32-year-old twins born blind cry for help

By Gbubemi God’s Covenant Snr.

THURSDAY, May 5, 2011 was their 32nd birthday, but Taiwo and Kehinde Lawal, blind twins were separated about 300 kilometres apart, for lack of a home, the junior squatting with the mother of a blind man she hopes to marry someday, and the senior squatting on an all-male blind people’s centre in Ketu, Lagos. Nobody sent them a gift or card to wish them many happy returns of the day. Gbubemi God’s Covenant Snr. had an encounter with Kehinde and Taiwo who bemoan their fate, painting a picture of gloomy and futureless birthday for adult twins.

 When Kehinde came over at the invitation of our correspondent, the twins had such clear starry eyes you would not believe they were blind until you see them groping as blind people normally do.

 They look greatly malnourished for their age, but Kehinde looked the worse, for hunger and lack of care, otherwise the ladies are a beautiful work of identical creation, with features that remind one of a delicate sculptured work of art except that they live and breathe too.

 Taiwo had moved in with a team of blind radicals from the Oshodi Vocational School for the Blind who set up their headquarters of what they called Nigeria Delta Blind Students Association at 5, Olufese Street, Off Demurin in Ketu, Lagos where she is the only blind female in the midst of the blind men.

 This made her vulnerable to sexual insecurity. Kehinde was not comfortable living among men, so she squats with the mother of a blind man she met at the vocational centre whom she hopes to marry in future, but she is only there for lack of a decent place of her own.

Their story is a sad one that brings many questions about the human destiny, which no living entity is qualified to give accurate answers to.  Kehinde is more open of the twins. She told The Momabout their journey into the world without sight.

 “Our village is Oke-Agbe, Akoko North West Local Government Area, Ondo State. Our mother is one Bolaji, and is a cripple from what we were told. Our grandmother was caring for her when she was impregnated by one man called Ojoboru, who used to come to our parent’s house.

 “Our mother told us that our father said he could not have impregnated a cripple but everybody knew he was responsible because they were lovers. When we were born our mother’s parents went and told the man that the woman she impregnated has delivered a set of twins, and both of them are blind.

 The man refused to take responsibility, that he cannot be father to children who are blind. Since we were born, we don’t know who our father is, never heard from him and he never came to us.

 “But his father knew he was responsible but he denied. His father contributed to our upkeep while our grandmother nursed us because of our mother’s condition. She was born like that too.”

In a community like Oke-Agbe in 1972, it would be seen as abomination to have a child born blind. Moreover, a set of twins both blind. Kehinde recalls their ordeals with clear details as far as she could remember as a child.

 “When we were growing up, people in our place throw stones at us. They call us ‘omo komo’ (non-descript creatures) and they say it was better we never came to this world, that we should go and die, that we have nothing to do in this world. Some sighed at us and asked, “Why did you come to this world? If you must be blind, why did you come to our town?

“Our grandmother had no money from the eko (pap) she was selling. She managed to take care of us, but we never had any good thing while growing.

“Anytime we were hungry and our grandmother didn’t have pap for us, people gave us three-day-old Amala (yam flour) to eat. Instead of them throwing it way, they would say, “let’s give it to those human dogs (referring to us) and we ate it because we couldn’t do anything. Some people in that community gave us palm kernel and some garri to drink.”

About nine years ago, in 2002, a woman who had heard of them came to see for herself, and seeing them was worse than she heard. She asked the girls what she could do for them.

“We told her we wanted to attend a blind people’s school. She then enrolled us at the school for the blind in Oshodi, Lagos. After spending two years there, we came to Ikeja to spend another one year. After the programme, we didn’t have anything to do.

The husband of the woman that assisted us died.  She had promised to assist us in getting a job after the programme but her husband’s death did not allow her to fulfil the promise.”

Going to the school was a great relief both for our parents and us, but Kehinde finished before Taiwo and had to wait for her to complete her studies.

