Diamonds In Disability

Diamonds in Disability

All rights reserved. No part of this book should be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage retrieval system without written permission of the publishers.

ISBN: 978 - 2901- 04 - 0

Published in the Federal Republic of Nigeria by High Calling Outreach Publications, Port Harcourt. High Calling Outreach Publications is the publishing arm of the High Calling Outreach, a literature evangelism ministry which distributes Christian literature and garners support for battered women, abused widows and the destitute.

High Calling Outreach Publications

4, Ndashi Street, D-Line, Port Harcourt.

E-mail: highcallingoutreach@yahoo.co.uk

Phone: 08023648834

Author’s contact address:

Kenneth Yali Diouf

E-mail: gospeloperations@yahoo.com

Phone: 08057149258 (Text Message)

www.workersforjesus.com/dfi/s-215.htm

Dedication

God

Dr. Andrew Jackson Foster

(The Father Of Deaf Education In Nigeria And Africa)

Chief Israel I.N. Ohia (Port Harcourt)

Pastor Christopher Briggs (Port Harcourt)

Dr. Steve Ogan (Port Harcourt)

Pastor Joshua Gyang (Jos)

Pastor Uche Nwode G.G. Promise (Enugu)

Evangelist Emmanuel Ogbonna (Aba)

Uncle Sunday Kassim Raufu (Ibadan)

People With Varied Disabilities

Acknowledgements

As our book goes out to the public, we are deeply obliged to acknowledge the contribution of outstanding individuals whose involvement with the deaf has so encouraged us as to culminate into the production of this little book.

Sir (Dr.) Peter Odili: the Executive Governor of Rivers State, whose administration has been making impressive moves with the view of improving the conditions of disabled people in the State. The magnanimity of the Governor has given many disabled people in the State reason to smile and look forward to a brighter future.

Dr. & Mrs. Steve Ogan: we thank God for the openness and generosity of the couple in welcoming the hearing-impaired into their home at great personal cost to themselves notwithstanding the risks and trials involved. Dr. Steve Ogan proofread and edited the book before providing the necessary encouragement toward its publication.

Chief Israel I.N. Ohia and Pastor Christopher Briggs: the two are elders with great understanding. Their availability, kindness and fatherly attitude coupled with practical concern for the hearing-impaired have sustained us to survive tough times and to continue on a minor scale our Christian religious activities among the deaf.

The Nigerian Press: tabloids such as The Punch, The Guardian, Daily Sun, The Champion, The Vanguard and The National Tide have taken special care to cover issues relating to the disabled community. Clippings from these tabloids have greatly aided in no small measure to bring into full-blown spotlight some of the problems of the handicapped.

Deaf Individuals: who are too numerous to mention here, who are interesting, well-informed and observant, provided us with valuable detailed information over the years on the potentials, strengths, weaknesses and failures of our deaf community.

The Nigeria Police Force: it has on several occasions helped to guarantee the safety and safe return back home of stolen deaf girls when certain leaders and concerned deaf persons in the deaf community reported to them cases of girls snatched from homes and schools, and forced to labour in the begging industry.

Gallaudet University (U.S.A.): Darrick Nicholas (Media Coordinator) allowed us to reprint a news release about Dr. Andrew Jackson Foster, the famed educator of the deaf African in the twentieth century.

You wrote this book! Every one of you is an author!

We pray that God Almighty will bless you all in Jesus’ name.

Kenneth Yali Diouf, July 2005

Preface

I do not remember exactly where and when I first sat down to start writing this book. But I do recall that I did a great deal of writing and rewriting of this book in Warri (Delta State, Nigeria) between March and August 2000. It was also here that the manuscript was first typeset.

The inspiration to write came during my itinerant evangelistic trips among the deaf in the Niger Delta. The inspiration has its background, partly, in my concentrated reading and study of one of my pet magazines, namely, the Christian Women Mirror magazine of the Deeper Christian Life Ministry. In this material and others from the same ministry, there is a lot of high-powered information and teachings on child training and the discipleship of youths. The writers occasionally focused on the disabled. I read reports of people with disabilities in other lands that did stunning things because of their environments’ positive attitudes toward them as peculiar children/youths.

My eyes were opened and directed now to look more closely at the disabled people among us. I was predisposed to observe and listen more attentively to them. Truly, I began to see and to hear of a great deal of wretchedness and neglect. This was in sharp contrast to the privileges disabled persons enjoyed in developed countries. Then I also saw reports in our media about the confinement of the disabled in our land. And as I moved from place to place and associated with deaf people in camp meetings, social gatherings, homes, and schools in Abia, Anambra, Bayelsa, Delta, Edo, Enugu, and Rivers States I became aware of their numerous problems. There were tales of oppression, victims of rape, divorcees, and attempts on their lives by ritual killers, rejection of parental authority, and absence of constituency in the Government to defend this people and protect their rights.

One is then led to understand that somebody or a group of people somewhere have failed to do what ought to be done to guide and properly disciple deaf youths. Preaching the gospel to them is not enough since that alone cannot assuage their frustrations and lack of guidance; there must be a sustained and relentless corresponding participation from parents, Government, and Churches to save these youths from the myriads of tragedies confronting them. The situation is quite heart breaking.

We woke up several years ago in the Niger Delta to see the phenomenon of the begging industry thriving after being imported from outside the region. This evil industry has deepened the predicament of many deaf youths. Hundreds of them got caught in the fearsome and potentially destructive net in search of solutions to their unbearable problems.

We thought it is necessary to efficiently document part of the development in a book so leaders of the disabled community, social workers, parents and Deaf Churches could get the real picture of the dangers to which the disabled are exposed. In writing we have, on purpose, talked about the aggravation of the state of affairs by the deaf themselves. (We have no sacred cows!) It is worth noting that not every significant and attention-grabbing issue negatively affecting the deaf in our community has been discussed here. The scope of a greater percentage of our observations and reports is set in the Niger Delta. There may be other more critical issues in the lives of the deaf in other parts of the Federation. Somebody else will do well to come out with an informative and sensitizing book on such issues. There will never be any development and meaningful changes in any community of people unless information about needs, problems, and pathetic plight of that community is documented and divulged. Unless that is done there can be no vision for strategic and tactical action for effecting positive change.

