‘Why I refused to be a beggar despite disability’
Abdullahi Sani Usman was sent by his parents to Abuja to beg but he has enrolled in a formal school where he devised a technique that has helped in monitoring pupils’ movement in class to the marvel of his teachers.
Sixteen-year-old Abdullahi Sani Usman hails from Kanyan-Guru in Gwarzo Local Government Area of Kano State. He was afflicted by polio at the age of nine. Few years later, his parents sent him to Abuja to beg for alms.
Abdullahi used to frequent the highbrow area of Maitama to beg and was able to save money to buy a wheel chair which aided his movement but he was unlucky when the Abuja Environmental Protection Agency (AEPB) arrested and took him to the Handcraft Center for the Rehabilitation of the Disabled in Bwari.
Not deterred by what some of his friends saw as a setback, he chose to learn welding out of the skill acquisition programmes available at the center. He said after one year of training, he scaled the fence of the rehabilitation center with the aid of other inmates and ran away because of hunger, regimented lifestyle, among others.
After he was re-arrested several times, he eventually met his friend Muhammad Isa, who is also physically challenged but attends Government Secondary School Garki and doesn’t beg. Abdullahi told his friend that he doesn’t want to go back to the camp in Bwari and he wants to shun begging and arrest from the AEPB.
Muhammad Isa took him to Karmajiji Primary School where he graduated from and enrolled him. Abdullahi said “After the interview, I was enrolled in Primary 2. I however realized that whenever there was no teacher in the class, pupils go out at will, so I devised an access form by issuing them a signed piece of paper to monitor the length of time they spent out of class. When a pupil comes back, he will tender the access paper to the teacher or me before he sits down. If he defaults, he will be warned and if he is discovered to be a truant, he will be punished. The teachers were surprised with my innovation and made me the class monitor. I was also the oldest in the class.”
His teachers, Isaac Ejembi and John Amos, said he is gifted, disciplined and controls the class by introducing the access note which has assisted in controlling the movement of pupils.
Abdullahi said he had wanted to become a teacher but because of his deformity, he won’t be able to write on a blackboard so he would study hard to become a doctor or a lawyer. “I call on physically challenged people to shun begging, enroll in school and acquire a skill,” saying he is willing to continue learning how to weld.
Abdullahi, who now resides at the physically challenged people’s colony in Karmajiji along Airport Road Abuja, said his parents are happy with his new zeal as he is now in Primary 3.