 I have not come across a blind person who have become sighted. Unfortunately I have come across too many sighted people who have become blind. I stood for like maybe two or three minutes was like a blind individual. Why it is like this? A typical human being cannot do most of what he is doing. They are pushed aside, they look them as perpetual beggars and it is not supposed to be. Some of us, we are learned, we don't need pity, we need opportunities, we need encouragement. A February 2021 report by the World Health Organization says that globally 2.2 billion people have a visual impairment. Of that number 64 million people suffer from glaucoma, the living cause of irreversible blindness in the world. It is projected that by the year 2030, 95.4 million people would suffer from the disease. Being a black person is a risk factor. At Iqadhat Junior High School Lagos, Nigeria, there are 55 steps from one end of the hallway to the other. There are 18 steps down the stairwell and 15 steps between classes. Siril Ujime countered them all because he needed the figures as well as his wife's cane to find his way around work. Siril is a 48-year-old visually impaired mathematician. He teaches math here to students with and without hearing disabilities in junior secondary classes 1 to 3. This situation presents a peculiar communication challenge. Imagine they will do sign language, I cannot see what they are signing. I will talk, they cannot hear what I am saying. So if they want to talk, I cannot hear them. They will make mess with it and it will be a very difficult situation. How are you today? Fine, fine. I had to learn a little bit of sign language and that gladdened their heart. They love seeing me making that effort to communicate with them. Unfortunately, they feel because I cannot see them back. They feel saddened about it that I am not seeing them sign back to me, communicating with me in their own way. Here's where 30-year-old Tawal Kat Babatinde comes in. Take notes, it's over the cost price, not the selling price. She's a sign language specialist at the school. She works with Xero to co-ordinate and communicate math lessons to the class. I'll make sure the class is being arranged, okay? Keep quiet, watch what it's saying, explain. When it's explaining, I'll demonstrate. You do give them class work and homework. I'll mark it, distribute it to the students. Honestly, the first day we worked together. I stood at dusk for like maybe two or three minutes. It was like a blind individual, writing like this. Even a typical woman being said cannot do most of what she is doing. So I was like, I was amazed. Seryo Ojime is a 1996 graduate of pure and applied mathematics from the University of Ilori, Kwara State. He's also an award-winning math and father-math teacher with experience spanning 11 different schools in five states across Nigeria since 1999. Seryo recalls a childhood experience that motivated him to take up teaching as a career. I used to have a math teacher. He would just put some problems on the board and would just be smiling. We would not be able to solve it. So in my mind I said I want to be a teacher whereby I would make math to look simpler than what this man is doing. That resolve made in the early 80s still nudges him to demystify math for children today. However, in 2012, Seryo was diagnosed with glaucoma. This almost put paid to his life ambition of teaching math. When I first of all found out 2012, it was like a shock to me because as a then in my family, the extended family, we only knew for maybe high issues such as myopia or long-distance issue, then maybe it was cataracts or nothing like glaucoma. So it was a surprise to me. When it came, when it started, it was as if it was an insect in my eye that was blowing my vision. So when I was two, it was glaucoma. When I was white blind, I got a bit scared at first. I said okay, let me see what can be done. Dr. Adiola Onokoya is a professor of ophthalmology at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Luth. She throws some light on Seryo's condition. Glaucoma is the commonest cause of irreversible blindness. It's a disease of the nerve of the eye. The nerve is like a cable that connects the eyeball to the brain. In glaucoma, what happens is there is some damage inside the eyeball where you have those nerves originating from that we call the optic nerve. They are damaged and what damages them. Well, it's either there isn't enough blood flowing into them or because there's a lot of pressure inside the eye. And once those cells in the eye die, even the eye is opened, it's looking at whatever object. But there is no connection, there's a disconnect between what the eye sees and the brain. So the eye looks normal, but no image processing is taking place. What causes glaucoma and how can it be treated? Nobody knows the cause. And if the cause of a disease is not known, then there's no care. It's common in blacks than in the Caucasian. There's just an inherent risk for us to develop glaucoma in blacks. And then if you have a family history, because genetics is at the basis of glaucoma really. And then if that pressure is high, that's high pressure, intraocular pressure, if it's high. And then people who have severe hypertension, people who have very low blood pressure, even people who are using low blood pressure medication, but they are overusing it. Management of the glaucoma can give eye drops. And if the eye drops are not working well, then you may have to go to surgery. It's a lifelong disease. But suffice is to say that once you have lost vision from glaucoma, it is not recovered. Cyril was in the prime of his career when glaucoma struck. He was deputy head of the math department, mathematics coordinator and was vying to be head of senior school before he began to have challenges with his vision. The new reality devastated him. He began to struggle