Tony Okerafor
23 September 2004
Lagos — IT is indeed he who feels that knows it. Experience without doubt is the best teacher. You may wonder what these two popular sayings are meant to illustrate here. I vividly remember a courtesy visit I paid a few months ago to my Alma mata, the Pacelli School in Mainland Lagos. For some 7 or 8 years now, the special school for the visually impaired and the blind seems to have gone into oblivion. Were it not for the intermittent whisper by some concerned members of the public agitating for improved learning condition in the institution, the first of its type anywhere in the country. One could have taken it for granted that the 35-year old boarding school no longer exists. But, infact, the school and its challenged young boys and girls are alive and kicking.
True the porous economy and perennial neglect may have caused academic standards to fall, the young children and their hard pressed but selfless authorities are nevertheless involved in the arduous battles for preparing potential graduates for the world outside: the uncertain and more often than not, the unpromising world without, mildly put, the world outside for these less fortunate kids is a state of siege, a confinement with virtually no escape route.
There is a popular Igbo saying to the effect that since you can never be sure of when you may suffer an injurious fall, you wouldn't ask your fellow to have boiling water preserved for you. A literary interpretation of this adage may never make any meaning. But, a figurative interpretation will throw light on the rationale behind the saying that no condition is permanent. You begin to countenance how unpredictable and deceptive this world of ours is, and as a result, one starts to see the need to be his brother's keeper.
Apart from his or her innate impatiences, the average Nigerian man or woman is compassionate. They can be too sympathetic infact. That is. They embarrass you with too much sympathy, but, yet many in the society cannot understand why the folks they feel so much sympathy for have to cohabit with them. But, would you blame them? It is true that some of the disabled persons in our society have managed through the rigorous and the tearful experience of tertiary education. A smaller percentage of this lot have jobs they can rely on. Thousands more are not so lucky. It is still the case even today that being handicapped is synonymous with eking out a living by begging.
I was once drawn into a truly eye-opening discussion with an amiable friend who happened to be a newspaper topshot. He was inquisitive as to why, for instance, a visually handicapped person should want to study law. In other words, why he would have preferred to go through so much pain en route to getting called to the bar to be followed by the almost unbelievable ordeals competition and "hazard" of law practice not least involving a blind practitioner.
How could such a disabled folk successfully practice journalism, for instance? In a society as "backwardly" Third world" as ours," would it not be better that a person who is crippled, for instance, stayed back home and be looked after and provided for rather than wanting to work and thus exposing himself to the dangers of busy roads and public buildings whose design lack the requisite architectural adjustments to the special circumstance of the handicapped? My friend, no doubt spoke the minds of any bus conductor on the street, a bank executive, a lecturer in the classroom or even the "widely travelled" diplomat, and they sing the same tune; that the society is too ill-prepared and too ill-conditioned to accommodate the aspirations and interest of millions of disabled Nigerians.
But did the Almighty God decree it so? If he did. I admonish that the status quo should continue. If he did, then let us continue to allow bedrocks of academic excellence and vocational centres for the handicapped like the Pacelli School and the Wesley Primary for the deaf, fall apart and decay.
Universities should then be further discourage, from admitting members of Nigeria's handicapped fraternity into their ranks. The government and the more guilty private sector should continue, undeterred, as the very one who propagate lip-service policy when it comes to helping these unfortunate members of our society achieve proper and genuine societal integration. But, if on the other hand the creator never intended it that these deprived lot should wallow under societal siege, then, let the truly God-fearing compatriot, whether in government or not, turn a new leaf and take practical steps to improve the lot of the disabled.
It is my opinion that those who have the ability to do work or the will and determination to serve as pace-setters for others should be encouraged. The reason for this opposition is as simple as it is undeniable. For example, United Nations (U.N.) estimate tells us that no less than 10.5 million Nigerians fall into the category of the blind, the deaf and dumb, the crippled, amputee and mentally retarded. This is by no means a small minority of the citizens of this country. If anything, they constitute a large percentage of Nigerians who have various things to offer towards the development of our country, whether economically, politically or socially.
We know it, or don't we? That more and more of this category of Nigerians have excelled or distinguished themselves in different fields or life endeavours, such as, the legal profession, medicine, the arts, music, teaching, the sciences and the like. However it's heart rending to note that the prejudices and setbacks they encounter everyday in the land of their birth, as a result of their physical or metal handicap are almost unparalleled anywhere in the world.
Furthermore, the same U.N statistical data also says that, out of the over 10 million figure of handicapped Nigerians, up to 3 million can be classified as either totally bind or suffering from other serious forms of visual handicap. In particular, the blind are the hardest hit by the well-known societal and monumental problems facing the generality of the handicapped citizens of this country.
Take employment for example, they are usually the least to be considered and for that many of them will toil through the rigours and challenges of formal education in Nigeria, only to graduate and not fine jobs to go into. Educationally, they are the ones who can't find books to read; they are the ones who have no research centres or facilities provided for them; they are the ones who must devise their own means to coup with their sighted counterpart, in terms of producing braille text books, hand-outs, lecture or lesson note, mathematics equipment and the like.
Because of inflation, and the absence of a clear-cut policy on educating the disabled. Most blind pupils and students who are fortunate to be schooling have to rely on the goodwill of NGOs and philanthropic bodies to enable them procure writing, reading and other special aids for their studies. The reason is that most parents can ill afford to buy even the least expensive of these special aids. One result is that most blind children either wouldn't get to be admitted into schools or many of those who do, end up falling by the way side for want of sponsorship. Another consequence is this: more and more visually handicapped folks find themselves with no other alternative but to seek for help from among the so-called service-above-self organisations. To be honest, some of these organsiations and individuals are doing their best to give the lives of their beneficiaries a meaning.
But, how far can they go? And how much can they really achieve, considering the enormity and the scale of the problem at hand? The truth is, the problem at hand is a fundamental one. What these philanthropic organisations and individuals can do and have done amount to know more than mere drop of water in the ocean. In this, are government, particularly the federal government of Nigeria, has a great role to play, no one can fault this view, because it's the government, not private organisations, that can remove or reduce the duties and tariff on imported aids for the handicapped. It's the government, not they, that has the power to subsidise the cost of educating some of it's less fortunate citizens. In particular its the government, and not any private body or individual, that has the wherewithal to introduce the policy of affirmative action or disabled empowerment - call it what you may - with the one overriding aim of helping to secure the economic and educational future of the handicapped ones.
This is by no means too much to ask, and President Olusegun Obasanjo who has often shown himself to be a crusade for the deprived and marginalised has the chance, given to him by God, to take the bull by the horn and begin the match towards change. First, let the will and the zeal to take up this fight be established. Maybe, in the not-too-distant future Nigeria would have had laws which mandate government parastatals, as well as the multi-nationals doing business in our country, to live open employment quotas for qualified handicapped job-seekers.
Furthermore, our country is big and rich enough to accommodate such a relatively cheap project as a national library for the blind, for example. We have also seen it being done in other countries where for instance certain court of law, such as, the Supreme Court, have specially - designated sessions of their libraries, where visually handicapped lawyers and the like can have access to required materials. Similarly through the National Universities Commission (NUC) the government should be able to put in place a policy which shall require every tertiary institution in the country, which has a certain percentage of disabled student to provide assistance which must be geared towards the enhancement of the accommodation and research need.
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