By Onozure Dania

Hope has come the way of Jude Ndubuisi Azubuike, a young lad who until his visual impairment, had, like many other youths, a dream of going to school and becoming a big time lawyer.

ude Azubuike

That dream was rudely cut by a near-tragic incident that robbed him of his sight. On that fateful day of 1998, Jude was on his way to church when he was hit by a stray bullet that plunged him into pain and darkness.

Azubuike said he lost his sight during a crisis in Lagos in 1998 between factional members of the then outlawed Oodua People’s Congress. He noted that in the midst of the OPC crisis, the then police-military joint anti-crime squad, Operation Sweep, came to the scene and started shooting sporadically in a bid to disperse the militants and restore peace.

According to him: “As the shooting was going on, a stray bullet hit me and left me blind till today”.

Jude, whose parents could not come to the terms with having a blind child did all they could to see that the boy regained his sight.

However, all their efforts in this regard proved abortive. Also futile were efforts to get in touch with the then Governor of Lagos State, Buba Marwa.

They, however, took their fate in their hands as they took the boy to several hospitals and many other places they believed could help him regain his sight.

Jude became discouraged at the seeming futility of all these efforts. However, he still kept faith in God as he continued to attend church service just like he did before he became blind.

Happily, fate was to bring him to the individual who later gave him hope for a better future. This Good Samaritan is the founder of a non-governmental organisation, See Joy Foundation, Pastor Prosper Kanayo. The Pastor informed that he first learnt of Jude’s plight on July 2, 2010 when he tuned his phone radio to the popular pidgin English radio station, Wazobia FM. It was at this moment that he heard one of the broadcasters of the station announce his encounter with Jude earlier in the day.

The broadcaster informed that there was a blind boy who came to his office to solicit the support of well-meaning Nigerians as regards his education. He gave out Jude’s address and informed his listeners that the young man passed GCE and scored 246 in Joint Matriculation Board JAMB, a feat which qualified him for admission to study law at the University of Lagos.

Pastor Kanayo said on hearing the announcement, he started making enquiries until he was able to locate Jude’s address that same day. He said: “I heard about his plight on radio and I believe that this is something we like doing in See Joy foundation. So we went there and met the family of the boy; they were very happy that our foundation is in the business of helping people.

“We will not only see the boy through school, but we also have plans to take him to India to have a surgery because I believe that there is solution to it. The NGO believes that God will perfect his work concerning that young man”.

The Pastor, it was who took this reporter to meet Jude who appeared from every indication to be a promising young man.

On how he was able to get through secondary school, Jude informed Vanguard Metro that one fateful day, one of the priests in the church who was so touched by his plight told him about the Pacelli School for the Blind in the Surulere area of Lagos.

The priest volunteered to take Jude there so that he would be able to achieve his dreams of completing his secondary education.

He said: “It was quite difficult initially, especially academically, because as a visually disabled person, you need to be a little more than an ordinary student to be able to cope”.

When he got there and met other blind people like him, he got a new courage and hope about life, that blindness was not meant to incapacitate him.

He also said he went to Kings College, where he finished in 2008. He passed his WAEC in flying colours.

Jude also informed that he was able to read, write and provide answers to questions posed by the examiners, because he was taught so in Pacelli, adding that they were also taught how to use the typewriter.

“Since all questions meant for visually impaired candidates are usually braille, we normally write with the typewriter,” he said.

One would have thought that he would stop at the secondary school level, but he didn’t stop there. He went ahead to take the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) examinations and he passed with a points score of 246 and gained admission to Unilag to study law.

It was the drive to solicit funding to further his education that took him to WaZoBia FM, where Pastor Kanayo later got to learn of his plight.

When asked how he is able to move around, he said that with the help of his working stick, he was able to go anywhere; that he could take vehicles on his own. This, he added, is made possible by the fact that he is familiar with the use of the road.

It was his resilience that helped him eventually, although he was unable to meet with the broadcaster who helped to propagate his plight until after a week of continuous visit.

He noted that he was attended to quite alright, although initially his visit was treated as unofficial.