with tasks that were once easy. Then to be moving around, it was difficult for me. There are times I just miss my way, when going to the class, I will not really know the right class that I am going to until I come back and count my steps again. Some of my colleagues, we are system-typing to be marking that I am going through a phase and I thank for my colleagues then who really want me to see that I was not failing. Being a private institution, they are not looking at whether you are going through a phase or whether you are going through a medical situation. They are always trying to be effective no matter what it takes. Don't go down. Don't relent in your effort. So I was trying to meet up. He sought medical help in 2012. However, the doctor's strike paralysed healthcare services for six months. In that time, his eyesight worsened. For six months when they were on strike, I could not get medical attention and that was when the eyes deteriorated. Thereafter, when they caught back the strike, it was a bit late. The pressure in the eyes became very high and uncontrollable. Despite eye drops and medication, it was just skyrocketed. If the doctors were on ground, I would have been able to get the proper medical attention on time. I would be able to at least know the right eye drops to take to preserve the vision. I would be able to at least, if it was not going better, at least the doctors would have been able to refer me to Lutz or even to another institution in Thailand for me to get proper attention. Indeed, the lack of a reliable healthcare system in Nigeria does jeopardize the health of citizens. Additionally, glaucoma does not show symptoms. Therefore, serial only begun to have signs of visual impairment in the advanced stages of the disease. We usually advise that we should get our eyes tested regularly. Once you are above the age of 35, you should make it a point of duty to get your eyes examined once in two years. But if you have a family member who suffers from glaucoma or you have a family member who is blind, you don't know why, you should check your eyes for glaucoma. So regular eye examination is the way to detect it at the very early stage and once it is detected, treatment is started and we can then slow down that rate of progression. As serial's eyesight was deteriorating, his work at Olasheri Grammar School in Ocean State was failing. In March 2015, he made a decision he never imagined he would take in his early 30s. Serial Oji men resigned. I had to meet the HOD as a provider I cannot continue like this. I don't want to be a burden to the students, members of staff and especially my immediate colleagues it is best for me to quit while the vision was still loud. Nothing prepared him for the challenges ahead. He was about to face trying times due to a deteriorating vision and a lack of steady income. In 2016 to 2018 I recorded those two years as the worst pillar of my life. Number one, I stopped going out. Two, feeding myself, my family became difficult. Three, paying for children's school fees, stopped. After exhausting my gratuity, nothing was coming in, a lot of expenditure came in, no income. So everything was just dry and I felt for my children something they never expected never wanted to experience. My wife did all she could to support but it was all to no avail. She became more or less like a beggar asking people around for assistance. Myself as I calling people calling my brothers calling those that I know those who I don't know to see what they can do to help me out. I got almost to a stage of depression but my wife and my children encouraged me that it's not over. Just when the nights got darkest some lights shone through. Cyril got to know of the Federal Nigeria Society for the Blind at Kapa Oshudin. It's a special rehabilitation centre for the blind. He didn't have the funds to enrol for the vocational training course. His friends and family began an online campaign to crowd fund his rehabilitation. The help started with my classmates Fajagome College Khan classmates. They came in at first they helped with the surgery but after a while they stepped back to take care of their own personal issues but by the time I now raised the voice again in the wilderness to say please I need help they came again saying one or two things just to keep body and soul together my elder brother came in then ex students those that I taught came in as well and they were ready to help me out until I graduated. With his fees paid he began a one-year process to rehabilitate for his new life. I did brain reading and writing rehabilitation and mobility. Mobility is by means of how you move around without being aided with the use of a white cane. This is a white cane. It's a white cane. You just put it on the ground and you just be feeling around. It guides one individual in person to move around freely without any fear of falling down. Then I learnt how to operate the computer using keystrokes. I'm going to their schools. Gradually I started getting used to the game to the laptop. Something I felt I could not do it again. What really helped me was the application that was installed in the computer. It's called JAWS. Job access with speech. On the phone we have what we call talk back. So that's the way we started using handset and the computer in general. There is a way to change my life and my way of seeing life in a new perspective. In 2019, Sirio graduated as the best student at the rehabilitation school. Thereafter he enrolled in another course by Sitesavers, an international non-governmental organisation dedicated to empowering the visually impaired with digital skills. Sitesavers really helped me out in terms of how to replan yourself, how to organise your career, how to work at your CV to make it to be a one-page document, how to prepare for an interview, what kind of questions to expect, how to do full off after