- Says ‘my condition can’t stop me from giving my best to society’
BY TIMOTHY AGBOR, OSOGBO
Mr. Adedeji Sunday Adegbile lost his sight when he was a child.
But his condition has not deterred him from working and earning a decent living.
In a country where over 24 million people live with vision loss and 1.3 million people blind, Adegbile believes that giving necessary education and empowerment to those who are physically-impaired would give them the opportunity of competing favourably with those who are sighted.
He said in his over 40 years of existence, he had been doing almost all what others who are sighted can do, adding that “blindness has never been a hindrance for me as regards reaching my goals in life. All I and others who are physically-impaired suffer is the necessary support and empowerment.”
In an interview with The Point, Adegbile, a teacher at the School for the Special Need Children in Iwo, Osun State, explained how measles robbed him of his sight at a tender age.
Adegbile, who is skilled in singing, said he has three albums to his credit, and called on well meaning individuals and government to assist him in producing the songs.
He said, “I am a teacher and a singer. When people see me sing, they get amazed. My students also enjoy me whenever I teach them. So, this blindness has not actually prevented me from giving my best to the society.
“I have been teaching at the School for the Special Need Children in Iwo for a while now. Also, I am the first visually-impaired person to be coordinator at Baptist Church in Nigeria and they recognise me at Baptist Conventions.
“Like I said, I sing and I have like three albums. The help I need is for these songs to be produced. if I see the people that will help me, I will be very happy because the songs will go a long way in touching lives and also motivating others.
Churches usually invite me to sing in every state of Nigeria. Formal education is important and with that, the sky will be the beginning for anyone.”
Adegbile, who is married with children and lives in Iwo town, narrated now ladies who were sighted abandoned him because of his physical challenge.
He noted that visual-impairment was not a contagious disease and urged Nigerians against stigmatising those living with disabilities.
While appealing to ladies who can see to consider blind men for marriage, Adegbile said, “We want the non-disability circles to marry us. This blindness is not a contagious disease, it is just an impairment. For instance, my case was adventitious because I acquired it (blindness) later in life. I discovered that I had measles and it resulted in blindness.”
Recalling how one of the three ladies he had dated jilted him despite being pregnant for him, Adegbile stated, “By the time I wanted to marry, I had sugar coated mouth and I could talk to anybody. Once I talked to ladies, they gave me a chance to have a relationship with them but along the line, they would leave me when they found out that I did not have money and, at the same time, I was blind.”
“I dated up to three ladies and they all abandoned me. Even the last of them got pregnant for me and still left me. Anyway, she gave birth to a beautiful girl for me and I have been raising her till I later went for a visually impaired lady like me who agreed to marry me,” he added.
He said members of the public should be sensitised on how to create a healthy relationship with people with disabilities, especially the blind.
“When people are passing on the road and you see sticks in their hands, it means they need help; they are not beggars.
“Our challenges need government and philanthropists’ support to be solved. Unemployed people are very many among us and they need employment from the government and private companies. We need empowerment for those of us that acquired disabilities later in life and can’t go for formal education, we need empowerment for them.
“I imagine, it was terrible for us during the naira scarcity. We had many of us that died because they didn’t have money to take care of their health. That is why I want government to empower us. At least, 61 of us were recently employed by the former administration in Osun but they had been disengaged by the new government because they were part of the 1,500 teachers that were illegally employed. I want our governor to look into this and reinstate them,” he urged.
