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By Vera Wisdom-Bassey
Life has dealt Mrs. Helen Ufford a heavy blow. The indigene of Nsit Ibom Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State is currently bedridden with an unknown ailment, which started in June.
Now, she can’t talk, for her mouth is swollen with pain, making it difficult to eat, too. Worse still, the deterioration in her health condition has made it a hard task to get up from the bed or stand up. Like an infant, she only feeds at one spot –her bed –and doesn’t venture outside the house to have a feel of sunshine or see how the world looks like.
Helen used to eke out a living as a groundnut seller. Even before falling ill, she had taken a loan to purchase groundnuts for sale. Till date, she hasn’t repaid the money she borrowed. There is nobody to run to offset her bills, to make matters worse. For no fault of hers, the apparently forsaken woman seems to be living in a stone age with no means of communication to reach the outside world – no phone to make calls. Besides, she has no bank accounts to receive or save money.
Her miserable condition is made worse by the fact that, even her mum, Matilda Essien, does nothing for a living, and can’t help either. Things are all-round gloomy for this lady.
According to her mother, Matilda Essien, her daughter was a widow who lost her husband some years ago. With three children to cater for, she decided to remarry, but was unlucky. Instead, she got an acquaintance who rented a room for her where she currently resides at Folashade Street in Owodo Yewa, Ogun State.
With no means of sustenance, the woman’s first son, 12-year-old Emmanuel Ufot, has taken to begging and selling vegetables for others to fend for his mother and sisters. There is no alternative to this cruel fate foisted on him by his background.
Most times, his desperate struggles to feed her bedridden mum leads to two rations a day. This means sometimes begging strangers for food,
Last month, the 12-year-old boy ran to this reporter for alms, complaining that his mother had not eaten, which resulted in a charitable intervention of some loaves of bread, beverages and sachets of milk. It has become a recurring pattern. Sometimes, sadly, her children are left with nothing to eat.
Emmanuel, at a tender age, has become the family’s breadwinner. Each time he goes to sell vegetables, he earns N700, which, he told this reporter, could only buy a measure of gas for cooking at N300, and use the remaining to buy other things they would cook, until the next time he goes to the market to hawk for those he sales vegetable for.
Just like his mother, life for this boy is miserable. It seems no one cares whether they live or die.
When this reporter asked the grandmother why it had taken this long to take the woman to the hospital, she said “There is no money to take her to the hospital.”
When asked about her relations, she said there was no one she knew, because her daughter’s acquaintance was a Togolese residing in Lagos at Ikeja, and could not play the role of a husband or a father all the time.
Helen was attending Winners Chapel, a satellite church close to her place, when she developed this sickness. Initially, the church took care of her in the hospital, including paying her bills. But as time went on, she left the church and began worshiping in her mother’s church. Now the church where she is worshiping can’t fend for her. The family admitted though that catering to her and her needs is not the responsibility of the church. Helen has, thus, been abandoned to die.
Let’s save a soul now. Good spirited individuals can save her life and her three children if they can lend a helping hand. She can be contacted through this reporter on 08054680252.
