naijaXclusive: first bank

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Head of Operations, Switch Board, First Bank of Nigeria Plc and National
 President, National Association of the Blind, David Okon, shares his 
inspiring life story of profitable living with Bosede Olusola-Obasa of 
the Punch. It is indeed an interesting read:<br />
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<b>How would you describe the way you have been accepted in the society?</b><br />
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5438533803477296299" name="more"></a>The support I have enjoyed has come from family 
members and a few understanding members of the public. So I have been 
coping with the support of God and good people around me. They have 
helped me to have a better view of life and to surmount the obstacles 
that life has posed. I have also been able to motivate others because 
the Nigerian environment has not been encouraging at all. The acceptance
 level in the Nigerian society is still very discouraging. The society 
needs more people to help turn the darkness of loss of sight to light. 
What I always told my grandmother as a young person was that I would 
rather die than get to a point of begging because I am blind. My dad 
ensured I did well; unfortunately, he didn’t live long enough to see the
 good fruit of his labour.<br />
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<b>Were you born blind?</b><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000;">No. My mother said I was born with sight.</span>
 She was very happy that her first child was a man. But she said that 
around 1970 when I was about three years old, I had this terrible 
measles. The measles was bad and the civil war was just entering our 
part of the country, although it was actually coming to an end in other 
parts. There was no adequate medical attention because of the civil war,
 but they gave it the best attention. By the time the measles had gone, 
they discovered that it had affected my sight. It was not total 
blindness initially, but it degenerated until it became total blindness.
 It took a team of missionaries from Europe who came to my village in 
1975 to discover that I may have totally lost my sight. They observed 
that I could not play like children of my age were doing. After this 
incident, I remained with my parents for some years but not knowing what
 to do.<br />
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But my late father was bent on seeing that I was educated like every 
other child with the little resources he had. So the European 
missionaries advised my parents to let me go to a school in Lagos. They 
told them that I could still realise my dream by being educated there. 
That was how I came to the Pacelli School for the Blind in Lagos. I left
 from there to Kings College, Lagos and then to the University of Lagos,
 where I did my first degree in Political Science and second degree in 
Public Administration.<br />
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<b>Do you recall any discouraging experience with boys at Kings College?</b><br />
Kings College pupils were great people. They had seen many blind people 
before I joined, so it was not strange. There is an arrangement between 
Pacelli and Kings College that ensures that students are admitted to 
study there. I recall a day when one of my colleagues grew so curious 
about me that he called me and said, ‘I want to ask you a question and 
please don’t get angry with me. How do you see your mouth when you are 
eating?’ He was about 10 years old then. His question was very funny to 
me. Now to the issue I had with few teachers, whom I may refer to as 
‘typical Nigerian teachers’ at Kings College. I had done well in 
Arithmetic in the common entrance examination. So I didn’t think that 
there would be any problem with mathematics in the secondary school. </div>
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But there was this teacher, who came to the class to teach mathematics 
and as he was writing on the board, he was saying, ‘This plus this is 
equal to this’. Rather than call out the numbers for me to hear, he 
assumed that all the students could see what he had on the board. So I 
stopped him abruptly and asked him to call out the numbers, but I was 
shocked at his response. He said, ‘My friend, I was not employed to 
teach the blind.’ He said that I could leave the class if I could not 
cope. And childishly, I left the class and never returned there. Of 
course, I did not pass the subject. French was another thing I did not 
take because of the challenge of getting a Braille version. I still 
regret not learning French because I would have been able to take an 
international job that I was qualified for if I could speak a second 
language. Still on nasty experiences, I remember that one weekend, I was
 relaxing and enjoying the breeze under a tree in school when I suddenly
 felt someone flogging me seriously. As I kept shouting and asking what I
 had done to deserve the beating, the person, who must have been one of 
the naughty boys in school, kept on flogging me. At a point, I could not
 hold it anymore. So I stood up and started running in whatever 
direction my legs could lead me. </div>
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However, <span style="color: #cc0000;">one of my greatest days at Kings 
College was the day a teacher called me out and told the audience that 
despite being blind, I had done better than others with sight including 
my seniors. I felt so high, but I dared not say a word or I would be 
beaten up</span>. There were senior students in the gathering and we 
respected our seniors so well at the college. I must say that my 
