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“I-Care”
empowering less-privileged through ‘eye care
By ABDULL-AZEEZ AHMED KADIR |
Maryam
Babangida is today being celebrated in death as in life. This is due
to a larger extent, her exploit as the First Lady of the Federal
Republic of Nigeria in the hey days of the military. Maryam no doubt
brought glamour, suave and the plight of the down trodden to the
front burner through her pet project “Better Life for Rural Women”.
Since the coming
of Maryam Babangida, the position of first ladyship and pet project
has not remained the same till date. It is a known fact that some
First Ladies used their office as conduit pipe to siphon public fund
especially from state ministries of Women Affairs that have become,
in some states, an extension of the office of the First Lady. As a
result, when some of them leave office or rather when their spouses
vacate the position of authority, they and their pet projects also
become extinct.
Kaduna State
First Lady and the wife of the Governor, Hajiya Amina Namadi Sambo
is by design or accident an in-law of the late Maryam Babangida.
Amina like many a first lady has a pet project; “I-Care for Women
and Youth Initiative” through which she has touched many a less
privileged set of people, especially women and youth as the name
goes.
From Computer
training to tailoring, welding, weaving and other empowerment
skills, some individuals have smiled. But the latest feat was the
rescue of people that ordinarily would have lost their sight forever
due to lack of medical attention or inability to access health
facilities where available due to poverty.
Cataract and
glaucoma are two eye diseases that afflict a great population of the
people in African sub region especially among the less privilege.
Cataract is a disease of the eye in ‘which the normal transparent
lens become opaque’ while Glaucoma is ‘characterized by an increase
of pressure of the fluids within the eyeball, leading to gradual
loss of vision and blindness’.
Between 7th and
16th of
December, 2009, ‘I-Care’, in conjunction with Federation of Islamic
Medical Association (FIMA) a Non Governmental Association (NGO)
organized free medical eye screening in the 23 local governments in
the state. During the exercise, 2,843 people had their eyes screened
out of which 592 were discovered to be suffering from cataract and
other eye defects.
Disturbed by the
plight of those people and the tale of woes of what they have gone
through since their vision became impaired; ‘I-Care’ in
collaboration with FIMA again, organized free eye surgery for these
people.
The surgery held
at Yusuf Dantsoho Memorial Hospital Tudun Wada, Kaduna between 29th
December, 2009 and 2nd January,
2010. Initially the estimated 592 were billed to be operated by a
team of foreign Ophthalmologists joined by the ‘I-Care’ personnels
on ground. But by the time the operation took off on the morning of
December 29th,
the news spread and the number more than bulged forcing the
personnel to make provision for the extra number and accommodate
them all.
At the hospital,
many of the patients could not hide their excitement just as some
took the floor in tears, jubilating; hands raised sky wards in
prayers for the First Lady. As some one said at the venue, you may
not understand the plight of the patient before and the excitement
after the operation except if you have once lost your sight and
regained it again.
Some said they
were farmers, traders, hunters and so all with children and wards to
cater for. But since the affliction by cataract or glaucoma, they
could not cater for their dependents but rather became liabilities
to others. For some, the education of their children and wards
suffered a set back as there was no one ready to shoulder their
responsibilities. With the operation and the regaining of their
sight, elated, they said they could now continue with their lives,
eking out a living and take up their responsibilities once again.
“We are
positioned to empower the less privileged-members of our society.
Some were blind and we did our best to see how they could get their
sight back and we hope that after this operation, the level of
blindness would reduce in Kaduna State” was the words of the First
Lady in an interview with journalists at the hospital.
Overcome by
emotion at the sight of the patients shedding tears of joy and
jumping up in jubilation with rains of prayers for her and the
medical team, the First Lady could not hold back her tears as her
tear ducts gave way to the stronger emotion of the moment. More
emotional was the case of an elderly woman in her sixties who could
not stop jubilating when the cotton wools as removed from her eyes
and another who broke down, overcome by joy when she was asked to
say a word or two on behalf of the patients.
Governor Namadi
Sambo, his Deputy Mr. Patrick Yakowa, the Head of Service Alhaji
Balarabe Yakubu, the PDP state Chairman and a host of others paid
unexpected visit to the hospital while the operation was on-going.
They all trouped into the operating theater and saw first hand
Ophthalmologists at work. For each surgery, it took between seven to
ten minutes and the patient was out.
Elated by what
they saw, Governor Sambo like a boy whose brother had just scored a
goal to win his country a laurel could not hide is excitement. It
was virtually written all over him. It was like ‘yes, my wife has
done me proud again, I am the First Guy and she is the First Lady’.
“This is extremely impressive and we would continue to support this
humanitarian service. I expressed my appreciation to the people
offering this service to those that ordinarily would have been
blinded for the rest of their life” elated Sambo said in an
interview.
In a chart with
New Nigerian, the team leader of the foreign Medical Doctors,
Dr. Intzar Hussain Butt, Consultant Ophthalmologist and Assistant
Professor, Department of Ophthalmology Services, Institute of
medical Sciences and Services Hospital, Lahore Pakistan said they
have had fifteen Eye Surgery Camps in Nigeria with Kaduna been the
latest as at then.
According to him
about one million Nigerians are blind as a result of Cataract,
Glaucoma, diabetes, lack of Vitamin C among other reasons. 75
percent of the blindness is reversible he said with prompt and good
medical attention to the patients.
Intzar revealed
that so far they have had about 50,000 successful eye surgeries in
Africa with the bulk of it in West Africa. 90 percent of the doctors
he said were from Pakistan and collect no dime for the services
render. In Nigeria, so far 7,500 successful eye surgeries were
carried out and largely in the North. In the case of the Kaduna
surgery, nine foreign Ophthalmologists were involved with two from
Jordan and another two from Saudi Arabia.
The total of 250
Ophthalmologists from Pakistan are offering their services all
around Africa free of charge in collaboration with some individuals,
NGOs such as Amina Namadi’s I-Care, Faith Based Organizations (FBOs)
and others Intzar stressed. The Pakistani Doctor never ceased
praising the efforts of Retired Air Vice Marshal Hamza Abdullahi
especially in their operations in Dutse, Jigawa State. The presence
of the retired Air Force daughter; Fatima Hamza Maiborno once a
commissioner for Women Affairs in Jigawa State spoke volume of what
the foreign doctors described as “Nigerian unique hospitality” to
visitors and the sense of humanitarian services to the needy.
All said and
done, if the wives off state governors would emulate this kind of
gesture and put smile on many forlorn faces, a lot more burdens
would have been taken off the shoulders of some and empower them for
self reliance. For Hajiya Amina Namadi, if like her predecessor in
office; Hajiya Asmau Makarfi, she could look of modalities for her
pet project to out live her reign as the First Lady, it would go a
long way in bringing succour to the less privilege.
Like her in-law;
the late Maryam Babangida, Amina Sambo may be celebrated long after
quitting the stage if that tempo is sustained. As she promised to
make the exercise a continuous one, for the over six hundred people
who benefited from the free eye surgery in Kaduna State, Hajiya
Amina Namadi Sambo has through ‘I-Care’ empowered the less privilege
through ‘eye care’.
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