Do the indigent know it’s Christmas?

EBENEZER ADUROKIYA, HENDRIX OLIOMOGBE and INIOBONG EKPONTA peep into the existential lives of beggars across the Niger Delta at Christmas in this report.

Yuletide comes once in a year. If for no other reason, the fun and razzmatazz that accompany the season are nuances to always look forward to when the season arrives. But this 2020 Christmas celebration is unique in all shapes. Think of the all-conquering COVID-19 pandemic and its attendant economic woes across nations of the world.

Being a season to demonstrate love and kindness by sharing with others, the economic woes in the country have posed an impediment in achieving these annual rituals. If business entrepreneurs, public and civil servants are feeling the excruciating fangs of the biting economic woes, one could only wonder what the lot of unemployed and the underprivileged such as destitute would be.

For Mrs Ngozi Ogbonna, an indigene of Ebonyi who resides in Warri, this Christmas isn’t the best of times. The mother of three children – one girl and twin boys, who suffers hearing impairment and her husband, blind, daily routinely combs every nook and cranny of the commercial city and beyond to eke a living. Her family enjoys benevolence of their landlord who takes things easy with them when payment of rents is not done as and when due. For her kind in Delta, Christmas period is like any other day without money.

“I can’t hear properly and my husband is blind. I go to different places begging for money to take care of my family. My husband also goes about asking for alms. I go to Sapele, Jakpa and other places to beg for money,” she said while fielding questions at the gate of Sacred Heaŕt Catholic Church, Warri.

How will Christmas be for a family that solely depends on alms for survival? Mrs. Ogbonna dropped her face as if something had fallen from the sky for her, letting out her verdict in a rather husky voice: “For us, we do not look forward to Christmas. Christmas day is like every other day because there is no money. I want the government to help me out because I need money. I want to go into business. People still give me alms, but not as it was.”

For 39-year-old Daniel Oghenerukevwe Okiti, an indigene of Eku in Ethiope East Local Government Area of Delta State, who was also sighted at the premises of the Catholic Church, Christmas period is usually a harvest period for folks like him in the church, but could be different this yuletide due to the COVID-19 pandemic and its global economic effects. The graduate of College of Education, Warri, who became crippled as a result of misapplication of medication for measles at infancy, blamed the current hardship the underprivileged are going through on the current administration.

The father-of-two, who said he usually makes at least N1,500 to N2,000 daily but currently owing his landlord seven months’ rent commended the church for its hospitality outreaches,  especially during festivities like this.

“The church is trying. They always answer when you complain. I do a lot of work for the church. I take care of the flowers and kill the grasses around the interlock stones, though I’m not paid, but when I ask the priest for anything, he responds,” he enthused, adding that he opted out of the association of physically-challenged individuals due to sharp practices while calling on government to engage them more in entrepreneurial trainings.

Popular Hausa Quarters in Warri South is home for many beggars with different deformities. Forty-year-old Abdullahi Mohammed is from Zamfara State. Proud of being in possession of three wives and 10 children, the wheelchair-bound beggar stated: “I wasn’t born with this deformity. When I was very young, I woke up one afternoon and saw that my leg was swollen. So many herbal remedies were administered. I was indoors for seven years. After those seven years, I decided to amputate the leg. I have been asking for alms since then.”

The leader of Kainuwa Da’shik Allah, an association of beggars, who has been in the business for over 20 years and pays an annual rent of N50,000 to his landlord in Warri, said the duty of the group was to seek God’s face in prayers for daily assistance from helpers.

According to him, this year’s Christmas celebration is characterised by financial drought. “In previous years, we looked forward to Christmas season, we would be given alms. Unfortunately this year, people hardly give us money. It is because of the state of the country.”

For the inmates at Project Charilove, Benin, it is Christmas like no other

For Mr. Chris Omusi, founder of Project Charilove, reaching out to the the destitute in the society will always be his passion. It was in realisation of this that Omusi set up the Project Charilove, where he cares for society’s downtrodden  in Benin. A visually impaired resident of Charilove home for the destitute, Mr. Godstime Ayodele, 24, from the small town of Uokha, Owan East Local Government Area of Edo State insisted that no matter his condition, he would always know it is Christmas.

Godstime, a primary five pupil of the school for the visually impaired which is located within Project Charilove compound narrates the painful episode of his life since infancy.

He lost his sight at a very tender age and never really knew his mother. The last in a polygamous family of two wives, his father died when he was a child and lived with his uncle at rural Igue Oshodinebodi, Ovia North East Local Government Area of Edo State until he found refuge at the home about two years ago.

