Gbajas salvo

SOMETIMES we define the disabled as those who cannot act, those with limbs but cannot walk, with eyes but cannot see. So we think all of us with impeccable extremities are just so fortunate, so superior, so smug.But they mock us back in a sort of psychological hardball. They know disability is not about limbs and ears and eyes. It is about the mind. Hence we had geniuses who beat all the so-called able-bodied giants in our midst. After all, John Milton wrote Paradise Lost without his eyes. Beethoven has delighted our ears with symphonies without his sight. Former United States President led the world through the bloodiest war in history on wheel chair. Last week, we saw the disabled among us assert their presence, thanks to Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila.For the first time, the physically challenged enjoyed the attention of the House in a big scale. FDR had wheel chairs to prosecute the Second World War, the speaker donated 20 to some of them. They can play hardball to the world of exploits. They dont have to sit still and moan. They can move and explore. But it was a time to do more, to give scholarships. Milton had no scholarship but he has been an epicentre of literary scholarship around the world for centuries. About 10 persons will enjoy scholarship from the House.But they also had motivational speeches, a talent show, and more. Hear Gbajabiamila: We have an unconscionable history of excluding persons with disabilities from participating in the conversation and processes of economic development and nation building.But the house knows disability is not only about our bodies. Look at what has happened in South Africa with xenophobic hysteria. The Nigerians were targets of pillage, bullying, arson and murder. Now, the news says it has spread to Ghana. Gbajabiamilas House is now probing the act of Ghanaians trying to cripple Nigerian business there. Are you not disabled when you cannot work, just like the man without wheelchair' That is the nexus of the armless man and harmless business man who cannot trade. The chairperson of the House Committee on Diaspora, Tolulope Akande-Sadipe noted that on Sunday December 1, over 600 shops of foreigners, including Nigerians were on lockdown at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle. The culprits' Ghana Union of Traders Associationwhat a mouthful!So, what the speaker did with the disabled was not only real but a symbol of Nigerians in the sharp corner of helplessness. The point is to fight, and Gbaja did it by launching them with weapons: scholarship, wheelchairs, pep talks, more.The so-called people living with disabilities have to pry themselves from what Poet J.P. Clark described in his well-known poem, The Casualties. Gbaja has taken the battle to a new level by firing a new salvo of compassion.
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