Volunteer Nigeria Edition 2 - Alheri Special Village for Lepers Yangoji

Volunteer Nigeria is an initiative I thought of in July 2013, Volunteer Nigeria is aimed at involving youths in the development of our community. As much as people do not like the whole "NYSC" idea, I can say I am one of the very few that actually thinks NYSC has more advantages in the society than otherwise. If anything, I'll maybe advice the time frame be reduced to six months rather than the original one year.

It was during my NYSC year (still ongoing) that this initiative came to being. 

As an end of year outreach, great brains came together and decided to visit Alheri Special Village for lepers Yangoji, FCT. Although it was a solo visit, with a few helping hands due to the short notice and "celebration period". I believe the visit was a great EXPERIENCE .

Alheri special village was set up during Olusegun Obasanjo's regime by the Nigerian government. It is what can be termed a settlement of the poorest of the poor. Several people from different ethnic groups in Nigeria, although now filled with only Hausa speaking people, with Hansen's disease or leprosy as it is more commonly called were relocated there and promised to be taken care of by the government. For a while, government was true to its word, the people were provided with basic amenities such as food, water, electricity and health care facilities.

However years later, every form of provision became next to nil. 

The visit

Our take off was from Garki-Abuja, where I spent the Christmas holidays. 

We had two vehicles separately donated for the trip by two volunteers that could not make the trip.

We had a short prayer in the house before embarking on the journey. Take off time was 9:43am. the ride to Kwali was not as long as I expected, it took us approximately 45 minutes to get there, thanks to the holidays, most people were out of town already. 

We missed a few turns on our way there, and had to ask for directions, most people on the road termed Alheri Special Village "where the beggars stay". A few right turns and we were driving into a big field that was demarcated from the outside world by a broken brick wall. 

A minute drive through the field, and we saw what appeared to be two rows of badly maintained brick bungalows. I still was not sure what to expect, was not sure of who to ask for, or what to say. 

On alighting  the car, we were approached by an elderly woman, with children hiding behind her looking at us with these lost eyes, wondering what we were doing there. A group of men sat at a corner using a sewing machine to amend some clothes.

The elderly woman could not speak English, luckily for us, one of the guys with us by name Mutiu understood a little bit of Hausa, one word here, one word there, and the woman was off to call the Chief. 

The little kids still looked at us not sure whether it was safe to talk to us or not. I softly approached a few of them, keeping my distance, so as not scare them off. 

The first girl I spoke to was by name Ummi, she carried her younger  sister on her back, with what she probably would have referred to as a wrapper, which was just a few strings of clothes forcing themselves to stay together. She told me she was seven, and was attending the local primary school in Yangoji. Ummi seemed quite bright and smiled sheepishly when I coo-d "wow, you are seven? you are such a big girl". 

While waiting for the chief, Ummi introduced me to some of the other kids that flocked around, while more elderly people watched us from afar, felt like the message was going round "there are some city people here ohh."

Some more minutes later, and the Chief was insight, the nearer he came to us, the nearer the people came. He seemed like a quiet man, in his white flowing dress, agbada as the Yorubas call it, he had all the basic signs of leprosy, deformed and shortened fingers, damaged eye, and scaly skin. 

He was unable to understand English as well, so I called Ummi, the little girl in primary two to try to translate for me, however she was a bit shy. The people of Alheri, then called out a small boy by name Musa. Musa happened to be the Chief's son, further personal conversations with Musa, and I found out he is 10 years old, attends the local school in Yangoji also and wants to be a lawyer when he grows up. 

I briefly explained to them who we are, and why we were there, to be honest with you, once I mentioned, we brought some food item to share, they lost total concentration and were only interested in the food items. 

We found out there are 29 homes or groups in the community, and each group had a head of the house, so we divided the food items we brought into 29 places. It was funny to see politics and cheating also been played in their community, with some men telling me to give them more, because in their own words. "I have two wives". I even joked with one man that admitted he had one wife, asking him how he had only one wife with all the beautiful women around. Some tried to actually "pick" some of the items from the big sack we spread them on, silently hiding them in their pockets. Some gave the excuse that they were " the chiefs special advisers" and as such should get more than the others.

An old woman by name Zainab visibly badly eaten up by the bacteria Mycobacterium leprae the cause of Leprosy called me aside three hours into our interaction with them, with the help of Musa, I understood that she had a serious case of ulcer and needed to buy some drugs from the local hospital to help ease her pains.

