Member-only story
About Me— Afashima Moses
The sad fate of persons with disability in Nigeria
Nigeria is home to more than 27 million people that are suffering from one form of disability to another. My intention in this article is not to achieve academic perfection but to tell you, the reader, the pains of persons with disabilities in Nigeria as far as my emotions can tell the story. So, kindly read to the end.
I was born in the month of November, 1998 in the village of Ijoh in Benue State, popularly known in Nigeria as the food basket of the nation. Statistics has it that Benue state is the largest producer of yams world wide but now I am not too certain because insecurity and banditry has raped the our land and all we care now is survival.
When I was born, people said that I was a star and the future was gravely smiling at me. My people loved me even wild animals too. When I was 3 months old, precisely February of 1999, a mad woman visited our village from a distant village in search for what she called her son. She was rebuffed, but she will soon shock everybody. My mother told me that at about 3 AM, the mad woman came knocking on her door, calling for her son, which was me. Mom, still very young, began to fear and yell curses. The mad woman told everyone that cared to listen that I was her son, and she called me Moses with lots of prayers.