colleagues were so great. There was no noticeable difference between us 
when we worked or played. I remember that some of them struggled to read
 text and notebooks to me during study time, while I just listened. The 
idea most time was that while they read to me and I in turn, explained 
the subject to them. The community spirit at the college was better than
 what I had in the university. At UNILAG, the blind students had to 
record the lectures and type the tests or assignments on a typewriter.<br />
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<b>Are there moments when you wished you could see?</b><br />
Yes, every blind person does sometimes. There are times I feel that I 
would have been better placed in life with sight. Of course, one gets a 
lot of consolations from loved ones. My wife usually asks me that how am
 I sure that I would not have turned out worse? Her words make sense to 
me, but as a human being, one sometimes still feels down. There is a 
good friend of mine here in First Bank; we were at Kings College 
together. He is now a very senior member of staff now and we are still 
very good friends. He was my junior in the secondary school but he is 
currently the treasurer of the bank. <span style="color: #cc0000;">Lack of sight must have slowed down my prospects in life; we don’t seem to have the same opportunities</span>. </div>
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Employers in Nigeria discriminate against blind people such that the 
people who start work same day as you go far ahead of you; same for even
 those who started after you. One thing is sure, I’m very grateful for 
the opportunity  that I have to work with the organisation and that is 
why I’m always putting in my best to earn my pay. By September, I will 
be 20 years in this organisation. There is this determination in me to 
excel at whatever I do. As the National President, National Association 
of the Blind, I tell people to put in their best in whatever they do and
 never to give in to inferiority complex or intimidation on account of 
blindness.<br />
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<b>Was it easy getting a wife?</b><br />
Before I could marry my wife, we had issues with her parents and mine.<span style="color: #cc0000;">
 I remember when we started dating, she had fallen in love with me but 
her people said no, they can’t allow their daughter to marry from a far 
place. When she told me that, I said I knew the real reason they said 
that. If I hailed from the United States, which is farther than where my
 hometown, would they object on that ground? The basic reason was that 
they didn’t want her to marry a blind man</span>. Then I started 
wondering why I found a lady that I love and other people were against 
my marrying her. My people were also saying that I could not marry an 
Igbo woman since I hail from Akwa Ibom State. They said that I won’t be 
able to cope with her. Good enough, she was resolute about getting 
married to me; so her parents had no choice but to let her be. They 
said, ‘You say you must marry this blind man. Okay. You will be the one 
to live with him; you will bear the shame and so on’.</div>
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So we printed the wedding invitation cards and she took one to an uncle 
of hers, but he spat on her. He said, ‘As educated as you are, and of 
all the men in this world, it is a blind person you can marry. Your 
parents objected, but you insisted’. He sent her away and said he 
wouldn’t be at the wedding. He threw the card back at her and did not 
come. She felt so bad but I told her that if he would not come, others 
would.<br />
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<b>How did you woo your wife?</b><br />
Before I met her, I had suffered a number of heart breaks on account of 
my sight. Whenever it was time to tidy up things towards marriage, there
 would be an objection. Painful as it was, it was okay by me because I 
didn’t want anyone to marry me out of pity. I wanted someone that would 
love me for who I am. I had no doubt that I would someday be married and
 never saw it as a do-or-die. Even when I had two blind girls as my 
close friends, I didn’t marry them because I didnt have the conviction 
to marry a blind person like myself. I believe the society is not ripe 
for two blind people to get married. </div>
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One thing I had noticed from my university days was that I was liked by 
girls. In fact, my roommates then used to tease me that I had a way of 
winning over the most beautiful girls in spite of being blind. They 
jokingly said I might be using juju. So the lady who is now my wife 
picked interest in me during her service year in this organisation. I 
believe it was God’s making but it didn’t come easy. She is a likeable 
person and very compassionate. When we met, we were first friends before
 I proposed to her. I think an added advantage was that she went to the 
University of Nigeria, Nsukka, where she met a number of blind students 
and was used to them. But she said she never knew that she could marry a
 blind man. </div>
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The day I proposed to her, I said, ‘I think you would be very privileged
 for me to have you as my wife’. She said, ‘You are mad’. She said that 
she thought that I was joking, but I said I was serious so she said, 
‘You miss road’. She walked away and I left her. After a long time, when
 she thought I would have forgotten, I returned to her with my request 
and she asked if I meant what I was saying. She said that she couldn’t 
marry because previous relationships she had never ended in marriage. 