The aspiring computer scientist said that on December 25, he hopes to go worship at St Joseph’s Catholic Church on First East Circular Road and takes time off to make merriment after the service. Christmas, he said, means love.

He said that he would have loved to go out in company of other residents of the home and but for the hard times.

For Miss Faith Maduike,17, from Okigwe, Imo State, a Senior Secondary School 3 student of Dorenuma College, Warri in neighbouring Delta State, Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ.

Faith said that she came from Warri over the weekend for the Christmas holiday to spend time with her mother who is deaf and his younger brother, Marvelous, 11. Her mother is a seamstress and teacher at the special school located within the premises.

Giggling, the teenager said: “Christmas is all about happiness and the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. I’ll celebrate Christmas by going to church and have fun. It is all about happiness.”

One of the caregivers at the facility, Madam Ineghodor, 75 from Igun street, Benin, confessed that the love of the children is the primary motivation for taking up the tedious job of caring for them.

The widow explained that as part of her schedule, she would have to bathe the physically challenged residents living in the facility, clean up their rooms, feed and wash their clothes.

“It’s God that gives me the strength to take care of them. I enjoy the job. The children have become part of my life and I love them. I have four biological children but I see the children at Charilove as my children too. That’s how I treat them,” she said.

It’s lamentation of neglect, exclusion in Akwa-Ibom

People With Disabilities (PWDs) in Akwa Ibom State have expressed displeasure over their plight, lamenting that stigmatisation has become their lot as the rest of the active population view them with disdain over deformities they said were not their fault.

“Nature cannot be queried over whatever condition anyone finds themselves in this earthly sojourn because we did not create ourselves,” laments Peterson Isangedidhi, a blind member of PWDs in the state.

“We have been trying to show the world that in spite of our condition, we can also do well and contribute also to the development of the society, but government’s encouragement through empowerment is not consistent,” he said.

Disclosing that they only depend on the inconsistent intervention of some nongovernmental organisations (NGOs), Isangedighi appealed to the state government to, as a matter of deliberate policy, capture them in the yearly budget.

Effiong Bassey, also a member of the Akwa Ibom PWDs suffering from polio infection from birth, said “I have been surviving from handouts and freebies from sympathetic members of the society.

“I have been in this condition from birth and my parents who used to care for me are dead and I now live a forlorn and isolated life and depend on family relatives and friends for daily living. Most of the times, I sleep in the church in my local community in Ibiono Ibom Local Government Area.

“Usually during festivities, we would have fun through NGOs that would organise parties for us so that we would feel happy that we are also members of the larger society. We have been hoping this season should be palatable for us because we have the same blood running in our veins.”

“For me, I have been facing the challenge of moving about on wheelchair because of stroke that forced me to be bedridden for years until an NGO came to my rescue and donated a wheelchair that enables me to move round begging. As a father of two, I have to move round to be able to bring little income to complement what my wife brings everyday from selling used clothes at Itam market”, Mfon Stephens, a physically challenged person from Itu Local Government Area laments.

Worried by the plights of the physically challenged in the state, the Senator representing Akwa Ibom Northeast, Obong Bassey Albert Akpan, took time off to fete 520 of them at his Constituency Office at Ewet Housing Estate, Uyo, where he doled out Christmas packages and vocational training for self-independence.

The beneficiaries drawn from the nine Local Government Areas that made up the zone were, apart from the Christmas package, enlisted to be trained in the areas of soap making, shoe making, fixing of cell phones and other Information and Communication Technology (ICT) skills.

Besides, the beneficiaries were given facilities including wheelchairs, hearing aids, crutches, mobile phones and guide canes.

Addressing the beneficiaries, Senator Akpan said that “the programme was conceived based on the huge number of the physically challenged persons in my constituency and made possible by the 2020 budget in collaboration with the Border Community Development Agency (BCDA).”

Akpan, Chairman of the House Committee on Petroleum Upstream, who was represented by Dr. Unyime Okon, added that “financial packages have also been added to them to enjoy the season and to start up their trades in various fields of training.”

However, Mrs. Lilian Elechi of the BCDA, commended Senator Akpan, for his kind intervention to assuage the feelings of the handicapped during the Christmas season and charged other well-to-do members of the public to follow suit.

Responding on behalf of the beneficiaries, Asuquo Umoren was full of praise for the senator, even as he expressed optimism that the intervention “will go a long way towards our realisation of the fact that there is ability in disability.”

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