sight gradually evaporated.
“I was about to seat for my school leaving certificate examination, as an SS3 student of Ajayi Crowther Memorial Grammar School Lagos, when the problem started. I just started losing my sight. At first, I felt it would pass quickly, like something that corrective glasses would remedy. I had planned to quickly return to my studies,” Christopher began his cheerless story, though in a cheerful and clear tone.
He did not write the exams. He lost his sight completely to ‘the silent thief of sight,’ Glaucoma.
But that was just the beginning of his life crisis.
“Before long, I could not recognise people again; I could not differentiate colours, and going out became a serious issue. I visited several hospitals, specialists, and spiritual homes. At a point, my mother moved me to Calabar, Cross River State for spiritual cleansing and healing, all to no avail.”
Thereafter, his fate was sealed and he came back to Lagos to be locked-up for six years, living like a prisoner in his own home. “I became an embarrassment to my parents, siblings, and friends. They all abandoned me, but for my mum, who stood by me and looked out for me at all times.”
For the blind, lonesome teenager, living a life of a social outcast affected him, so much so that he contemplated suicide several times.
‘It was a better option for me,” he confided. “My friends left me. Even my father and church members deserted me. My siblings didn’t have my time. So what was there to live for?” Christopher asked rhetorically.
To compound his woes, he lost his only friend and helper, his mum, in a ghastly auto accident along Benin-Ore road; and that aggravated his desire to end it all, until his pastor stepped in.
“If not for my pastor, who brought me to Bethesda after I broke out of the house, I would have committed suicide because she was the only one I had. It was at BHB that I regained my sanity and began to live life to the fullest again.”
Christopher’s tale however paled significantly when compared with that of Ibadan-born Tunde Olatunji, 36, who came into BHB three years ago. He is now a trainer in the house and earns a stipend to keep himself and his family of four- wife and three children together.
Interestingly, Olatunji could see perfectly for the first 26 years of his life. He qualified as a driver after obtaining his Primary and Secondary School certificates. “At first, I was driving a Professor in Ibadan; then I left him to drive a commercial bus. I was doing well. I met my wife and we got married in 2001 and God blessed us with three children in quick succession.”
The Olatunji family was enjoying a great life and working towards a brighter one, when his sight became the central issue and their world came crashing.
“This blindness started like child’s play in 2005. I would wake up in the morning and would not be able to see anything for some seconds. Gradually it became worse and when I got to the hospital, it was attributed to cataract. My parents and wife stood by me. A lot of money was spent to get my sight back, but it was no use. I went totally blind and darkness became my companion,” Olatunji lamented.
As breadwinner, he could not afford to give in or sit still. For seven years without his eyesight, he ventured into menial jobs to keep food on the table. “We were hoping for solution, but all my friends and family members deserted; except for my wife and brother. So I had to go out and do something to fend for my family.”
He commenced with general house cleaning. “My wife and I helped people clean their houses and later we started carrying blocks at building sites. Both of us would carry the block and my wife would lead me. I stopped after I fell into a well and the contractor drove us away. I also tried my hands at farming. I weeded other people’s farms for money and in 2010, I went into animal rearing.”
Two years later, he enrolled at Bethesda Home. “It is here that I learned how to read and right again, and today I am teaching others and also earning money to feed my family.”
In BHB, teachers and pupils live together. They know their ways around the one-story building and vast compound. Aside learning, they have also formed such a strong bond that inspires great comradeship. They do all things together and yet, individually. “Here, we wash our cloth, dry it, iron it; we also cook and clean our room and surroundings.” Olatunji revealed.
Glaucoma also claimed the vision of Miss Ifeanyi Ukwueze, who hails from Enugu. In her 20s, she went blind in 2007, leading to a halt in her schooling.