The Preamble to the United Nations Charter

“We the people of the United Nations determined

To save succeeding generations from the scourge of war which twice in our life time has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and

To reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and

To establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and

To promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom, and for these ends

To practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neigbhours, and

To unite our strength to maintain international peace and security, and

To ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed forces shall not be used, save in the common interest, and

To employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples, have resolved to combine our efforts to accomplish these aims.

Accordingly our respective governments, through representatives assembled in the city of San Francisco, who have exhibited their full powers found to be in good and due form, have agreed to the present Charter of the United Nations and do hereby establish an international organization to be known as the United Nations”.

Jan Christian Smuts of South Africa is credited with drafting the preamble.

LIFE FOR THE DEAF IN NIGERIA

“The word ‘Corruption’ has become a household word that is not only mentioned but practised at different levels by people in the society as if it is normal. Some have come to believe that we cannot exist without corruption; it is a way of life. Others feel that it is the condition that has necessitated the practice, which though bad, cannot be helped.

“Suffice it to say that the origin of corruption is as old as creation (Genesis 3) when Eve’s mind was poisoned, corrupted and she fell into the trap. Ever since we have continued to read about the practice of corruption in the Bible, the Word of God. It is, however, condemned throughout the scriptures as a sin. There is no country in the world that is not corrupt. The only difference being in the magnitude. Unfortunately research has shown that Nigeria is rated as the second most corrupt (now third after Haiti and Bangladesh as at October 2004) country in the world. What a pity! This is a disgrace. We need to return to God, repent and change our attitudes. Don’t be quick at pointing accusing fingers at others. Are you ‘pure’ or ‘blameless’ in your ways? How many times have you kept mute when you were supposed to speak out on a situation you were a witness to? Church leaders have compromised their stand. Why? Partly because some of them, if not most, are stakeholders in the practice of corruption.

“The government’s determination to fight corruption must be supported by all. The strategy to fight corruption should be encompassing to include education in primary, secondary and tertiary institutions. Awareness campaigns that will correct our values positively should be mounted. Religious leaders, particularly the clergy, need to constantly preach against this vice in churches and gatherings if we are to move forward, and to redeem our lost image”(Christian Rural and Urban Development Association of Nigeria. January-March 2004 Newsletter).

Nigeria is a regional power in the West African sub-region. The nation is also referred to as the Giant of Africa because of the awesome abundant human and natural resources with which God has endowed her. Nigeria wields political and economic power as well as great moral influence, not only in the West African sub-region, but also in the whole of Africa. In various disciplines, Nigeria has over the years carved herself an enviable niche. This is obvious in the fields of international sports, academics and belief in and promotion of the Christian faith so much so, that a recent survey declared Nigerians to be the most religious people in the world. In the twilight of Nigeria’s imminent walk into the limelight (we believe Nigeria will by and by become a titanic power to reckon with, taking a grandiose leadership role in the world), we know and accept that Nigeria is reputedly the third most corrupt nation on the face of the earth after Haiti and Bangladesh. But this negative characteristic and dark portrayal of Nigeria should not be so exaggerated as to project a bleak picture, which suggests that there is no good in the country. Good abounds; good exists in this great country in spite of localized religious riots, tribal and/or ethnic conflicts, rising tide of insecurity, widespread fraud / defalcation/embezzlement, and other forms of debilitating social ills in both low and high places that blight the name of this country. There are good God-fearing, honest, and kind men and women; generous and respectable godly youths and children in Nigeria.

Then there is a growing teeming population of a particular group of people found in every nook and cranny of the political entity. This particular group of people can be categorized or compartmentalized as follows:

The frustrated. The disappointed. The cheated. The ignoramus. The smart and enterprising. The educated. The brilliant. The aspiring. The outcast. The hopeless. The tortured and oppressed. But who are these people that make up this particular group of humans? Well, they are the deaf people of Nigeria. And if a great number of them should be called by any other name, it would appear as if they all carry one and the same identical label: BELEAGUERED! Beleaguered in a nation that is the second (now third) most corrupt in the world. They are beleaguered in terms of lack of adequate educational opportunities. They are besieged in terms of denial of fairness in the area of healthy, respectful, and good attitude toward all in day-to-day social interaction. At times they are limited in terms of courage to aspire to greater heights because of poor self-image and timidity. Many deaf youths breed and maintain the mentality that although they are in the world, it is not theirs to explore, conquer, and enjoy. We think things are this way because of the repressive activities of hearing people who fear forceful, aggressive, and brilliant deaf people would one day occupy better and higher positions to the end that they (hearing counterpart) become subjects of deaf persons. There are stories about the denial of opportunities to the deaf that should rightly be theirs. They are taken and dashed against the flinty rock of societal repression. They are then wounded or crushed psychologically, cowed into timidity through oppression and neglect.

The Deaf: An Untapped Human Resource

Nigeria possesses an incredible wealth of promising and intelligent deaf people. Unfortunately, they are incapacitated to the end that they are unable to realize their full potentials, courtesy of mediocre attitude of both society and Federal and State Governments towards them. It is then inevitable for them to wake up one day and begin to smart under gnawing pain that their dreams have not been actualized. They find themselves and their potentials wasted and rotten in a country that should have meticulously taken judicious notice of their usefulness and ability to amount to anything so as to add to the purported greatness of their country. A Nigerian writer, Wole Soyinka (a literary icon, to be precise) once coined the phrase “wasted generation”. He was making reference at the manner in which this generation of young people is not guided by way of yielding the dividends of potentials lying untapped in them. Many deaf people in Nigeria fall into this dismal picture. “The 1991 census conducted by the National Population Commission put the number of deaf and dumb people at 194,135. These statistics confirm that the deaf and dumb constitute nearly half or well over 45% of all disabled persons in this country. With their numerical strength and visibility, the expectation is that the three tiers of government would exploit and harness their creative potentials for socio-economic and intellectual progress.” Sadly, there has not been any resolute move on the part of the Government to take advantage of the power of the deaf.

