Cry No More

CRY NO MORE Monday, 27 October 2008 Written by Chris Ajaero Prophet T.B Joshua wipes the tears of physically challenged students who go through pains daily to attend school. Favour Adjara, a 22- year-old girl from Ughelli in Delta State has been physically challenged from birth. However, instead of being weighed down by her disability, she sees it as a challenge for her to achieve greatness in life. From childhood, Adjara made up her mind to study medicine to enable her to find out the medical problems that made her to be crippled on one of her legs and also fight the cause of physically challenged persons. She, therefore, struggled to go to school in crutches. In 2006, she secured admission to study medicine/surgery at the University of Abuja. Fate, however, dealt another bitter blow on her as she lost her father, Luke Adjara, a priest in the Anglican Church, shortly after she secured admission into the university. Determined to achieve her ambition in life, she resorted to begging to enable her raise funds to pay her school fees and for her upkeep on campus. But on Sunday, October 19, Adjara and 19 other physically challenged undergraduates and post graduate students from various higher institutions in Nigeria became lucky beneficiaries of a scholarship scheme recently instituted by Prophet T. B. Joshua, general overseer of the Synagogue Church of Nations. Like Adjara, Onyinyechi Ibeabuchi, a 30-year-old post graduate student of economics from the Abia State University, Uturu, is another physically challenged person who received the scholarship award. In addition to the scholarship award, Ibeabuchi was given a brand new wheel chair because of her very pathetic situation. Indeed, the man in the Synagogue was deeply touched when he saw pretty Ibeabuchi crawling into the church auditorium on all fours, hence the donation of the wheel chair. Ibeabuchi told Newswatch that before the wheel chair was given to her, she used to crawl to school and on faeces and urine in the university lavatory whenever she needed to ease herself. She said that she felt relieved by the wheel chair gift because it will enhance her mobility.She recalled that although her parents know the value of education and had helped her to secure a first degree in economics, it had been difficult for her to get sponsorship for her master’s degree programme. Ibeabuchi said now that she has been awarded a scholarship by Joshua, she is now much more determined to go beyond a master’s degree in economics to secure a Ph.D in the same discipline. Ibeabuchi said she intends to either work in a bank or become a university lecturer on completion of her post-graduate programme. She advised other physically challenged persons not to be discouraged by their disability but to struggle to go to school. “Education is the key to survival for the disabled person and so I advise all my fellow physically challenged persons to strive to go to school because where there is a will, there is a way,” she said.Apart from Adjara and Ibeabuchi, other physically challenged persons who were awarded the scholarship include five blind students. They are Salami Lukeman, a 500 level law students of the University of Lagos, UNILAG; Anomo Rotimi, a law student of the University of Jos; Ayoade Sunday of the Federal College of Education (Special), Oyo; Sunday Adejo, a guidance and counselling student of the University of Ibadan and Vivienne Ozurumba, studying government and public administration at the Imo State University, Owerri.

The total amount given out to the recipients of the awards was three million Naira. Joshua said the scholarship award was a demonstration of his love for the physically challenged persons. He explained that he has been worried that most physically challenged persons who took it as a challenge to further their studies often study with tears because they do not have people to sponsor them. “I have therefore decided to be their friend, their sponsor and we will continue to care for them to ensure they study without tears,” he said. He promised to establish a university for the physically challenged persons in the society. He, however, said he would continue to award scholarships to this group of people, pending the establishment of the proposed university. He then challenged wealthy Nigerians to cultivate the habit of awarding scholarship to physically challenged persons so as to receive more blessings from God. Adebesin Abiodun, a post-graduate student of peace and conflict studies of the University of Ibadan, expressed gratitude to Joshua on behalf of the beneficiaries for his love for the physically challenged persons. He promised that after his studies, he would champion the cause of his colleagues and enlighten them on the need to always believe that “there is ability in disability.”