And I told her that I actually wanted to marry her. She said she 
couldn’t marry me and I told her that she could. I believe she thought 
and prayed about it until one day when she gave her consent. She then 
said that the only hurdle would be for her parents to agree for her to 
marry a blind man.<br />
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<b>Apart from sight, do you live a normal life like others?</b><br />
Yes, I do. Back in my school days, I was like every other boy. Others 
had girlfriends and I had mine. Whatever the other boys had, I had too. I
 may not have had the money they had, but I had a sweet tongue. Also, I 
was always looking well dressed. We went for swimming, clubbing and so 
on together, but did everything with dignity. There was a time in UNILAG
 that a girl gave me a peck for being well dressed. She said she had 
always noticed that I looked good. In fact, my friends in  the 
university would look at my girl friends and say to me, “After you will 
say you are blind, see the beautiful girl you just caught.”<br />
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<b>How then do you appreciate a beautiful woman without seeing her?</b><br />
My wife’s mannerisms attracted me to her. She was so at home with me 
before marriage and even now that she hardly ever acted as if I’m blind.
 She is not exploitative. A blind person goes beyond the physical 
appearance to reach the real person. Although much of the time, they 
also hear people around saying, ‘Oh! She is so beautiful’. But no matter
 how physically beautiful someone is, if she hates you and treats you 
like a second-class human being or beggar, you can never be attracted to
 that kind of person. That is why people need to redefine blindness. 
There is a lot that visually-impaired people can make out of life. There
 is nothing that is impossible except you say so.<br />
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<b>How can government help?</b><br />
The first duty of any government is to accept that the society has some 
people who need extra care and attention to move on. Unfortunately, the 
Nigerian government is yet to accept that fact. Meanwhile, there are a 
lot of factors helping to contribute to the number of persons living 
with visual disabilities. Such factors include the Boko Haram attacks 
which in some cases led to some people becoming blind, accidents on bad 
roads and inadequate medical care. There are some cases that could have 
been taken care of before they degenerated to permanent blindness, but 
where are the medical facilities? Government must wake up to its 
responsibilities to all sectors of the country. </div>
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For instance, I can tell you that all levels of government in Nigeria do
 not have the statistics of their people who are visually-impaired; it’s
 as bad as that. Because of the capitalist nature of our government, you
 find out that the government is not willing to spend more to cater for 
this group of people. For instance, there is a software that makes using
 a computer more compatible for a visually-impaired person. 
Unfortunately, that can cost about two-and-half the price of a standard 
computer. So, the natural question of a capitalist is, ‘If I can get 
Tunde to do this job on a computer at a lesser cost, why would I spend 
more to have Okon do the same’? But we need a level playing ground. </div>
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We need a law in Nigeria that makes it a crime for a company not to 
employ the blind. The law should also make it compulsory for them to be 
adequately empowered to work. Interestingly, there is a report I’m about
 to get that proves that people with visual disabilities turn out more 
productive at the work place than their counterparts with sight. 
Government can subsidise the equipment that blind people need to perform
 better at work.</div>
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Xclusive: UNILAG Girls Prefer Me To Guys With Sight – Blind Man (Head Of Operations, First Bank)

Head of Operations, Switch Board, First Bank of Nigeria Plc and National President, National Association of the Blind, David Okon, share...