Consequently, it is grievous but not surprising to see a sizeable number of intelligent and brilliant young Nigerian deaf men and women taking to a shameful way of life that includes begging for money in streets, in business centres, and in Government offices. Some are involved in high-risk professional prostitution. Others float pretentious phantom organizations on stationary with the sole aim of extorting funds from the Government and certain unsuspecting industrial companies---just to survive because the harsh frustration is too much to bear. Of course, those among the deaf people with frustrated and impaired morale have no choice but to engage in questionable activities and fake representations that would yield them no mean gains. The phenomenon has become a legitimate way of life and source of income for which the law does not arrest them, and for which they feel now qualms in public and in the light of abundant opportunities for decent living. This is the grip of the spectre of corruption on many Nigerian deaf youths. These are a beleaguered people!

The proneness to corruption and waywardness of some of our deaf youths is fanned to blazing embers in their immediate homes because of the sad way they are treated there. In many homes where one or two children happen to be deaf, the parents usually do not understand the great difficulties associated with deafness and its effect on those that are affected by it. They don’t seem to understand that a deaf child or youth is simply different from a normal child either psychologically or otherwise. Parents and relations often do not perceive that peculiar children/youths require special attention, special consideration, special handling, means and needs if he or she is to become a functioning and well-adjusted member of the family and society at large. This defect in perception has spawned the proliferation of misconception and prejudice against the deaf in some homes. The impediment in perception and the failure to find and apply the necessary measures for the effective training of the deaf are one of the major causes behind the apparent lack of moral and spiritual training in the lives of many deaf youths. Many of these youths carry intractable characters and dispositions. So they are abandoned to themselves, rejected---and cursed! They are judged as useless, demonized, and difficult. Elsewhere they are outrightly discriminated against in their immediate families. While their normal siblings are given the best education, the unfortunate deaf ones are given a slipshod raw deal---oppressed and burdened with many chores in the home, and placed in public schools for the deaf where the teachers lack sterling commitment, and the educational resources specially suited to their condition are not available. Some deaf people are thought to be incapable of learning.

Fruitful result-oriented seminars and workshops on orientation toward deafness and the deaf on a regular basis are unheard of in the country. If they are heard of, they are sporadic. And even if they are there, what drastic measures have they initiated to defend the rights and persons of the deaf?

At the end of the day, the deaf that don’t feel loved, appreciated and understood unconditionally at home eventually run away to struggle on their own. Majority of runaway deaf boys and girls seek and join deaf groups living in rented brothels and hostels. Here they live together like “refugees from war zones”.

These “refugee camps” do not solve any problem; they worsen matters. For they become centres or hotbeds of bloody fights and noisy quarrels as they provoke one another and prey on one another to the utter shock and consternation of hostel and brothel owners. Miserable deaf girls in search of warm love get pregnant here and deliver babies, only to abandon them in order to escape battering. Moreover the “dwelling camps” are turned into centres for the consolidation and expansion of the begging business. Ideas are hatched and groomed here for the mastering of the art of seduction and stealing of naïve (teenage) deaf girls.

Dipsomania and illicit enjoyment of sex hold sway over their souls. Sex and begging are their means of survival for years on end. Poor deaf youths. Who will love them? Who will understand them? Who will rescue them?

In some homes where parents cannot, or have deliberately chosen not to, pay for the furtherance of the education of their deaf daughters they jealously keep them at home year after year for fear that the girls would be spoilt and sexually abused. This way many deaf girls, and even deaf boys, remain locked up at home till they have grown into ripe adults. Then they come out into the world with tiny residual recollection of sign language, or with none at all. Worse still, they emerge thorough illiterates, not knowing anything beyond their own names, which they can scribble on paper or recognize when written by someone else. Others have no knowledge of the first six letters of the alphabet. For others the literacy level drops sharply, causing them to have a hard time trying to read or write a letter. Many towns have (residential) schools for the deaf, but a great number of parents and guardians are not aware that such schools exist. The ignorance is the result of the poor publicity these schools enjoy in print and electronic media.

The good news is that there are homes where deaf people are greatly loved and respected and provided for by their parents and relations. Opportunities are created or sought for them to improve their education and economic life. These privileged deaf people are either self-employed or are in the employ of private companies and the Government. They turn out to pay back in the same coin what had been invested in them---they provide in cash and kind to the development and maintenance of their parents, sisters and brothers’ economic, moral and spiritual lives. Their moral standards and level of self–discipline are remarkably high and admirable. Some of these respectable deaf individuals have an enviable regard for the Bible and are regular at weekly church services. Some deaf persons have been instrumental in turning some, if not all, of their family members to God. After the deaf persons heard of God and Christ, they repented of their evil deeds and desired that their family members would repent. God rewarded the witness with positive results, and one or two members of the family would enter the service of God. Moreover, they have their own families.

Biased Allegations and Prejudices against the Deaf

Now let us see what society’s attitude toward the deaf is. They allege that:

“They are useless”.

“They cannot learn”.

“They are sexually immoral”.

“They are stupid”.

“They are beggars, lazy and irrational”.

“They are difficult to handle, especially the uneducated ones”.

“They have no minds of their own.”

The above quotations are only a few of the labels used to stigmatize the deaf in our society. More often than not the incriminating remarks are exaggerated and unfairly applied. It once used to be thought that the deaf cannot be educated---taught to read and write because of being deprived of their hearing sense. But the advent of western missionaries/educators in the twentieth century changed all this mindset, and Governments took up the issue of Deaf Education by embarking on projects geared toward making education available to the deaf.

