In this piece, ISAIAH BENJAMIN who came in contact with a group of cripples takes us into their where they have turned disability into ability.Life comes with various challenges. While some take such challenges that come their way as stepping stone to better their lives and make something out of it, others allow themselves to be weighed down with them and allow themselves become a liability to themselves, their families and the government.At the sight of any physically challenged person, what readily comes to your mind is that he or she must be engaging in the act of begging as a means of survival, but it is not always the case. Some of them in Kaduna, about ten in number, have decided to choose a much more honourable way of making ends meet through engaging in metal fabrication of household items through which they have been able to successfully better their lives and those of their families.These physically challenged persons have chosen to prove that inspite of their challenge, there is ability in what looks like disability. They decided to free themselves from depending on others or government by putting their acquired skill into practice and becoming a source of help to themselves, their families, those with similar challenge and the public in general.Their passion is to inspire other physically challenged persons to equally toe the part of honour in finding themselves something doing rather than taking the dishonouring part of begging which has become a worrisome phenomenon, particularly in Northern Nigeria where most of them are on the streets and virtually in every nook and crannies begging for alms.These physically challenged welders who are presently 10 in number collectively own and run a metal fabrication workshop at Kinkinau in Kaduna South local government area of Kaduna State, where they fabricate iron doors, windows and stoves among other items.In an interaction with the very enthusiastic fabricators,they said they are not just out to make money and liberate themselves from begging, but they are also contributing their quota towards assisting other physically challenged persons by producing affordable wheel chairs, fabricate appendages for motorcles to also assist in mobility from one place to the other.Speaking to LEADERSHIP Weekend, their leader, Musa Abddullahi said they have been working for the past 17 years after undergoing the skill acquisition programme put together for them by the government. He said, When we finished the training we waited for government to empower us but when the empowerment was not forth coming, we came together and formed a company called physically handicapped welding multipurpose cooperative society, FADAMA III.We are into welding work. We weld gates, burglary, doors and beds. We construct wheel chair, customize machines for disables and it is Gods gift and talent. We construct them ourselves. We are talented but the only thing we need is assistance from government to make our dreams come true.Individuals patronise us, they give us all sort of works to try our talents and by the grace of God we dont fail or disappoint them. In fact, our work is less expensive compared to other places they patronise.He lamented however that things are no longer as it used to be, stressing that the government has abadoned them to their fate. There is low patronage and to worsen their situation, the high tarrif in electricity has greatly hampered their job since they work mainly with power and they could not afford to own a power generating plant.Abdullahi continued: We dont have adequate capital; we simply work based on customers demand. When they come with their demands, we go ahead and do the work for them. But if we have capital we can go ahead to construct the products and showcase them. Whoever wants to buy will pay and we will give it to them.You know there is no work without its own challenges. We face the challenge of power outage. Again, people feel if they give us job we will disappoint them. The wealthy men feel we cant do the job. They prefer to go abroad to buy the things they use. Some of them feel if they give us the job we will not do the job effectively. They go to the extent of testing us. Some of them stigmatise us; once they see us they give us alms. We are disabled but not beggars.We want people who will assist us with capital to strengthen our business not those who will give us alms. We want something to keep us going, and such that will sustain us and our families and those who equally depend on us, because some of us are married and we have children and we dont want them to beg for alms on the street.Abdullahi further said the most annoying and disapointing part is the fact that they work, campaign and vote for politicians who will promise them heaven on earth during their campaigns only to abandon them when they win.He said, They (politicians) dont keep to their promise. For instance, the present government is not of any asistance to us, we enjoyed the past government becuase they feel our pains and assisted us tremendously, infact some of us regret voting for this present government becuase there is nothing to show for our efforts, we now have little or no patronage.Our source of power have been disconnected for almost a weeke now. So, we just come out in the morning and go back home almost the same since we cannot afford to pay for reconnection and the outstanding bills which is not commensurate to what we make dialy and on monthly basis.He passionately called on the government of the day to look towards their direction and assist them with capital for them to expand the scope of their business. We equally need encouragement from the public through patronage, because it does not make sense if we made products and there is no market for it. Government can also patronise us as a way of also encouraging us, he said.Another cripple, Gambo Abubakar and Saminu Ismail who corroborated what their leader said, further emphasised the need for governments assistance in any way possible, particularly in the area of capital.He said, It is therefore my humble submission, that the need for relevant government agencies and spirited individuals to assist these people who have deliberately refused to allow their condition weigh them down and have chosen to earn a living for themselves and their families cannot be over emphasised.This in my opinion will certainly motivate others in their condition who have taking to the part of begging and almost constituting a menace in the society to also make up their minds to engage in something meaningful and shun the act of begging.On the other hand, the physically challenged persons can also think outside the box on possible ways and areas of attracting help for themselves rather than putting all their hope on government. By and large, there is ability in disability but this, you may say, is different strokes for different folks.
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