From Wilson Okereke, Afikpo
There is a good advertisement of abject poverty at Mkpuma Akpatakpa village in Agbaja community, Izzi Local Government Area, Ebonyi State, where about 55-year-old, Mbam Uguru, lives with his two wives and nine children in a dilapidated thatched hut.
Uguru has faced unimaginable misfortunes in life since about 25 years ago when he got married to his first wife, Nnenna.
The labourer disclosed to Daily Sun that he had lost his 14 children in diverse circumstances within two decades. He said that the poverty ravaging his family was a byproduct of the series deaths.
The husband of two wives told our reporter who visited his home in Izzi that these 14 children he had buried came from the two women.
According to him, he was a successful farmer until after his children began to die as a result of one ailment and another, in the quest to save their lives, he exhausted his capital and other resources: “My first wife, Mrs. Nnenna Mbam had given birth to 15 children but lost eleven mysteriously while the second one, Maria Mbam also had eight and lost three.”
He also disclosed that the streak of hard luck had thrown him off-balance financially having committed most of his wealth into medical treatments before he was eventually blessed with nine promising small children.
Uguru who may soon become homeless following the imminent collapse of his uninhabitable thatched mud house said that he would have built a standard house, if not the chain of calamity that befell him.
The man whose daily income is put at between N2,000 to N2,500 said that he and his two wives were jointly taking care of the family needs including feeding and school requirements of their nine children from proceeds of menial jobs.
He disclosed that the family would likely take a temporary shelter at his grandfather’s home should the building collapse before he might have gathered all the roofing materials such as grass, bamboo sticks and others.
Uguru is seeking help from any quarters to enable him re-roof his thatched hut before the rains set in. Notwithstanding, he thanked the villagers for not being discriminatory and expressed the optimism of still making it in life.