It wasn't the easiest of tasks, but by 2pm we were set to head back to Abuja. 

As expected, it was not the most easy task getting back into the car, as majority of them tried to enter into the car with us, it was quite a struggle, leaving with the children running after and before our car, waving their goodbyes.

IS THE GOVERNMENT AWARE?

It is said that the government promised every one of the lepers a monthly allowance of N4,000 when they were first sent to the community, however, at the end of Obasanjo's administration, the lepers stopped receiving any form of income. On research I found out that the Nigerian government is actually aware of what these people are going through, in a press conference, the Director of Social Welfare Services, Mrs Folashade Ayileke explained that the initial monthly allowance was given to the lepers to enable them stand on their feet, that there were skill acquisition trainings also accessible to the lepers during "the good months". As such government is not obligated to giving them any more allowance.

WHAT DO I PERSONALLY THINK ABOUT THE SITUATION? 

I interacted with a few of them, had one on one conversations with some of the elderly ones, and the children. 

Firstly, I should at this point highlight that approximately 95% of humans are immune to leprosy, and the other 5% can get the infection from continuous living(minimum of 5 to 10years) with highly infected persons. Of all the kids I saw, there was none with physical characteristics of leprosy. They all seemed healthy, this does not mean some of them do not have the bacteria in them. 

The adults were the ones plagued with the diseases and all its signs. Why am I saying this? to make readers of this post understand that interacting with lepers on a short period will not make you a leper. 

Leprosy is derived from the Mycobacterium leprae bacteria. With new age and new drugs, a cure for leprosy is in the world with us, over a period of 6 to 12 months, leprosy can be cured, depending on the medication and degree of leprosy the individual has. 

Before my intended visit to Alheri Special Village, the only information I had about leprosy was what I read in the bible "Jesus healing the ten lepers" and was it Elijah's servant that had leprosy? But now when I talk about Leprosy, one will think I studied medicine in school. I am but a recent International Business, Energy and Petroleum economist graduate. 

At the beginning of this post, I mentioned that the lepers are in possession of a big farm land which serves as their home, I also chipped in the men I saw gathered around the small sewing machines. On the topic of why can't they fend for themselves from the farmland, it was explained that neighboring villagers were not comfortable eating foodstuff grown by lepers, worse still grown in their home. As "humanitarian" as I can be, even I will most likely not be feeding off anything grown from their home.

There is an initiative called "feed a village" directed at getting people willing to provide foodstuff for this community. But then again, how long shall individuals continue to feed this community?

On careful examination, I do understand where the government is coming from with their assumption that they have provided skills training and initial allowance for the people and as such are not obligated to continuous provision. However, if I am not mistaken in the Western world as we call the obodo oyinbo, there is what we call social benefits that is given to the people in need: the disabled, job seekers, some mothers with not enough income to take care of their kids.

If I am not mistaken again, Nigeria is one of the richest nations, a sum of four thousand Naira per leper does not seem like such an out of budget expenditure, given that yearly maintenance of Aso villa runs into billions.  

But then again, coming from the government side, what other initiatives have been to put in place to place these people on their feet?

1. Has the government tried to EDUCATE their neighbors on how they can not get leprosy by simply saying hello?
2. Has the government tried to buy the crops grown by these farmers? 
3. Has the government tried to provide drugs to cure leprosy for them?
4. Has the government tried to re-provide basic amenities like a good borehole? electricity?

I believe when you do not want to have an overly dependent child, it is in a parent's best interest to make sure they have set up the child's life in such a way that after a while the child can stand on his own. If government can in the minimum maintain their environment, educate the nation about leprosy especially their neighbors, buy off the foodstuff they cultivate preferably at a really good price, provide good healthcare facilities, especially drugs for the children to avoid them contacting the disease, then they can argue that they have "done their own part".

The sad part is that chances are the money for these people might actually be put in the yearly budget, however a selfish demon in human form may be jejeli balancing on the funds.

WHY IS VOLUNTEER NIGERIA MADE PUBLIC?

Volunteer Nigeria is not set up to individually help the less privileged, or the community, but is set up to MOTIVATE youths to do more. I do not intend just going to a motherless home to drop gift items, but I intend getting a group of youths that have probably never gone to an orphanage to do something more than their daily activities. 

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