“For whom is it well, for whom is it well?
There is no one for whom it is well”. This is an Igbo folksong put into global currency by Chinua Achebe in his timeless and inimitable classic,Things Fall Apart. It is a song that threnodies man’s essential incompleteness, his congenital limitation as a sentient being and his physical-cum-spiritual inadequacies regardless of race, gender or class. The same sentiment is rendered in another proverbial fashion, thus: some have heads but have no caps and some have caps, but lack heads to put them on. Kofi Awoonor, the late Ghanaian poet, in his arguably most oft-anthologised poem entitled “Songs of Sorrow” lyricises that: “The firewood of this world /Is for only those who can take heart / That is why not all can gather it.” By the same token, therefore, only recently one of Nigeria’s Afro-pop troubadours intones in his popular lyrics that “dis world no balance at all”. All of the reflections above illustrate poignantly the essential incongruity that underlies the human estate. Interestingly enough, incongruity defines human effort at attaining a state of self-plenum, of full-orbed perfection. Small wonder, the comic impulse springs from the human tendency towards self-derision. Hence skits, vaudevilles, burlesques, farces and other forms of slapstick comedy derive in the main from the fun people poke at themselves and others on account of their foibles, moral frailties and foolery. A significant aspect of this comedic rhythm also stems from the incongruous dialectic between what is and what ought to be. In this connection, if, for instance, a person suffers from stammering or has one leg shorter than the other, or suffers from a swollen scrotum or elephantiasis, or, yet again, is blind or deaf and dumb, comic acts or actors are wont to make hay mimicking these less-fortunate types among us. They could make an overkill in pecuniary terms leaving their captive audiences in stitches by acting “as if” they themselves are so afflicted. With all due respect to the memory of the illustrious dead, just imagine a stand-up comedian mimicking an MKO Abiola, who was a colourful stammerer or an Olusegun Obasanjo, whom Ali Baba once famously poked fun at by subtly adverting attention to his striking resemblance to our four-footed sylvan kin in terms of ungainliness of form?
Or: to use less high-profile types, let us settle for people living actually with one form of disability or another. Consider, thus, a blind man feeling his way through bustling city traffic and, missing his steps, falling into a gutter. Or a deaf and dumb man cuckolded by a “normal” alpha male. Or a stark illiterate person being short-changed by an educated Smart Alec. Indeed, as Terry Eagleton points out in his recently published book, The Politics of Humour: Whose Laughter, Which Comedy?, the carnivalesque, the funny, the humorous derives fundamentally from the underlying incongruity of our lot as tenants of Time; from that defective physical, moral and spiritual element in us that renders us “incomplete”, “handicapped” or “disabled”.
It is, thus, too late in the day to begin to play the blame game over who is to carry the can for the problem of disability. Is it God? Is it the man and woman who produce the child with a disability? Is it a question of poor nutrition or the absence of the correct medication during pregnancy, post-natal care or material poverty experienced during the formative years? Can we also cite wrongheaded socialisation, harmful indoctrination, illiteracy? What, exactly? The point is that there is enough blame to go around, notably from the point a couple meets to when the problem becomes truly unsettling for all concerned. But it is important for us to remind ourselves that the problem of disability did not start with the advent of modernity or even in recorded time. In the oceanic realm of myth, innumerable tales and stories abound of people who went to great lengths to fulfil themselves and achieve heroism and greatness in spite of overwhelming odds stacked against them, physical disability inclusive. We recall, in this regard, Hephaestus, the Greek god of fire. Hephaestus, we are told, suffered from bilateral congenital clubfeet, which made him lame. Yet the deformed blacksmith-god played a crucial role in equipping the gods and goddesses in the Greek pantheon in their intercourse with the realms of Nature. Even in Homer’s Iliad, the epic hero, Achilles, is said to be afflicted with a swollen heel, making him vulnerable only in that particular part of his body. J.P. Clark’s play Ozidi highlights the same problem of dis/ease or infirmity. These few instances, by no means exhaustive, simply serve to underscore the fact that disease, infirmity, adversity, abnormality, and, in short, disability have always been with humanity, regardless of time or place or the relative degree of socio-cultural sophistication. Thus, while some cases of disability might be traceable to incurable physical or anatomical defects, others, albeit curable, might have been caused by a host of other factors, including carelessness, accident, mischief, deliberate wrongdoing, evil acts, curse/malediction, generational infirmity, a spiritual/metaphysical mark of “specialness” (i.e., children of deities, the so-called “untouchables” such as albinos, the misfits and the deformed.
Whatever the reason for someone’s disability – blindness, deafness, dumbness, lameness, etc. – we who are fortunate enough to be full-bodied and healthy must go out of our way to lend a hand to those living with disability in our midst. All religious faiths enjoin this. At all events, we must never resort to deriding, lampooning or poking fun at the less fortunate. They must never be made butts of jokes by stand-up artists. There is a place and time for crude and rude jokes. We should instead choose to guide and help the visually impaired as much as possible; interpret sounds and sights to the deaf and dumb as is the practice on TV and in international fora such as the UN, the AU and ECOWAS meetings. During, say, electioneering campaigns or presidential inaugurations, everyone must be carried along. Interpreters must be on hand to explain what is going on to the dumb or deaf. Also, those living with disabilities must be given the right of way, willy-nilly. Their physical challenges must entitle them to some rights, and privileges. For example, in urban areas, you see people being carried around in wheelbarrows; some trudge around on crutches and others are conveyed from place to place on motorised devices. All these folks deserve our assistance, always. On public transport, such as BRT buses, able-bodied passengers should allow those physically challenged to have the available seats, while they themselves (i.e., the able-bodied ones) stand. At present, Nigeria is going through an unprecedented series of antinomic crises such that human life counts absolutely for nothing.
People are dying daily in their thousands and their deaths only strike us as mere statistics. Thus, meaning has gone out of existence for Nigerians. Under these insupportable circumstances, it almost amounts to insensitivity urging empathy and a sense of communitarianism. Yet, in the face of daunting odds, we must insist on being our brother’s keepers. Both individuals and corporate bodies must play their part in helping those living with disabilities since the government at all levels has gone AWOL. One can only hope that government when it finally rouses itself to its statutory duties and responsibilities, will see fit to construct and build roadsides and sidewalks, and install CCTV, street lights, as well as specially-designed seats on parks and public transport for these less-privileged folk. Government can also provide prosthetic legs for those lame or crippled, braille for the blind to enable them to learn how to read and write. Government should also provide wheelchairs for those who desperately need them. White sticks, glasses, etc. can also be made available to the blind to make life less irksome. The NASS can also promulgate a Disability Act to cater for them. How about giving the less-privileged soft loans for start-ups? How about giving them stipends to survive in these gruelling times? All of this will give them a greater sense of inclusion and belonging. They must be integrated into mainstream culture and society through sport, education and political participation. It is not too much for budgetary allocations to be made for the funding of scientific research on the causes of and cure for some of the issues plaguing the deformed/disabled. Government must criminalise discrimination of any and every sort and promptly prosecute offenders. Too many people are hurting as it is. By the same token, if anyone living with a disability excels in, say, Olympic games, Paralympic games, academics, or business, such an individual must be celebrated and handsomely rewarded. These ones are also of the earth and must be celebrated as heroes!
*Chris Anyokwu writes from the University of Lagos