ONLY the unfathomable script of predestination could work out this history, which is unlikely to be equalled or beaten anytime soon. The bride, Oluwayemisi Olatokunbo Ogunbayo, a Master’s degree holder in Special Child Education from Gallaudet University in Washington D.C., the United States of America (USA) is deaf and cannot speak.
The groom, Opeoluwa Samuel Sotonwa, a lawyer called to the bar in 2007 holds a Master’s degree in Law from Howard University in Washington, and in the service of the United States government is also deaf, but can speak to some extent. The three part ceremony – traditional, church wedding and reception took place on Friday, June 10 and Saturday, June 11, 2011 revealed a different species of humans that overwhelmed the speaking and hearing, begging the question of who or what qualify as ‘normal’. Gbubemi God’s Covenant Snr. witnessed the exchange of marital vows between the special couple.
It’s uncommon in this part of the world to see the Hearing Impaired (HI) and Speech Impaired (SI) otherwise known as deaf and dumb milling together in a society wedding.
The bride, Oluwayemisi Olatokunbo Ogunbayo, a United States citizen by birth is the first of five children, born to Idowu Olusola and Esther Ogunbayo, natives of Ishara-Remo in Remo North Local Government Area of Ogun State.
The traditional marriage
The traditional marriage held at the Brainfield Event Centre on kilometre 3 Isheri-Igando Road, followed on Saturday by the church wedding at the Latter Rain Assembly in Ogba, Ikeja, and reception that took place at the exclusive Martinos Events Solution Centre on Otunba Jobifele Way, Central Business District at Alausa, Ikeja were like criss-crossing the City of Excellence from one end to the other, and each witnessed a massive gathering of the Hearing Impaired (HI), and Speech Impaired (SI), as well as the hearing and speaking. The HI and SI greatly outnumbered the normal speaking and hearing that the word ‘normal’ became subjective, and out of context because the HI and SI compared with the hearing and speaking became a matter of individual differences.
Moreover, the international community of the world were fully represented. The Chinese, Japanese and Europeans, Nigerians as well (not much known there were many HI and SI Nigerians, children, teenagers and adults) all made people wondering.
There were more Sign Language (SL) interpreters that relayed a blow-by-blow account of the event to HI and SI. Until you see the gorgeously dressed person sitting next or opposite you talking with the hands in the SL, there’s no way anyone could tell that these laughing and happy people were HI or SI.
Three white ladies stepped out of a jeep at the venue, dressed in African headgear and Aso-ebi of the occasion. After a quick photo session this reporter stepped forward and asked one of the three: “Do you speak English?” In response, her hands flew into the sign language, indicating that she is deaf and dumb, and for a moment, one felt like being bumped into a brick wall. In fact, the hearing and speaking were greatly overwhelmed in a different environment where HI and SI exhibited more intelligence than the speaking and hearing, their confidence and happiness were true and unfeigned.
In a Yoruba traditional marriage, specialised Master of Ceremony (MC) both man and woman gave the directives effectively coordinating the programme. The success of a ceremony is dependent on the experience and skilfulness of the MC in charge. The male and female MC did not leave anything to chance. They were briefed about the groom, an American citizen, a practicing lawyer based in Washington D.C, and the couple came with hosts of friends from other countries and colleagues came to witness the marriage.
From the moment the train of bridesmaids ushered the bride into the hall, her eyes never left her interpreter, who was giving her a running commentary also communicating the instructions of the MCs representing both families to her as they flowed so well that an uninformed person would hardly notice the coordination between the bride and her interpreter. That was the same with the groom, who had been in the hall being taken through the course of the ceremony before the arrival of his bride.
Two SL interpreters were at work, taking their assignment one after the other. The opening prayer and worship songs especially the special ewi rendition by the MCs were dutifully interpreted to the guests with hearing or speech impairment. Some two hours later, a lady stepped up to pair with another SL interpreter while the others took their seats.