Yet utmost respect for the persons of the deaf has not pervaded the whole of society in spite of the visibility of the grace of education in their lives. Every society has its bad elements. So does the world or society of the deaf. It is rather puzzling to society how deaf persons who apparently seem to pass for innocuous humans could exhibit certain dreadful and scandalous moral flaws hitherto thought not to be a constituent part of their character. Society has become unduly prejudiced against the deaf as a result, to some extent, and taken their prejudices out of proportion. They now hold that the deaf are all squarely alike in character content and very much prone to display in their comportment one or several of the above quotations at the slightest opportunity. In some places they are under constant suspicious and surreptitious surveillance.

Some hearing persons have thought that marriage to a deaf person may not present many of the difficulties and impossible crises they meet with when sharing lives with non-deaf partners. So they entertain great expectations of smooth matrimonial life, not fully realizing that there are sure necessary adjustments to make since deaf people too exhibit character flaws, just like normal people. Well, deafness or any other disability does not annihilate or reduce the explosion of a deaf or disabled person’s true colours.

On account of being taken for individuals without minds of their own, as stupid, irrational, society has criminally shown what it is: an oppressor of the deaf. There are those in our society to whom deaf people are not human beings or are lesser humans to be exploited sexually and used for economic gains. We have countless instances of deaf girls being lured into places by non-deaf persons, and then raped. And since they do not have a viable organization and no lawyers forbidding the abuse of deaf persons, they hardly get justice. Many of our deaf girls carry deep festering emotional wounds, and are yoked with illegitimate children.

The inheritances due to deaf persons after the death of a parent are taken away or denied them. This cruel attitude has set many of them on the precipice of economic hardships and moral debauchery. There are few instances of where their rights are defended and protected and implemented by their relations. Quite often the general decay in the world of the deaf here is the immediate reflection of the general society. They are not listened to. They are thought to have no human right except to be available for society to enrich itself at their expense, and for society to wake up one day and call them names. “But society is the criminal, not the individual, the vicarious victim – despite what they allege against him” (Professor Tekena Tamuno, a Nigerian historian).

The Deaf and the Blazing Torch of Education

It is practically impossible to speak of the education of the deaf in Nigeria and Africa as a whole without mentioning Dr. Andrew Jackson Foster. So the campaign for the promotion of the education of the deaf in Nigeria dates back to the 1960s. Late Dr. Andrew Jackson Foster, a black American missionary who was reputed to have brought American Sign Language to Africa, first pioneered it. He came to Africa as both missionary and educator of the deaf. Records have it that, through practical example, he was the brain behind persuading State Governments to include the deaf in their countries’ education system. Dr. Andrew Foster set a very practical example for his host African countries by establishing schools for the deaf here and there in Africa.

I here attach excerpts from a pamphlet written by him (with brief history from an information brochure). The contents of the pamphlet are still as relevant and applicable as when delivered as a keynote address at the 7^th World Congress of the Deaf, Washington, D.C., July 31^st to August 8^th, 1975. The only exception is that statistics have more than doubled now.

“A young black American first heard about the spiritual and educational needs of the deaf in Africa from a Jamaican missionary. A few years later he read an article in the January 1948 American Annals for the Deaf titled: SCHOOLS FOR THE DEAF IN THE WORLD. It listed only 10 schools in North and South Africa, but no schools in between. He was deeply challenged. He realized that in order to reach the deaf with the gospel of Jesus Christ, a basic education and an effective means of communication were necessary.

“In 1956, he founded the Christian Mission for the Deaf Africans in Detroit, Michigan, U.S.A. (The name was later modified to Christian Mission for the Deaf, and the home office moved to Flint, Michigan.) As he sent inquiries to Liberia, Ghana, and Nigeria, he learnt of a movement that was beginning in Lagos.

“The next year he launched two schools in Ghana and in 1960 he began a third in Ibadan in western Nigeria. Two others followed at Kaduna and Nsukka in 1965 in northern and eastern Nigeria respectively. Both were closed during the disturbance (civil war) in 1967. After the war the Nsukka School merged with Government School in Enugu. And in 1974, the Ibadan Mission School for the Deaf merged with what is now the Ibadan School for the Deaf in the Sango Area of the city.

“This pioneer of the (first) three Deaf Schools in Nigeria had long felt the need for a Christian Centre for the Deaf. This centre was to provide for not only spiritual, social and recreational gatherings, but was to also serve as a Bible Institute for the deaf and a field base for the Christian Mission for the Deaf. In 1972, the Lord God provided for the present premises at Onireke---Ibadan.

“Before acquiring the Centre, the Mission launched a church in Yaba---Lagos, and an annual camp held mostly at the Nigerian Youth Camp. Bible meetings as well as an annual camp in conjunction with Scripture Union were eventually organized in the East…Since 1976 the Centre has served as a base for training new teachers for the deaf from French speaking African countries…

“By ‘far corner’ I mean ‘West Africa’. Though American by birth and formal training, nearly all 18 years of my professional experience has been in Africa putting into practice the principles of ‘full citizenship for all deaf people’. As missionaries, my wife and I have had the privilege of pioneering educational and Christian work among the deaf in Ghana and Nigeria…Many educational problems confront the deaf in Africa.

THE PROBLEM OF INADEQUATE SCHOOLS

“Undoubtedly, the greatest social problem of school-age deaf children in developing countries is the fact that most are not in school. Special provisions are simply insufficient in some areas and wholly lacking in others… Population-wise, let us focus on one of Africa’s 40-plus countries, perhaps Nigeria, the most populous. Of the 70 million people (now 120,000.000 plus) probably 70,000 (currently there are more than 190,000 that) are profoundly deaf, based upon the more or less universal ratio of one deaf person per 1,000 populations. Suppose a third are school age. View them against the approximately 500 (now thousands) students presently attending the (now more than) five residential schools. The magnitude of this social problem could be readily seen. As for Nigeria, this picture may soon change with the country’s new compulsory primary school law and oil revenue…

“What can be done now? Perhaps the first thought that crosses your mind is the establishment of more day classes in sizeable cities and boarding institutions in strategic locations. Ideal suggestions. They should be encouraged! But practical applications may be limited. Ordinary schools, to which units for the deaf are attached, are perpetually struggling for more space. Special day and residential schools, especially the latter, are slow to develop as well as expensive to build and operate---economic factors which may not be so attractive to Governments and voluntary organizations. I am wondering why schools for deaf children cannot be more simple and inexpensive in design and construction, yet sturdy. Funds could go further towards providing additional facilities.