“For six years, I was moved from one hospital to the other and had to stop schooling because my parents did not have the financial muscle to register me at any of the special schools for the blind. It was not easy. I felt abandoned by everyone – my family and society. I was incarcerated for many years and only go out at night to bath. I would be in that room for days, made to urinate and defecate there. It was when I came here (BHB) on November 6, 2013, that I got my life back. I can read and write now. I have completed my Joint Examination Matriculation Board (JAMB) examinations, and right now, I’m studying for WAEC.
More tales of sorrow
From one student to the other, the tales were similar and reeked of their losses and abandonment by parents, siblings, friends, religious institutions and society. They were also lace with suicidal tendencies.
Christopher recalled his fear and frustration as a prisoner in his home.
“To be alone in a room for a long time is about the worst thing that can happen to a blind person. When you are outside, the sun will shine into your eyes, and that makes you feel alive. But when you are holed up in a room, it is as if there is a cloud of fog around you.”
Samuel Olusegun Dabiri suffered emotional stress growing up, leading to anger, frustration and suicidal trend. He lost his sight when he was barely four, after a bout of measles. Through no fault of his, poor handling of the sickness by his parents, who were torn apart by marital misunderstanding, robbed him of his right to happiness.
“In 1996, I developed measles around the time my parents had a quarrel and my mother left home. That contributed to my blindness because while I was in the hospital undergoing treatment, my mother came and took me away and I missed my appointments for months. I did not get back to the hospital until after three months and by then, it was already too late. Thereafter, my mother dumped me for 10 years.”
By the time Samuel entered teenage years, he had become distraught with life, and always fighting.
“I used to be very rough and angry. Little things made me angry and I could stay without talking to anyone for days on end. Life meant nothing to me and I did things without caring for others or myself. I was hot-tempered and tried taking my life more than once but God did not allow my plans to work.”
A complex world
The world of the blind is complex and they suffer psychological and emotional challenges aside the physical that others can see.
Christopher, Ifeanyi, Samuel, and Mrs. Chioma Ohakwe, who are the brain and brawn behind Bethesda Home for the Blind, attest to this.
According to Christopher, the first challenge a visually impaired person faces is fear.
“Fear is a hindrance. The fear that you can knock your head on something if you venture to go out; fear that you will be knocked down by a car or other moving objects. But once you conquer that fear, it is the beginning of living again.”
“I conquered fear when I started sneaking out of our house. Sometimes, I would pay a person to just take me out and bring me back home. I would find my way to Church and stay there listening to inspiring words from men of God or music. That was when I began to reflect again. From there I learned to play musical instruments and then my pastor told me about Bethesda. I came here and met new opportunities, new friends and could even go out on my own. I now know how to read and write through Braille and will soon be writing my WAEC exams. I can also play all kind of drums, lead guitar and bass guitar.”
Samuel on his part says blind persons suffer negative complex, which makes them give in to blind frustration. It also makes them vulnerable to mood swings, such as anger, frustration and suicide. But he advised that ‘they should rather have blind fate in living life to the fullest, in spite of their handicap.’
“As I talk with you, I have done my JAMB and scored over 200. I am getting ready for WAEC. I hope to study Sociology at the University of Lagos and that is all I live for now. I see myself in the near future, working, having a family, and living well. I have conquered my anger, rough manners, and hot temper. Chioma (as they call the BHB director) has taught us that hot temper means destruction. In addition, I am learning handcraft and music. Out there, life was difficult, and coming from a semi-polygamous home did not help too. At a point, my father felt that he could not spend money on my condition, forgetting that life is about trying repeatedly. He also stopped my schooling on the basis that I am useless to the society. Today, I know better because I have a lot to offer my world. My mentors are Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King (Jnr.), Oprah Winfry, and others who believe in touching the lives of others and bringing change.”
Ifeanyi firmly believes that illiteracy, shallow-mindedness and poverty is a big challenge and offers education and vocational training as the liberation path.