Opeoluwa Samuel Sotonwa, bridegroom
Born in Ishara-Remo, Remo North Local Government Area of Ogun State on March 13, 1978, through a sign language interpreter, it was possible to get his bio-data. He spoke good English slurred at the beginning but the speech became clearer, almost normal as he progressed.
I am the first in a family of four children and the only son of my parents. I grew up in Ijebu-Ode, Ogun State. My family are from Ishara-Remo. I attended Ojewoye Local Government Primary School and Odutola Secondary School. Thereafter, I went to Federal College of Education, Oyo where I did my National Certificate of Education (NCE) programme. After that, I went to the University of Ilorin to study Law before I went to the Nigerian Law School where I graduated. I was called to the bar in 2007.
“Thereafter, I travelled to the United States and I started working at Howard University School of Law in Washington D.C., the first black historical University in the United States and I obtained my Masters in Law (LLM) there.
At the moment I am currently working for the United States government in the Commonwealth of Kentucky; so that’s me.
How did you come to be HI? Were you born like that?
No, I was not. I became deaf after 16 years. I can talk; I speak different languages. I can even speak Yoruba Language. Someone who has already acquired language skill before he or she becomes deaf can talk, can still speak those languages except the speech also went with the hearing; so because I was already grown up and already acquired language competency before I became deaf, I still speak.
How did it come about?
Well it started with something like high fever or so we thought, but at the end of it I lost my hearing completely.
A very intelligent individual, Opeoluwa continued: “It was very difficult for me to cope because as at that stage, it was as if my world just fell apart, but through God’s help and with the help of people around me and my parents, they all stood by me and they encouraged me. It was the most difficult part of my life, but I was able to weather the storm.
I also thank people I have come across in my life, especially people I met at the Federal College of Education, Oyo because it is a special school that teaches and trains people to become teachers of HI and MR people. If not for them, I don’t know where I would have been today. People at the University of Ilorin also were of great help to me because I was the first deaf to be allowed to study law there and I tell you, it wasn’t an easy thing. Initially, they refused but we had to plead my case and at the end of the day, they allowed me. That opened several doors for other deaf people to come to the University of Ilorin to study any course of their choice; while some studied law, others studied medicine and I’m glad that the situation is very bright for people with disability in this country.
But I’m not all that satisfied with the situation in this country because currently, they’re making efforts to have a law that will give equal opportunity to people with disability in this country and allow them to have accommodation and access to whatever they want which comprises; housing, health and so on. At the moment, they’re just being relegated. There’s need for the National Assembly to pass the bill inculcating the welfare of these people into law.
On the other hand, you can’t put aside people with disability and continue to look at them as second-class citizens because of people like me: I had no reason to be going to the United States in the first place if they gave us equal opportunity here, so I am using this opportunity to appeal to them to do something to ask President Jonathan to sign this bill into law so that a lot of people with disabilities can be gainfully employed and also receive accommodation to help themselves.
What does your work with the United States Government entail?
Currently, I work with the United States government in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. My work is attached to the Commission for the deaf and hard of hearing, and my job is to monitor them and act as advocate to those that have problem in the place of their work. In some cases, they need a government lawyer to interpret the law that guides their welfare. There’s a law in America that gives them the right to ask for an interpreter to clarify the law as it concerns their welfare. That law empowers them to ask for their rights and those are the areas I mediate for them and ensure that they get their rights. Even when they are sick or not working, they have the right to get some money from the government, which they call social security, same as everyone else so that they can live comfortably.
That law can also work in Nigeria, so I want the Federal Government to look at the situation here and imitate the United States so that these people who are on the road begging for alms will stop begging. They can work and have money in their pocket to train their families also.
Tell us about the romance that climaxed to this day: how did you meet your wife?
(Laughs) I’ve been asked this question several times. It was just a wonderful thing. When I was in law school, I actually went to see a friend. I didn’t even know her family then. One day, I came and she also came from the United States to spend the holiday with her mother. I talked with her, initially we were just friends. She has this smile. She is beautiful in appearance and a humble person. It’s hard to find people like that who went to the United States and still come back home to behave like that.