THE PROBLEM OF SPECIAL PERSONNEL

“Closely linked with special facilities are, of course, special personnel, particularly teachers and heads of programs. Fortunately, their number is increasing in Africa, especially with the establishment of training centres in Ghana and Nigeria. Also minimum qualifications of teachers are being raised from the 6^thto the 10^thand 12^th grade levels. Yet the supply in relation to the need is dismally low…”

Ever since Nigeria has produced a sizeable number of educated deaf persons. The deaf are fairly well represented in Nigeria’s education system; they have primary and secondary schools specifically set up for them, with Federal Colleges for the provision of Special Education. The best-known Special Education College in western Nigeria is the Federal College of Education (Special) in Oyo (Oyo State). Hundreds of deaf and non-deaf persons have graduated from this college to become teachers of deaf people. The universities of Ibadan (Oyo State) and Jos (Plateau State) provide Special Education course, and promote with committed urgency the inalienable right of the education of the deaf and other disabled persons. Western Nigeria is the breeding ground of Deaf Intelligentsia. For quantitatively and qualitatively they possess the polishing touches of education in greater measure than their counterparts in the South, East, and North.

Majority of the most useful deaf people with better brains have acquired their tertiary education either at Oyo or in Ibadan or have had a brush with that zone. The Christian Centre for the Deaf (established by Dr. Andrew Foster) has provided rehabilitation, reorientation and spiritual training to the deaf. But still the deaf in Nigeria need political and economic as well as spiritual liberation if they are to prove their mettle. If this should happen, it will have a positive spillover effect on the entire African continent. The emancipation will reverberate from coast to coast. They seem grim set to show what they can do and become if given the chance and opportunity.

What has been provided so far in terms of education is minimal compared to what the deaf envisage should be the necessary facilities really needed to reach the Utopian height education-wise or otherwise. Inadequacy of infrastructure for the deaf, slipshod attitude of society have severely marginalized them. Therefore we have a mighty army of unemployed deaf poor youths. In the throes and heat of frustration most have no choice but to resort to begging. They are a people with impaired morale that compels them to survive by fraudulent and phony representations that yield them no mean profits.

Well, they cannot help it. Society and Government have failed in their duty to the deaf in Africa’s most populous nation. There are very few boarding primary schools in Nigeria sponsored by State Governments. But facilities and logistics given by Governments for use by the deaf in these schools are looted and embezzled by the staff. This leaves the deaf impoverished in more ways than one. It is therefore a normal thing to see a typical deaf youth who is only semi-literate after about 12 years of primary and secondary schools attendance. He or she cannot write simple sentences neither in his own language nor in English language to express his or her thoughts dearly. Courtesy, negligence of some uncommitted teachers, some of whom do not even have good knowledge of sign language.

There are instances of deaf students making assaults on their teachers on grounds that the latter are loot what the Government sends as “welfare packages” to their schools for their use. Intellectual darkness and gross ignorance about many things are some of the problems of deaf youths in Nigeria. The consequence of this is that we have a proliferation of a begging industry. Begging Syndicates exist in some towns. Educated and intelligent deaf men who have [stolen] deaf girls in their employ run some of these criminal bodies.

Future of the Deaf in Nigeria

Succinctly, the future of the deaf in Nigeria is bleak and dismal. They have no social crusaders to campaign for the promotion of preventive and legislative measures to forestall the activities of forces that are out to ravage their collective welfare in a nation where they deserve to be heard and seen and respected. The awareness of their causes and interests are at present at very low ebb. They are relegated to the background or given only minimal attention in Government sports councils in spite of their display of outstanding performance in football, athletics, and badminton, etc. For it seems that society sees more or looks more at their auricular disability and its related problems than their abilities and performance! And since corruption is widely practised by many deaf youths and adults they are partly architects of their own ruin and retrogression. Their future stability is liable to great discomfort. With the current rapid proliferation of fraudulent Begging Syndicates that are tarnishing even the good image of self-employed and respectable deaf women and men, and spoiling their opportunities for better things, we assume it won’t augur well for the deaf in the nearest future. Loss of credibility and trust in the deaf to amount to much is escalating. What a beleaguered people!

Deaf Intelligentsia in Nigeria and abroad can only tackle efficiently and effectively the challenges and threats posed by the infamous Begging Syndicates if the virtue of honesty and integrity will reign supreme in the Deaf Intelligentsia in Nigeria to unite and develop means to combat the putrid odour and damage spread by this infamy. Deaf Intelligentsia should as well campaign for legislation in Federal and State Government offices to put in effect laws and by-laws that would promote the overall interest of the deaf, legislate against oppression, repression, and raw deals.

The dangerous tentacles of notorious Begging Syndicates have penetrated homes and Government schools. They specialize in taking away or stealing deaf girls from these noble institutions and initiating them into the begging life. Naïve deaf girls fall for the baits of promises of grand financial rewards if they should use their feminine charms to yield some specified daily quota of funds for their “masters” or “slave masters”. It is reported by impeccable eyewitnesses that some men have as many as ten or fifteen stolen deaf girls in their devilish industry. We are even informed that when some leaders of the begging industry are tired of some of these girls, they sell them to other syndicate kingpins desirous to have their services. These activities leave in their wake distraught parents who have awakened to the blistering shock of their daughters’ sudden disappearance. Caring and loving parents and relations of deaf girls are seen coming to Deaf Churches and Deaf Schools in hot tears with photographs of their missing children, and appealing for help from whomever could help recuperate their dear children. Certain parents have had to pay someone to go and fetch their children in faraway States. The rescued runaway/stolen deaf girls at times come back with pregnancies, which are often aborted. More deaf girls disappear in the Niger Delta than in any other part of the Federation