“Leaving the school presented another problem of accommodation. At the blind people’s headquarters in Ketu, they are all men, so I find it difficult to stay because we are females, and we have a lot of men around here.

Our grandmother that was managing to keep us, after the man who was assisting us died, asked us to go and find how we will survive because she could not continue to keep us. She had nothing to feed us, and we were all living in one room, so I decided to go and stay with the mother of the man I hoped to marry and I told Taiwo to give me a call whenever she sees someone that will assist us.  We need a place of our own, something to do so we can at least feed ourselves even if it is once a day.

“Since I came here (to Lagos for this interview), I have not eaten anything. I think this is afternoon now.  While Taiwo was still in school at Ikeja, Kehinde stayed with her until the course ended, but they had nowhere to go except to the headquarters of blind people’s association because they were in school together.

Kehinde, the junior of the twins became uncomfortable with the only option open to them. They could not return to their grandmother because she had had enough of them. She told the girls to go and find help somewhere else. After keeping them till they became adults, she said they must leave her life to face what was left for her as a future.

She was stuck with her daughter who was crippled from the womb. She reasoned that if she continues to take care of them, the stress and task would kill her. She constantly told the twins, ‘If I die, you will continue to live, so leave me let me be.’ She died in 2006 while they were still in school.

Their mother was moved to Ore also in Ondo State, where she still lives to date.  Kehinde reviewed their lives and talked about the number of times they sat together and wondered how they came to be in their condition. How is the end going to be?

“We wonder about ourselves sometimes. Why are two of us blind from the womb? What can be responsible for that? Sometimes we cry when we stay without food and support. Since we were born, we have suffered a lot in this world. As we grow older, we realised there is no point crying anymore.

We can’t help it but sometimes wish that one of us could see. At least if one of us is sighted, the burden would be easier to bear because Kehinde will help me or I will help her. I know that if I were sighted I could’ve been able to do a lot of things to help our condition, but we are both blind, born like that and nobody is assisting us.”

How could adults of 32 years not see a thing in the world around them, even their own faces or what anything looks like?

“That is the way it is with us. Since we were born, we don’t know what anything look like or how things are. We don’t know how our parents look like, including us; we don’t know what we look like.

The first time I heard voices of people singing with a lot of noise, I asked who those people were and I was told it was a radio, that the people were singing from a radio and someone explained what a radio is. We’ve never seen what a car look like, or a bus or a train since we were born.”

At school for the blind Taiwo and Kehinde learnt to make beaded bags, soap and tie and dye.  Kehinde is courting a relationship with a man who’s also blind in Ilorin and works with the State’s local government office. She talks about the marriage.

“We are not yet married, we’re still on the way there but I am living with his mother in one room because I don’t want to live with a man I am not married to. 

When you eventually marry how would you cope as a wife? She was asked.

“I know how to do many things. I can arrange and keep the house clean, I can cook, prepare different kinds of food.

“By the grace of God, I will like to have about five children and I pray that they will see and not be blind.”

The twins are born-again Christians, members of God’s Power Evangelical Church in Ilorin.  Their hope and expectation Kehinde said, “I want to work. I hope to establish a business in the area of my training and settle down with my husband and live a self-supporting life.

The problem is not that we are blind, but we have learnt a trade, but nobody is employing us. We don’t have money to establish what we’ve learnt.”

In lending credence to what Kehinde said, Taiwo asserted: “I want to be able to support myself through the work I have learnt. Yes, I want to do business too. I want to marry and settle down.”

Taiwo is an unmarried mother of a four-year-old son born to a blind student, whom she met at the vocational school at Oshodi now lives in Ilorin, but their affair broke up about five years ago.  The child is in the custody of the man’s mother in Ilorin.

“We want people to help us in anyway, whether with a job, a house or help us to start our business to enable us manage our lives. The suffering is too much and we have been in it since we were born. Please, help us.”