I did not approach her immediately; I took my time. So I moved and calculated because I don’t want a situation that will not allow me to succeed, but I made my intention known, and I gave her the space that she needed. About two months later, she sent me a text message but I refused to reply it. I began to think that maybe her delay meant something else. As a person, instead of me to embark on something that will not succeed, it is better I don’t embark on it at all, so I did not reply her text.
After some time, she sent her sister to ask me why I refused to reply her text. I said because I don’t want to bother her; that maybe she deserves someone better than me, but she said no, that she was thinking about it and she has come to know that I am a good man. That was how we started.
The sight of old relatives, male and female and young ones prompted this. How did you relate with them, especially when you were growing up?
I grew up with almost all of them. I grew up in the village and they took care of me. These old people you see here today, when I was growing up, they used to bathe me, and some of them changed my diapers and cleaned me up. So it’s a great joy for them to be here for three days running just for me. They are all very happy to see that their little boy is now a man and he is doing this wonderful thing and they vowed to be part of it.
How many children do you have in mind?
(Laughter again) Yoruba people say you do not count your chickens before the eggs are hatched; so we will be happy with whatever God gives to us.
Idowu Olusola Ogunbayo, bride’s father
We hated the sign language in the beginning
Born in Ishara in Ogun North Local Government same state as his wife, Ogunbayo attended St. Peter’s Primary School, Ishara-Remo and proceeded to Shapade Grammar School, Akure. From there he worked briefly with the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) before proceeding to the United States of America in 1978, where he bagged a degree in business administration. He came back home for his National Youths Service Corps in 1982. After that, he worked with Evans Ltd as a trainee sales manager. After a brief stint with Evans, he started his own business of buying and selling auto parts and general commodities. In 1988, he returned to United States and has been there ever since.
On the genesis of his first and last daughter’s hearing problem that culminated to this day, the father of five children said, “Initially, we didn’t know of her condition. It took us some six to nine months to notice that she couldn’t talk. I tried to force her to say something and also expected her to behave like any other child but she couldn’t. We went to a University Teaching Hospital, there, somebody referred us to a department in University of Ibadan but nothing came out of it.
“Then I told my wife that we have to face the situation, so we registered her in a normal nursery and primary school in Felele, Ibadan even though we knew her condition.”
Why did you choose a normal school knowing the child could not speak or hear?
I think we were just being human because we didn’t want to accept her condition so we thought keeping her in the midst of normal children could just help her pick up, but it didn’t. So after a while, when I returned to the United States in 1988 the mother had to relocate to Lagos and Tokunbo continued attending a normal school for hearing and speaking children, but after a period, we decided that the only help we can render to our daughter was to send her to a deaf school where she can get good education.
As of that time Tokunbo was unable to use the sign language, we hated the sign language. I didn’t want my daughter to communicate with the sign language, but afterwards, we had to come to terms with the situation and agreed that sign language is the way out.
The degree of his hatred for SL is attested to by the fact that to date he is not good at the art.
“I’m not good at it, but while I was working, my wife was taking care of the child. For the first ten years of our marriage she was doing that so she is very fluent with the sign language. All the children and everyone around the house use the sign language.”
Was there such case in the larger family before now?
Not to my knowledge, there was none. It just happened.
Looking at the situation with you, what is your thinking? How do you explain it?
Well when we had Tokunbo, we already accepted that this is our fate. Then Kehinde came also, so we brazed ourselves to make the best of the peculiar situation. No one has the mind of God to know why and no one should try. Once we decided that, we had to encourage everybody in the house, even our neighbours to learn the sign language because that’s the only way the children can be happy when they can communicate with people around them.
What are the children studying?
Tokunbo has graduated. She made her Masters in child education in Gallaudet University in Washington D.C.