In the course of carrying out their infamous activities, these beautiful young girls are inevitably exposed to sexual harassments, ritual killers, human traffickers, etc. In the event of failing to produce the stipulated daily quota of funds, these unfortunate deaf girls must pay for this default in the form of (punitive) sexual hard labour. Some girls have perished here, having lost their lives in brothels and hostels for commercial sex workers. Few managed to escape the strangulating net of the inland human trafficking racketeers and return home to narrate tales of woe. Deaf girls have been trafficked from one city to the other and got so stranded in strange cities that they do not know how to find their way back home. They are successfully used to beg. Some of these deaf girls are foreigners. The Punch (a Nigerian newspaper) reported on Thursday, August 16, 2001 how the “ Abia State Government has expatriated two deaf Cameroonian girls who were used by some Nigerian business men for prostitution and begging. The State Commissioner for Sports and Social Development stated this while briefing the press on Tuesday in Umuahia (Abia State Capital). He said two destitute persons had been repatriated to Akwa Ibom and Kogi States, while ten of such persons had been sent to Amudo in Bende Local Government Area of the State pending proper determination of their State of origin.”

“By what pretensions and protestations of love, and all its powerful charms, promises of marriage, assurance of secrecy and reward, is many a virgin brought to sell her virtue, and honour, and peace, and soul, and all to a base traitor” (Matthew Henry, English Bible Commentator.)

Other escapees continue the begging independently across the country with boys they have chosen to move around with. Some have traversed the Nigerian border to go as far as Senegal, Mali, Niger, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, and where not in the West African sub-region, simply to beg for money. Some of these girls are such inveterate beggars that no amount of persuasive reasoning and logic can succeed in making them change their minds and abandon the dirty job and return home to their parents. One of them told us that she was caught in the crossfire of the civil war that shook Cote d’Ivoire some months ago. Luckily she succeeded in finding her way back to her dear native land.

There was a time deaf people did not practise the act of cohabitation. But of late this ugly phenomenon has become common and widespread among unenlightened, unguided, poor and frustrated deaf youths who feel rejected and abandoned by not so considerate and understanding a society that cares less about their welfare. The phenomenon of cohabitation has spoilt forever the expectation and joy of some loving parents who have hoped to see their deaf youths getting married one day.

Cohabitation has pitched deaf young men against parents of [stolen] deaf girls, who, more often than not, side with their “husbands” to stand against their own parents so that the “union” would not be dissolved. But experience has shown that the union is loveless, devoid of sterling commitment and liable to complete failure, sometimes after children have been born to the illegitimate union. There are instances of the deaf youths’ parents overlooking the shame of cohabitation once children arrive. They come for the babies to look after or craftily take away when either the father or mother does not show interest in them.

Then an old toothless granny would at least forget the depression and loneliness of her old age once she has a grandchild or grandbaby to dandle, kiss, hug and lavish care on before answering the appointment with the grave. Hitherto close-knit family members have suddenly turned into enemies, crafty and hypocritical toward each other over issues relating to the custody of the babies. The arrival of the babies truly has engendered family feuds. The situation is like a cup full of the unsavoury juice of bitterness and joy mixed together. Many other indescribable miseries have accompanied the cohabitation system. Is this the curse associated with cohabitation? The cohabitation syndrome is an obvious characteristic of the deaf in several Niger Delta States, particularly the riverine States. When will society and the Church help them to build legitimate unions?

A most unfortunate thing is the deaf lady who becomes most wretched victim in the event of the collapse of the cohabitation system. Not knowing what to do or where to turn, they will fling themselves into the arms of an apparently sympathetic and more caring fellow that shows up. Or whom they thought would love and be true to them. Again children arrive only for ditching to occur all over again. We have deaf women in permanent divorced state bringing up several children of different biological fathers.

We are led to wonder if the deaf youths in Nigeria are really Nigerians because their native land has so neglected them that all they have to export is the begging business. We are told that there are not as many deaf beggars in other West African countries as we have it here. Intelligence informs us that their deaf hosts overseas are now being taught to see the “dignity” in begging.

In the light of this opprobrium it is imperative for Deaf Intelligentsia at home and abroad to unite to overthrow the forces gathering momentum to militate against the collective future of their women and girls. (The ugly activities of the begging predators have made some regional deaf groups be on high alert. They are mounting formidable vigilance and defence around innocent deaf girls in their towns, protecting them from predatory elements of the Begging Syndicates. In Deaf Churches girls are being warned and admonished against begging monsters.)

Emancipation, economic freedom, liberation, and deliverance from backwardness at the political, economic, intellectual and spiritual levels are what good and godly Nigerian deaf people should seek to achieve.

Nigeria National Association of the Deaf:

A Frustrated Organization?

There is a national association of the deaf. This association has been in existence for more than twenty-nine years. It has branch offices or representatives in almost all States of the Nigerian Federation. But for various reasons the organization could not establish useful infrastructures and measures that would have prevented the current general deadlock in which many deaf people in Nigeria find themselves. Since it is one association found in an environment infested and blighted with corruption it has suffered from frustration. Consequently the hydra-headed obstruction to performance has done damage to great projects some well-meaning members of the body have sought to carry out. Commendable visions and tentative moves toward implementation of such goals could hardly survive under the heat of frustration, which has strangulated or starved to death great long-range projects. When will there be a decisive reshuffle that will demote the corruption ghost and overcome frustration?

Despite what many deaf youths see as the failure of the national association there are individuals that are grateful to the body. It has played laudable roles in legitimately helping them avert unemployment and untold hardship in some ways in some places. The national association of the deaf is still capable of great political and social operations on behalf of the deaf if the crippling agents of corruption are definitely sacked or diplomatically resisted. Sampled out statements coming from voices within the body throw light on the virtue of credibility and seriousness that can be found in the national body. A representative of the Kwara State branch of the association made such selected statements at the 15th Annual General Meeting in Ado- Ekiti State of Nigeria. The speech opened with: “ an achievement is a clothing to cover the nakedness of any Government rule” or “specifically elected executives as ours today” and that “no achievement can excel the capability and resources of its achiever”. Highlighted in the speech are:

1. Education as the highest priority: career counselling for educational placement, which has brought about admission of most of their members into the Federal College of Education (Special) Oyo, Kwara Polytechnic and Technical College.

