Who determines the sort of man or woman that a child eventually becomes? Is the blueprint of one’s life already created and inserted like a micro chip in the heart of that person? Or are we a product of the influences that exist around us? 

Who knows these things really? Does anyone really care about them? Are we as people too afraid to confront the reality of our progression into men and women that were the villains in the cartoons and fairytales we loved as kids (and like some of us, still love as adults)? Alright I know I’m asking a lot of questions, but the truth is that we have come to a vortex of human existence where we have to face these unpleasant issues or fall into the abyss of no return. 

How can we judge another person if we fail to take a critical look at our own selves? The best critics are those who are the most haunted by the imaginations of what a glimpse at their inner man might reveal, so they focus more on doing a thorough inquest into the words and actions of others in order to divert the attention from themselves. 

Mohammed Lawal stands on the curb of the service lane around the Town Planning junction of Ikorodu Road. You might know him; he is an albino with a terrible skin condition. He squints at the road users as they pass by using his towel or his hand as a shield to protect himself from the penetrating rays of sunlight that most likely is responsible for his condition in the first place. 

Mohammed has pus oozing out of the breakages on his face, some hard and dried up after hours of building up. His eyes are watery pools of yellow liquid and his skin is red from the harshness of the sun’s effect on his skin.

With his hands held out, he shuffles toward the cars waiting at the intersection for the traffic lights to go green. And what a wait it is, where three minutes becomes like thirty to the driver and passengers of the vehicles, as they dread the moment when Mohammed will get to their own car. By the sheer force of will we command the traffic lights to change quickly because in all sincerity, Mohammed Lawal is definitely not a pretty sight to behold, or worse still to have hovering over your vehicle window. 

Day after day, road users taking that route have to steel themselves for the short period that they will be confronted by Mohammed as he begs for alms.

As an observer of Mohammed’s routine, and people’s reactions to him, I have come to the conclusion that the hands he cups in front of passers-by to collect alms is indicative of his primary desire; to receive acceptance from the world around him. 

The need for acceptance is a legitimate need that we are all born with; our entire socialisation process is simply a machinery to serve the communal need of a society to be accepted.

Satisfying that need is harder for some than others; rejection, especially in childhood, creates a deep void which will take an almost impossible level of acceptance to fill.

This spurs us to search for newer and most times illegitimate means to satisfy this need. 

For someone like Mohammed Lawal, who has such a condition that makes him repulsive to even the most tender-hearted of individuals, finding acceptance from people has most likely been his lifelong quest; the irony is that he may not even know it. 

That is one of the hardest tricks that life plays on us. The truth of our situation is often within us, but we are conditioned to believe that the answer to the question we don’t even know is somewhere out there, when it is in us. 

Rejection, in Mohammed Lawal’s experience, is as frequent as a fart from a gas filled stomach. It is the story of his life. Daily he comes out reaching out again to a world that rejected him yesterday. With hands outstretched, he resembles an apparition from a bad horror movie, seeking acceptance from people who shrink back in fear and disgust as he approaches them. Regardless, Mohammed is there the next day, and the day after, until the day that he’ll realise that he needs to get out from under that sun which is the cause of his problem in the first place. 

Unlike you and I who have either built a wall of defence around ourselves to protect us from the world’s rejection, or betrayed our own selves just to find acceptance, Mohammed comes out everyday just as he is, as repulsive as even he knows he looks, and stretches out his hand hoping that one day, one fine day, someone will reach out and hold his hand. 

For that reason, Mohammed Lawal is my hero

Robot  # 1 | 22.03.2009 22:56

Who determines the sort of man or woman that a child eventually becomes? Is the blueprint of one’s life already created and inserted like a micro chip in the heart of that person? Or are we a product of the influences that exist around us? Who knows these things really? Does anyone really care about them? Are we as people too afraid to confront the reality of our progression into men and women that were the villains in the cartoons and fairytales we loved as kids (and like some of us, still love as adults)? Alright I know I’m asking a lot of questions, but the truth is that we have come to a vortex of human existence where we have to face these unpleasant issues or fall into the abyss of no return. How can we judge another person if we fail to take a critical look at our own selves? The best critics are those who are the most haunted by the imaginations of what a glimpse at their inner man might reveal, so they focus more on doing a thorough inquest ...Read the full article.

folashade  # 2 | 24.03.2009 03:40

Thanks Tari for such a soul-benumbing but nonetheless inspiring piece! I know Mohammed Lawal. I encounter him nearly everyday at the Town planning road intersection on my way to work. The first time he approached, I shrank back in disgust, bitterly mortified at the cancer gradually eating up his face and the dripping purulent sores covering the eyes he unsucessfully tries to shield from the blinding harshness of the sun. I notice the rejection that is his daily lot as he is hastily shooed away like some diseased dog by passersby and motorists alike but marvel at the tenacity with which he darts in between fast-moving vehicles soliciting alms his heart seeming to say " Take me. Take me my brother, don't reject me. I am a human being like you!". And I weep. I weep inwardly because I know that my occasional alms will not keep him off the streets nor lessen the burden of his heart. So, I have come to grudgingly accept him like one of the many of the grim spectres haunting humanity and a sad reflection of a society gone off the rails.:cry: Sadly, the likes of Mohammed Lawal will continue exist like some sad spectacle of a wretched humanity, fit only for the purpose of emotional catharsis or some occasional wicked joke. His fate may occasionally provoke a few tears and sighs from some of us- both the tender and stone hearted and thereafter we all repair to the drudgery confronting our own lives. Afterall, there are worse sights littering the streets- dead bodies left by the sideways to rot, the sick dying in instalments because the money earmarked to equip them ended up in private pockets and babies as they are sent to their early grave as a result of poisoned drugs, ad nauseam. And I curse. I curse the huge sick joke that Nigeria has become- where profane obcenity is celebrated in high places in the name of lavish weddings, where bandits loot without let and human life reduced to less than a farthing.:sad: But I salute the courage of Mohammed Lawal. He stands head to head with some of the world's leading heroes, far above the colony of looters and renegades. He stands with those that have had to endure torture,injustice, ridicule, even death just because they insist on a place under the sun. His eyes will continue to wait on God, hoping that some day, one day, it would be his turn to receive mercy from the calloused hands of a society that denies his existence.

Tari Ekiyor  # 3 | 29.08.2009 10:24

Your comment is truly amazing, Folashade!! There is truth in what you've said. I pray that we all gain consciousness about the effects our life choices have on other people. Sorry for my delayed response, haven't been here in a while!! Tari