Kehinde is attending the Institute of Technology in Rochester. She’s studying architectural engineering. She just finished her second year and she is going to do her internship in Los Angeles after Tokunbo’s wedding. She’s specialising in industrial engineering.
Taiwo is studying medicine in Arizona University. She specialises in plastic surgery; she loves to be a plastic surgeon.
The family tried to encourage Oladimeji, the only son of the Ogunbayos to study medicine, but he protested after four years.
Though he was doing fine but he didn’t like it. At a point it became a rift between him and the family because he chose to do industrial engineering against what we wanted him to study, and we just had to let him do his choice. Now he holds a degree each in five different areas; that is chemistry, biology, physics, biochemistry and pre-law.
Looking back at the journey from Tokunbo’s birth to this wonderful day, how does it feel to see his HI daughter making history today?
I was telling some of my friends that it is the happiest day of my life. When Tokunbo was born and Kehinde followed suit, we felt bad and wondered why it should be time that two of our children should be deaf? But seeing what is happening, we are extremely happy that despite the fact that some of our children had hearing difficulties we were able to achieve the goal.
Looking at the larger family gathered for this occasion, was there any negative reaction from them in the beginning?
They were about to, but we kept the matter within our nuclear family, so it wasn’t pronounced to their knowledge.
However, we welcomed them, we made them happy; we never hid the children from them so whenever they visit, we start communicating with the sign language. So anyone who had negative feeling, when they come, and they can read the body language that this is the boundary line: don’t cross it. We never accommodated anyone who tends to feel sorry in our situation.
All your children are United States’ citizens. Would you let them come to help develop the future Nigeria everyone desires?
When Tokunbo finished her first degree, she came home during her internship. She did it in Lagos and Abuja. Likewise Kehinde, she managed to come home now during her internship because I want her to have a broad knowledge of her field. She’s coming to Nigeria to do her industrial attachment in Lagos. My son has been in Lagos, America and being that he has a degree in five disciplines, he did internship after every degree in different countries.
Mrs Esther Ogunbayo
Esther Ogunbayo in an exclusive interview in February (Vol.1 No. 10) had told The Moment that Tokunbo was born after five successive miscarriages in her first year of marriage in 1982, and the girl child born in the United States of America was deaf from the womb. After two more births that produced a boy, Oladimeji and a girl, Oladoyin respectively, Esther’s final birth, a set of twins of which the junior of the twin girls, Kehinde was found to be deaf also.
The founder of DO-ESTDOT International Schools on Ifelodun Street, Idimu in Lagos, the 55-year-old mother and educationist said in that interview she got married in 1982 and found that marriage, like life, is not a bed of roses. “I am blessed with five children to the glory of God; my first child, Tokunbo is deaf, and she came after five miscarriages; only God knows why. Then I had my second child, a boy and my third child, another girl, both were alright, but it pleased God to give me a set of twins, Taiwo and Kehinde, and Kehinde also is deaf. All my children were born in New York.”
On the birth of the last daughter who is deaf, she said: “I almost gave up when I found out that the last child was also deaf. Then I asked God, What have I done? There had never been a deaf person in my family, neither in my husband’s, so I was really emotionally challenged. My husband pointedly asked me, what is the meaning of all these? And I said I don’t know. I have searched my mind and I don’t have anything hidden whether in the past or now, no skeleton anywhere in my cupboard. Then he said, well, if this thing is recurring like this, it must be that God has something in it for us.
“In my heart I told God, You must have some hidden blessing for me in this storm. I had a feeling that God was showing His handwriting in my life, so unlike the first time I ran everywhere in search of solution I didn’t go anywhere with Kehinde. I put her in a normal school like I did to Tokunbo and later withdrew her into my school when she got to primary three.”