2. Maintenance of discipline and school standards in conjunction with the school authorities of the Kwara State School for the Handicapped.

3. Full support and encouragement for members in marital issues.

4. Sponsorship to vocational skill acquisition: carpentry and type writing.

5. Renovation/repair works done in collaboration with the National Headquarters of the Kwara State School for the Handicapped.

And contained in the speech delivered by the Niger State branch was the news that although the association is not a political organization, they had made efforts to form a political (State) Association of the Deaf which later registered and merged with United Nigeria Democratic Party (UNDP).

This is why Miss Euphrasia Mbewe (Women’s Co-ordinator of the South African Federation of the Disabled) admonishes that Deaf Associations should ensure that they steer clear of “social injustice” from within the house

The organization, from the time of its inception, has summoned and held tens of Annual General Meetings at the national and State levels with grants from governments and private companies for the purpose. But these have not taken the association and the deaf in general to any worthwhile height. Many reasons account for this trouble. One of them, as we hear, is Government’s poor/ inadequate response. So there could not be much impact made for good on the lives of deaf youths who have attended meeting in droves in the Federal Capital Territory and in State Capitals. The deaf are crying out. The deaf people howl in pain. “The national association has failed to fight disinterestedly for our interests. We are intolerably disappointed!” They allege that disunity, hypocrisy, pretence, lack of accountability and integrity on the part of the national and State leaders have weakened and rendered the body ineffective.

The people are watching to see when this sleeping lazy giant will stop snoring, wake up, and become imaginative and aggressively creative for the sake of its thirsty beleaguered subjects. We are getting wind of imminent visionary separate bodies. Perhaps they will salvage the jeopardized destiny of the deaf. Something serious must be shaping up. Who knows?

The Deaf and the Blazing Torch of the Gospel

The Christian Mission for the Deaf in Ibadan (Nigeria) spearheaded the issue of the evangelization of the deaf on a wider scale. The mission introduced the Bible to the deaf in western Nigeria and established Deaf Churches here and there. It has over the years sponsored deaf persons to Bible Colleges and Seminaries for the continued expansion of the work of Deaf Evangelism. Since its inception more than thirty-five years ago the mission organization has held Christian national camp meetings or retreats and conferences for the spiritual and moral growth of the deaf. It has played a very impressive major role in the integration of deaf persons in the wider society in western Nigeria and elsewhere. It is still working today. Many of the products of this mission organization are useful and productive deaf persons in society. Their enhanced moral standards and spirituality have enabled them to be stable family men and women. Others are deaf pastors, evangelists and preachers. Their religious activities are touching, changing, and saving lives. Deaf persons who were once trainees or members of the Christian Mission for the Deaf are today among the frontline evangelists and preachers of the gospel in the deaf community in Nigeria. They are continuing where late Dr. Andrew Jackson Foster left off.

A sizeable number of hearing Churches are incorporating the deaf in their fellowships across the land and taking care of their spiritual needs. They are, just to mention a few:

Deeper Life Bible Church

Apostolic Faith Church

Independent Baptist Church

Assemblies of God (Nigeria)

Gallaudet University (U.S.A.) Honours Andrew Jackson Foster

(Dr. Andrew Jackson Foster is the first deaf African American to graduate from Gallaudet University. Seventeen years after his death the University planned to immortalize him and his work among the deaf in Africa).

AUDITORIUM WILL CARRY

MONIKER OF FAMED EDUCATOR

“(WASHINGTON) Dr. Andrew Jackson Foster, the father of deaf education in Africa, dedicated his life to the betterment of the deaf and hard of hearing community worldwide. This October, a renovated facility at his alma mater will reopen donning his name.

“During its homecoming, Gallaudet University will unveil the newly renovated Andrew J. Foster Auditorium during a dedication ceremony, scheduled for 4 p.m., Friday, Oct. 22. During the ceremony, organizers will also unveil a bust of the educator, recently donated to the university by the National Black Deaf Advocates.

“Foster, in 1954 becoming the first African American to graduate from Gallaudet College, worked toward achieving his childhood dream of establishing schools for deaf students. Between 1957 and 1987, he established 31 schools and two centers in 13 African countries and a similar number of Sunday Schools/Bible meetings/Churches. The educator died in a plane crash in 1987.

“Gallaudet’s homecoming will take place Oct.22-23, 2004. Festivities will include various alumni reunion activities, sporting events and an Emeritus Club gala honoring those who attended the university 50 years ago. The class of 1954 - Foster’s graduating class - will receive special recognition…”(Reprinted with permission from Darrick Nicholas, Media Relations Coordinator, Gallaudet University.)

Conclusion and Recommendation

A generation of deaf girls is growing with very slim chances of receiving good quality sound education that might assist them to win against the harsh realities of chaotic modern life. They will be fiercely eluded by functional literacy. They will risk becoming economic liabilities. They will be militated against by the forces of evil and oppression operating to overthrow and remove the fibres of high moral standards that have been known to be the bedrocks of strong and healthy individuals and societies. Their future hangs precariously in the balance. Theirs is a virulent steep descent into wholesale misery. This is because there is a dehumanizing rot in some parts of the deaf community in Nigeria.

But the future of deaf people in Nigeria is dependent on their social and economic empowerment, integration and emancipation. We need to be soundly educated and trained as we grow up, so we can take our destinies in our own hands. Public schools for the deaf should be empowered and equipped with proficient and diligent staff. Non-Governmental Organizations with educational programs for the deaf should be encouraged and supported with relevant resources to enable them to render excellent services to the deaf in rural and urban areas. We think that we should not be daunted by the challenges when we look at how we can achieve our aims but rather we should focus on what we can accomplish by taking action now!

