- Says begging is not dignifying
The busy atmosphere at the workshop run by Taiwo Raji, a physically challenged generator repairer at Biobaku Street, Lafenwa in Abeokuta, Ogun State, explains better that he’s a youth striving hard to earn a living without resorting to going on the streets to beg for alms.
Twenty-five-year-old Raji, however, expressed sadness that his physical disability had negatively affected his love-life, denying him the opportunity of his preferred choice of a wife.
He said that due to his condition, he had suffered series of discrimination and all sorts of indignities at the hands of the parents and relations of his would-be wives, who would usually discourage their daughters and wards from going into any romance relationship with him.
But inspite of the debilitating effect of his physical condition on his lovelife, the generator mechanic, whose two legs are paralysed, remains optimistic that one day he would come across the woman, who would accept him for who he is and agree to be his partner for life.
Recalling the bitter experience of an aborted love relationship he once had, Raji said, “I remember, it happened sometimes ago, when a lady I was in love with could not marry me because her parents kicked against our marriage due to my disability. Well, I accepted my fate because I hope that I will have my own wife one day”.
His condition and experience have, however, continued to fuel his determination to succeed in life and be an economically buoyant man capable of fending for his family, without relying on handouts from anybody.
To achieve this, Raji said he had made hard work his watchword. To hone his skill, he said that he had to spend eight years under his master called Legbe at the Arinlese area of Abeokuta to learn the craft of generator repairing.
Interestingly, Raji said that he began his apprenticeship under his master’s tutelage, when he was in primary six at St. Peters Primary School, Oke Efon, Abeokuta, but that before he finished his secondary school at the Saje High School, Abeokuta, he had gained the full knowledge and technical mastery of the job of repairing generators.
Narrating the circumstances that resulted in his permanent physical disability, Raji said that he was only five years old, when someone, who was very close to his family, gave his parents a pair of sandals as a gift.
Unaware of the cruel fate awaiting him, he said that he lost the use of his two legs mysteriously after putting on the sandals, resulted in his current permanent physical disability.
Raji, whose twin brother died at child birth, lamented that the poor financial condition of his parents made it impossible for them to take him to the hospital for treatment. Rather, they took him to a herbalist because they also believed his predicament was spiritual.
He said, “No. I was not born like this. When I was a little boy, at the age of five, somebody close to my parents bought me a pair of sandals, which I later wore and I became paralysed in my legs.
“My parents tried their own efforts and because they lacked money to take me to the hospital. Then, they decided to take me to a herbalist for the cure of an ailment, which they believed was spiritual. But all their efforts ended up in vain. But I thank God I am still alive.”
But the light complexioned physically challenged youth said that he refused to beg on the streets because he preferred to be the bread winner of his family without depending on anybody for money.
He, therefore, advised physically challenged persons, who go about the streets begging for alms, to shun such an anti-social habit and look for a more dignified means of making a living. He said it was when people see how hard they struggled to eke out a living that they would be willing to offer them assistance.
According to Raji, “I look at my future, because I also want to have the family of my own and work on my own so that I can be financially independent and I want to be working so that I can have money on my own.
“I will advise them (physically challenged) to learn some work because if people see that they are still learning some work, despite their condition, people will want to help them. But if they see them begging, people will not want to help them because they will believe that they don’t have plans for their lives.”
He appealed to the Ogun State government under the leadership of Senator Ibikunle Amosun, to assist him with the sum of #100,000 to open a new shop for the sale of new generators.
Raji also asked the Federal Government to come to the aid of physically challenged people in the country by empowering them, especially in the area of finance so that they could start up businesses of their own.
“I want the state government to help me financially. If the government can help me to raise #100,000, I will use the money to open a new shop and buy new generators, which I shall be selling.
“What the Federal Government can do for us is for the government to look for working physically challenged people and empower them with money for them to start their own business,” he said.