an interview, then prepare for the work environment and give it that boost and that confidence to be bold, to be self-confident, to have that charisma, to have that character to move on. So Sitesavers did that for me. Despite all these training, he was not quite prepared for the challenge of getting back into the labour market as a person with disability. Luckily, an old connection came through. The person's name is Mrs Grace Egobi. I will be grateful to her. She got in touch with me and said, in an opening in the public sector, they are looking for a master's teacher and she is going to submit my name, being that that's my course. And that interview was conducted and today, again, I was employed. I was posted to Kejah Junior High School. When I first of all met the principal, Mr Safiou, he said, he is not going to reject me because he sees in me something that will be of benefit to the school. He gave me a brief interview in my office and he told me that he will be able to handle mathematics skillfully. So I said, let me give him a try. And since then I have been watching him. What I noticed about him is that he has great passion for this job. You will never see him coming later to work. He is always front in the class and he does the work with passion. I am happy, he is a decision of accepting me. He is paying dividends now. And ever since I stepped in here, I have been putting my best and I believe the best is here to come. Just when he thought getting a job was hard enough, commuting tour and from work as a visually impaired man became a tough road to travel. When I leave the compound, I stay at the gate side. The person that do help us at times he comes in. He will take me to the bus stop. I will enter a bus going to Oshu-D. I will drop at Kapa. From Kapa, I will take a bus coming down to PWD. Drop at PWD. When I get down, God has been faithful. Somebody is always there. They will take me across the railway track and to the other side bring me over to this side to the jelly side drop me at the gate. At times it will be a teacher, a fellow teacher. At times it will be a student. At times it will just be a passer-by who has a meek of kindness in him or her. This is David O'Cone, former president of the Nigeria Association of the Blind. He is the current chairman of the Association's Education Committee. O'Cone was born sighted but became blind as an infant. Like Cyril, he had a hard time securing a job despite his skills and education. He is now a staunch advocate for equal opportunities for persons with disabilities. Blind people can work as long as they have the education that is required. They need training like other people. It might be some specialised training but honestly it doesn't cost the price of a rocket. They need a command that will make them function appropriately. That might cost a little more than what you give. But every employer should think this way. O'Cone also analyses the role that the Nigerian society has played in perpetuating the belief that persons with disabilities are outcast. Society has yet to come to terms with the fact that a blind person or a person with disability is a member of the society. Or they see him as that lesser being. You can't even hear things like that. This handsome man or this beautiful girl is already blind. That is just nothing but pretty but are they ready to see you as an equal stakeholder in the society, in the organisation, in the workplace, in the school environment. Even in the church the answer is not in the affirmative for now. A blind person would have not really been so disadvantaged if the society was more enabled. The environment, the road networks was not built with me in mind. And even when the government even did some walkways, pavements that you could walk and not be run down by moving traffic you find out that that is not possible because the walkways have now become markets. The bike owners, what we call Okada pack their bikes on top there and so I now wouldn't be as if a more handicapped than I should be. Drawing from his personal experience with disability discrimination Serial makes a passionate plea for an inclusive society. Those who have physical disabilities they are pushed aside they look them as perpetual beggars and it's not supposed to be. Some of us we are learned we don't need pity we need opportunities, we need encouragement those who are lacking in education they need to go to school those who need employment those who need to start their own crafts and their own little business they need such help. Every six minutes someone is told they are going blind. Lead in medical journal Lancet Global Health projects that global blindness will triple by 2050 to 115 million. Okon speaks to these figures as he calls for a paradigm shift in how society views and treats persons with disabilities I have not come across a blind person who have become sighted unfortunately I have come across too many sighted people who have become blind the question then is why don't you think of making the society a better place in case you will be that person you know because there is nothing that says that it cannot be you tomorrow so that will not join us in the cry and lamentations that we are going through. In January 2019 President Mohammed Buhari signed the Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities Prohibition Act The Act criminalises discrimination against persons with disabilities and requires all public organisations to reserve at least 5% of employment opportunities for these persons but that law has the challenge of enforcement As for Siru Ojimen he has found a job that pays him two times Nigeria's minimum wage and he plans to retire in the teaching profession however many other PWDs are not as lucky they can be found on the streets begging for arms to survive all locked up in homes hidden by their families for fear of discrimination