CHRONICLES OF A BLIND NIGERIAN (3)

After my secondary school education, I obtained the JAMB form just like any university aspirant will. My parents, siblings and other close folks, being surprised at my move, were so anxious on how I would cope in college without eye-sight.

Of course, they knew my secondary school had a special provision for the visually impaired, but according to them, they had never spotted a blind student on campus during their university days and thus, there was no way I could have delt with the stress and challenges that come with tertiary education.

In my mind, I wanted to further beyond SSCE, and contrary to the myopic dreams of many challenged students of settling with NCE, I wanted to study in the university, share the university stress with the able-bodied students and graduate with an eye-goggling result at the end of my degree programme. And since I’d heard about some blind students studying different courses like law, Mass Communication, Political science etc in the university, I knew that in spite of my folks’ doubts, I could also join in complaining about the university stress in some months to come (after passing my exam).

As the day for the JAMB exam approached, I got more engaged with my special books. I would read read and even invite my younger sister to come help read to my ears some things which are not in the audio books. The earth continued to rotate round the sun, rotating.. rotating.. And finally, the exam day dawned.

I went to my exam centre with a friend and after a tiring quest for where the hall where I would write was situated, I finally got in and settled for the exam. Wondering how I wrote mine? One of the invigilators was reading the questions for me and I was putting my answers down with the typewriting machine I went with. The determination of scoring high didn’t allow me pay attention to the sweat crawling down my forehead as I keenly listened to every question recited. ‘I must be admitted to the university this year’, I decided.

In a nut shell, the exam result was published after a week and I had a favourable score of 243.

Oops! I jumped up in felicity because with that, I could study at any university in Nigeria.

In as much as my parents were happy for me because of my success, however, the thought of my incapability remained indelible in their mind. ‘How will you cope Demola? They would ask me occasionally. Another turn off to them was my choice of university. As a resident of Ibadan, I was expected to choose to study at a university within Oyo state or at most, the South West region as a whole.

But I took their surprise to the extreme when I chose a university which is a thousand of miles away from my house, University of Nigeria, Enugu state, and all their efforts to convincing me in changing my mind proved abortive.

So after reassuring them of my safety and ability to study in college regardless of eye-sight, I was eventually left to do whatever that pleased me. At the end of the admission exercise at my chosen university, my dream of being a university student turned reality and just so you know, it is from the university, UNN, that I’m writing this article.

Anyway, the afore narrated stories as contained in the previous episodes of this series and partly in this episode was just to give an insight of how I lost my sight, how I started another life in the blind world and where I am presently.

Having got the gist, I’m gonna be sharing my personal experiences, that of some other blind folks and also enlighten you on the things we, the blind’ do, correct the misconceptions you harbour about the blind, entertain you poetically on blind related matters and above all, inspire you through our super stories.

Gone are the days when the blind are strictly natives of the street, begging for arms with those pathetic songs which will draw some coins persuasively from pedestrians’ pockets. Oh no, we are now in schools and vocational centres,

we are now armed with the personality to command respect in the society, we are now dreams achievers and goal getters, we are now found on various online & offline platforms sharing our tales with a good mastery of English language.

Yes! I am blind, but I’ve got the brightest vision..

Gone are the days when the blind are strictly natives of the street, begging for arms with those pathetic songs which will draw some coins persuasively from pedestrians’ pockets. Oh no, we are now in schools and vocational centres,

we are now armed with the personality to command respect in the society, we are now dreams achievers and goal getters, we are now found on various online & offline platforms sharing our tales with a good mastery of English language.

For any enquiries, you can reach me on 08034449693 or [email protected].

I lovy lovy you.. #to be continued..