LIFE IS AN EXCITING BUSINESS

Life is an exciting business, and most exciting when it is lived for others---Helen Adam Keller, deaf-blind woman

It is when we take special interest in others that we come to know them better, understand their problems and how these affect them generally. Interest in others helps us to know them better so that we are never too quick to pass unjust and unkind judgment over them; we avoid damaging criticism and cruel censorship.

We can only be interested in others when we are ready and willing to live for them and share our lives with them in selfless service. Considerate disposition combined with real interest in a person leads our steps toward judging righteous judgment (John 7:24). The spirit of tolerance, forbearance, fairness and equity guarantees our safe standing in that virtue of judging righteously.

Many people among us do live, and have lived, their lives for others and have consequently come up with pieces of write-ups about the peculiar problems of the ones they sacrificed themselves for; or they have invented and initiated means of promoting the general welfare of the helpless.

Miss Barbara Head is credited with making this observation about deafness; she got some insight into it. She observes: “Deafness, however great or small, is a cage of loneliness. A feeling of sadness, of being left out – unknown to others. It is a language all of its own, unique in its garbled sounds. Hearing is like a distorted radio or a tape playing backward in a cassette recorder. It is a hurt feeling when everyone laughed at the joke except you. Deafness is weeping, crying in frustration to understand a voice, and straining to see the lips move – the interpreter to ears. Deafness is exhaustion from intense listening. It is a battle from beginning to end, a struggle that is not noticed because there is nothing to see.”

Mere Interest in a Little Deaf Girl Builds

Gallaudet University

“Dr. Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet was credited with bringing sign language for the deaf to the United States from France. The college for the deaf in Washington bears his name. It was his interest in a little deaf girl who lived in New England that led Dr. Gallaudet to go to England so that he could learn the sign language for the deaf. Later in Paris he met Abbe Sigard, Head of the French school for the deaf. This school had been formed in 1755 by Abbe De L’epec, inventor of the signs used in France.

“Dr. Gallaudet came back to New England and brought with him an educated deaf young man, Laurent Clere. In 1817, they founded a school for the deaf in Hartford, Connecticut, U.S.A. . Subsequently the schools for the deaf have been established in most States and day schools are conducted in many large cities.

“In most of our large cities the deaf have a clubroom where they meet to play games. Films of silent pictures are often provided by the city recreation department. Sometimes they dance using the clapping of hands to keep time.

“The deaf are of all religious beliefs but because of the small number in any denomination they usually attend the same church. There a special Sunday School programme is provided and hearing person interprets the lesson – and later the sermon – into the sign language.

“The deaf sometimes need hearing friends who can interpret for the doctor in case of illness or to help them obtain employment. It is imperative that they have the help of an interpreter in legal matters. Some concentrated study will enable one to learn the basic symbols.

“Deaf children may enter most state schools at the age of six (6) years and may remain until the age of twenty-one. Vocational and academic education is provided in such schools. It is hard for a parent to see a six-year-old leave home for a residential school, so this is an opportunity for Christian friends to be kind.

“Whether you live in a city, a small town or the country, you can probably find some deaf person who would appreciate your friendship and reading material. In case of sickness or sorrow, visits are specially appreciated by deaf people. Always take a pad and pencil and you will receive hearty replies to your questions. With permission you might mark your deaf friend’s Bible.

“Ninety percent of deaf parents have hearing children. These can be enrolled in Sunday School classes and may be the means of reaching parents with the gospel.

“The deaf are mentioned many times in the Bible. In Exodus 4:11, we read that God created the deaf ear as well as that which can hear. In Leviticus 19:14, God warned His people that they should ‘not curse the deaf’ and in Isaiah 29:18 this promise is found, ‘In that day the deaf shall hear the words of the book.’

“When Jesus came, He ‘made the deaf to hear’ (Mark 7:37) – Can we be less interested in the deaf than was our Lord?” ---Mrs. William Jones.

Treasure Ridden Ground Worth Mining

It was probably in the last three or two centuries that greater awareness of the world of the handicapped shot into lime light. It gripped the attention of the whole world and commanded spectacular awe and respect. The facts that enacted this display of awe and respect have indeed been certain undreamed-of characteristics and potentials in the lives of all categories of handicapped persons. Ripples and shock waves ran through the global human nerves. The pervasion of the shock waves was such, in its stunning effect, that the whole human race could not, or cannot, help chorusing that nothing like this has ever been seen (Matthew 9:33).

The study of history of the distant past does not offer a vintage point, it seems, from which we can deduce the type of treatment meted out to the disabled, at least in secular history. In the Old Testament of the Bible, we learn that God gave laws to His people as to what their attitude toward the poor and disabled ought to be. But the people neglected these laws and deprived the poor and helpless of their privileges and opportunities. This cruel phenomenon is still with us today; history is being repeated on a regular basis.

The negligence of the handicapped became the order of the day, and there was no way for them to get out of their perplexing situation. Negligence ruled supreme. No one had the answer to their dilemma. Things went on like this until Jesus appeared on the scene to stand against the tide. Here is one example: One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years…he (Jesus) asked him “Do you want to get well?” “Sir”, the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes ahead of me (John 5:5 – 7).

Jesus healed the man and he walked out of his desperate state of deprivation into unlimited opportunities and privileges in life. He could probably have squared up shoulder with people that once overlooked him and failed to give him considerate attention. God may have given the means of healing and liberating the handicapped to us, but our nonchallant attitude deprives them of their blessings. We by-pass them and leave them to whine in their agony.

It pays to care for people. Jesus’ healing love toward the handicapped and diseased has gradually taught mankind to learn to care for them and fight for their rights. The care being given to HIV/AIDS victims today is a case in point. Jesus initiated a noble ministry. It is now our turn to allow this noble task to blossom by being willing to take the baton of care from the hands of Jesus. Some worthy men and women have taken this baton and done wonderfully in the lives of the handicapped. For by the end of the twentieth century this disinterested care reached a remarkable climax and peak. Dr Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet’s mere interest in a little deaf girl led to the foundation of the world’s only university for the deaf in the United States of America