“Before I came to Bethesda, my condition was hopeless. I had stopped schooling. It was at BHB that I learnt Braille and how to read and write. Our educational materials are expensive, yet we don’t pay for anything. We have two music teachers, and I can sing well. Education is key to life and I can tell you that I am happy to be alive because I can dream of a great life ahead of me.”
Chioma, as the Home director is called, corroborated her students’ opinion with vivid illustrations. She says blind people are highly suicidal and suffer emotional stress, hence their handlers need to be patient and learn to love and care for them. “Many of them have planned to kill themselves many times. They dread been alone than any other thing. They are also hot-tempered and moody. Often time, they have mood swings. They can get up in foul mood and begin to react to little things, leading to arguments and physical fights. Most of the time, it is not because anybody did something to them; it’s just that they are thinking about their lives and condition, which regularly gets to them. You have to understand, calm them down, and talk to them.”
She added; “Most of the time, parental and sibling support is missing in their lives. One of them lost his mum and she was the only one there for him; he almost killed himself. His church brought him here and his father has never been here to see him. I don’t know his father.”
“The society is also not kind to them. For example, I met a blind young man named Gideon in a village in the Eastern part of the country. This man was dumped at the outskirt of the village to live in improvised shelter like a mad person. When I saw him, he was as a mad person, totally neglected, and had been nursing acute malaria for a long time. I brought him back to Lagos and when we got him to a hospital, they rejected him as near dead. It took five pints of blood and two days to get him into shape for treatment. When he was okay and responding to treatment, we took him to an eye specialist where he underwent operation and today he can see. He is now a responsible citizen of this country and married with kids. The operation cost only N15, 000.00 and that young man suffered greatly because of the way we treat our blind folks.”
Ignorance and poverty, as major causes
After interviewing a cross section of people living with this disability, it became apparent that over 99 percent of blind people in Nigeria were not born blind.
For instance, a blend of negligence, poverty, and medical ignorance led to Samuel’s everlasting plunge into darkness. As a child suffering from measles, he could not do anything for himself, but his parents could have done something.
According to a medical review released by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2014, while measles is endemic in sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, and South Asia, and is the cause of over 40 percent of blind children in these regions; effective vaccines and method have been put in place to reduce and check its spread.
The report reads in part, “The cornea, the front transparent layer of the eye, requires vitamin A to work. The retina, which is the back layer of the eye that receives visual images (like the film in a camera), also requires vitamin A in order to see at night. A measles infection can reduce the levels of vitamin A that the body needs for normal health. As a result, during a measles episode, a child can develop ulcers in the cornea, which makes it hard for them to see at night. The result is “a devastating loss of vision and blindness.”
It adds; “Countries with vaccination programs for measles have reduced the problem of widespread eye disease and it is recommended that children in developing countries who contract measles receive two doses of vitamin A supplements a day apart. Vitamin A supplements have been shown to reduce the number of deaths from measles by 50 percent.”
Therefore, simple Vitamin A dosage, a cheap and regular across-the-counter prescription in Nigeria, would have restored their son’s failing sight. Samuel is today, rock blind.
At other time, early surgery, which goes for as little as N15, 000.00 and N25, 000.00 could have saved a sufferer from eternal dusk. This is mostly so in cases of people suffering from cataract, which is the better of the twin-evil; the other being glaucoma. This is because, while cataract is more prevalent in Nigeria and can be detected easily, there is established and proven cure for it, but for glaucoma, it comes like a thief in the night and cure is more or less at infant stage.
Medical challenges
According to former Chief Medical Director (CMD) of the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) and leading health consultant, Prof Akin Osibogun, cataract is the most common cause of blindness in Nigeria with 1 percent of the population, about 1.5milion living with the curable disease.
“Cataract is responsible for 30 60% of partial and complete blindness in the country, so a great deal of blindness prevention activity should center on cataract surgery, if we are to clear out the cataract back log.”