Esther recalls what led her into establishing a school for the hearing and speech impaired as well as those mentally retarded: “In the midst of the storm it occurred to me that perhaps God needs me to take care of children in this category. I discussed my thinking with my husband and he agreed with me, so I took a course in that field in Washington and after my degree, I started the school on September 24, 1998 with three children, my own Taiwo and Kehinde and another child. Tokunbo was 16 years old at that time. It started as a school for normal children as well as the hearing impaired. Later, the population increased to 30 and more, and that was how we started growing.”
That was a long time in the midst of the storm. Looking back to this day her eyes has seen, what is her thinking?
I knew now that ministration that God has a hidden blessing for me was true. Seeing Tokunbo and all her siblings today, I feel good. I am very happy; I really thank God.
What are her expectations for Tokunbo and her husband? "I know the future is bright for them. I know it, because they’re hard working and God is with them."
Shola, Oladimeji Ogunbayo
We don’t believe in disabilities
The second child of the house and only son is an intellectual genius in the making. A degree holder in multiple disciplines, the young man started school in Nigeria, attended the Lagos State model college and was admitted into the University of Lagos (Unilag) before proceeding to the United States in November 1984. The Moment caught up with him for this brief interview amidst beehive activities in the house.
What are the courses you studied?
I studied biochemistry and political theory, but now I’m doing my Masters in industrial engineering.
That’s quite wide apart, don’t you think?
(Laughs) it took me quite some time to find out what I really want to do, but now I want to be an industrial engineer, so hopefully I can end up teaching or something.
What would you be teaching with all those degrees?
Well, may be, engineering particularly, and philosophy.
Engineering and philosophy, that’s quite unrelated, why?
I think they are very interrelated. After this wedding I’m back to school for my Masters.
What school is that?
The University of Illinois, United States.
Having grown up in the family, how do you explain the condition of Tokunbo and Kehinde, intellectually?
Well, first of all I’m very grateful to my parents because they created an atmosphere that made us understand it is okay to disagree, that we can actually agree to disagree. We never had to fight and we were never afraid to make our minds known; at the end of the day we all sit down and agree and say, okay, let’s see how we go from there.
As a U.S. citizen, are you familiar with the polity in Nigeria? How do you rate our journey so far?
On a very philosophical level, I think we as Nigerians seem to want to proceed the way the United States have proceeded, but the problem with that is, what works for them might not work for us because we also have our cultural differences, so much that there’s no way the troubles of the traditional Nigerian man can be compared with the troubles of the indigenous American person. However, we all share some human similarities, you know, like we all want shelter, clothes, food and such like.
However, you cannot use American standard to define what development means for us. Development in the western world may not necessarily mean development for Nigeria in the Nigerian context.
With your accomplishments in diverse fields how would you impart these into the Nigerian system?
Well I got back a couple of weeks ago, and I am working with the children in my mom’s school. Students of JSS.1 to JSS.2 are all under 13 or 15 years old, and we started off a small business project. What we do is gather local fruits like pineapples, water melon and fruits of different kinds and we blend these together and come out with natural, healthy fruit drinks.
Now this may seem not to be a big deal, but the big deal about this is that since we source locally, we are helping to diversify and improve the local economy that is not solely dependent on foreign aid or oil for instance; now the kids have a sense of self-worth, like, I can do something by myself and for myself. We’re also trying to build our wind turbine because we have a problem of power in Nigeria, so we have our engines and our coils; we are teaching the kids the sense of, I don’t have to wait for someone to hand me something, I can do it myself, I can take myself up.
On Tokunbo and the wedding, Dimeji what do you say?
As my sister I’m very proud of her, but I think more importantly is that as a fellow human being I’m happy to see that she has been able to defeat the status quo, that assumption that well, if you’re deaf there’s little you can do. Now I’m happy that with support from God, our parents and us she has even gone beyond what many people thought she could do; so I hope this serves as a reminder to a lot of people that regardless of your physical differences, because I don’t believe in disability because we’re all made in the image of God, so by virtue of the fact that you have life, you can do whatsoever you choose to do, so she’s a very good example of that and I hope people actually learn from this.
By Gbubemi God's Convenant
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