Yet, it is avertable with routine check up and careful handling of the eye. Prof. Osibogun advised regular check of the eyes from qualified ophthalmologist. “When you are above 30 or 35, there is need to check your eyes regularly because some regenerating changes start occurring from the age of 35. Children should not be slapped on the eyes because when you do they might develop cataract later in life.”
He also affirmed that surgery remains the best option for treatment of cataract.
Ophthalmologists; Josephine N. Ubah, Micheline A. Isawumi and, Caroline O. Adeoti in a paper presented after research on cataract sufferers in Osun State, also confirmed the prevalent rate of cataract incident in Nigeria. They admitted that it is curable by surgery.
Thankfully, Osibogun says the federal government as well as some state governments has taken positive actions to bring down the cost of surgery to a bearable level of between N15, 000.00 and N25, 000.00.
“In 2013, only 106 cataract surgeries were performed in the 24 months reviewed by this team in Osun state and this is like a drop in the ocean when you consider the number of people on awaiting list.” Of course, a greater number of them are children and the elderly.
“Though, free and highly subsidized cataracts surgeries are becoming a regular practice in Nigeria, despite this practice, many people continue to turn out blind from cataract, either in one or both eyes. Through interview-assisted questionnaires, a descriptive study was carried out among cataract blind patients who turned up for cataract surgery during an eye camp. About 1570 persons were screened. Of this number, 297 were found to have cataract with visual acuity of 6/60 or worse. 167 were bilaterally blind. Questionnaire was administered to the 297 persons. Complete information was obtained from 211 of the respondents. Cost of surgery was the greatest cause of delay in uptake of cataract surgery in 171 (81%) persons. Ignorance in18 persons followed this. Therefore, the current study has identified cost as the greatest cause of delay of cataract operation in Osun State of Nigeria. This seems to be the general trend in the other parts of the country where this type of study has been conducted.”
The good thing here, according to Prof Osibogun, is that cataract surgery is near 100 percent effective and a patient can regain his or her sight almost immediately. “The technique to be used involves removing the cataract and putting the artificial lens and the person will be able to see almost immediately.”
Gloucoma
While cataract is curable, no form of effective treatment has been established for glaucoma otherwise known as ‘the silent thief of sight.’
Dr. Chigozie Onyesonwu, an expert optometrist observed that “There is no cure for glaucoma yet, except through surgery. Aside surgery, the patient can be placed on medication to manage the condition. The drugs would be taken throughout a patient’s lifetime. Improved awareness and better perception can however positively influence the accuracy of the eye health education messages glaucoma patients share and are key to the development of a positive outlook. A positive outlook can motivate patients to ensure that family members undergo glaucoma screening regularly, thereby enhancing prompt diagnosis and reducing the risk of blindness.”
Bethesda Home for the Blind
This, according to Mrs. Chioma Ohakwe, is where Bethesda home for the blind comes in. “To live with blindness is not easy. It takes away your right to live and your freedom to associate. It is like living the life of a social outcast. Sadly, our society feels that way about blind people. They therefore need love and support of everyone. That is what we are providing in BHB.”
She revealed that fate and love entrusted with this calling.
“After the Nigerian civil war, the Eastern part of this country where I was born and living with my family, was plagued with general poverty and diseases. Many people went blind due to measles infection and malnutrition and it affected two of my brothers and my husband’s sister. Blindness became a permanent feature in our environment because virtually every family had at least one member suffering from it. A special school for the blind was thereafter established at Ogiri River, Enugu, where my brothers and sister-in-law attended. When we got married, the three of them moved in with us. Sometimes they would bring their friends and our house will be packed with blind people.”
It was during those encounters that she developed deep love and interest in visually impaired and completely blind people. “I began to observe them. No matter what you give them, I realised that they do not like to be left alone. I also observed the way some families treat their own blind folks like social outcasts. Some families do not even want neighbours to know that they have blind people in their household, so they lock them up in the house. Some even give them bucket to urinate and defecate in while they are out, so they don’t have to come out of their rooms. They only come out in the night to
