Mrs. Akudo George is
pregnant. The 21-year-old woman got married about 10 months earlier and
is naturally excited. She has always been in high spirit though, but an
experience she had in Oyingbo market, Ebute Meta in Lagos left her
petrified.
Seven months pregnant
George was haggling with a fruit seller when she heard someone say,
“Please give me money.” She turned to behold a small man standing beside
her. The man’s features showed that though small in stature, he was not
a kid but a full grown adult.
She recalled, “I was
petrified. I just handed the money I was about to pay the fruit seller
to the little man. I felt dizzy all of a sudden. The little man took the
money and said, ‘thank you very much madam. Don’t be scared. I mean you
no harm. Life is tough for people like us. God bless you. You’ll give
birth to very tall children’. I said ‘amen’ weakly. It wasn’t a pleasant
encounter. I went through the remaining weeks of the pregnancy in a
daze. I had heard stories of how normal babies changed to other things
in the womb. I had to tell my husband, doctor and mother. I prayed. That
was 36 years ago. My son, Chibuzor, grew into a healthy man. But that
pregnancy was difficult because I developed high blood pressure because
of that chance encounter with a little man.”
If George felt this way just because a ‘little man’ approached her, what about the feeling of the ‘little man’?
Mr. Moses Ogbaji is 29
years old, but his three-foot height sharply belies his age. However,
his face and mannerisms show the maturity that is seemingly lacking in
his tiny frame.
Ogbaji is a
dwarf, but this did not stop him from fantasising about being a pilot,
particularly in his childhood. Even as a grown man, Ogbaji said he
sometimes wishes he was taller, so he could have a shot at fulfilling
his childhood fantasy.
He said. “I wish that I
could be a pilot; to be up in the air and travelling everywhere. I
remember dreaming about it, especially when I was younger, but a person
of my stature cannot be a pilot. So I will have to
miss not having the opportunity to become a pilot in my lifetime.”
According to the Little
People of America, a non-profit organisation that offers support to
dwarfs and their families, dwarfism is “an adult height of four feet 10
inches (147 cm) or under, as a result of medical or genetic condition.”
In general terms, dwarfism is a condition of short stature.
Indeed, job preferences
for dwarfs are limited, particularly in a developing country like
Nigeria. Dwarfs are also not considered to be suitable for driving,
joining the security force or taking part in sporting activities, such
as athletics, that tend to emphasise the use of limbs. But beyond that,
dwarfs are generally considered to be at a disadvantage in a world
dominated by relatively tall people. They are often bullied, cheated and
jeered in educational, work and social settings.
Also, dwarfs are called
by different names, mostly derogatory, in different places and
languages. For instance, they are ‘Arara’ in Yoruba and ‘Gagere’ or
‘Wada’ in Hausa.
In Igbo, the name for
dwarfs is ‘Akakpo’, which is sometimes used as an insult to any one
considered as short. It is also said that if a woman insults an
‘Akakpo’, she will end up giving birth to one.
But universally, midget
is a common term used to describe dwarfs, but it is also often regarded
as offensive. In places like Canada and the US, many dwarfs now prefer
to be called ‘little people’, but this has not yet caught on across the
world, with some people still referring to dwarfs as ‘pygmies’.
Pygmies are an ethnic
group of averagely short adult people that can be found in some African
countries including Cameroon, Gabon, Angola, Botswana, Rwanda, Burundi,
Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo, where
they are said to make up two per cent of its population.
However, Ogbaji, who
hails from Oju Local Government Area of Benue State, said people
sometimes call him ‘Congo’ on the streets of Lagos.
“Some people call us ‘Congo’; they will say that we are from the Democratic Republic of Congo and not Nigeria,” he said.
Basically, dwarfs face
stigma and discrimination because of their stature, so they consequently
withdraw socially and tend to associate more with fellow dwarfs by
clustering together.
In Lagos, Moyosore
Abiodun Shopping Complex, Oshodi and Ebute-Ilaje in Bariga area serve as
base where dwarfs of various ethnic groups from across the country are
found.
Chibuna Emeka, 20, who
is the only dwarf in his family, said most of them are into film making
to survive the public ridicule they face, along with the limited
opportunities available to them. Even with that, Emeka claimed that they
are often cheated by other people in the movie industry, and therefore,
resolved to the marketing of CDs themselves.
“People look at us and
laugh but I know that I didn’t create myself. We gather here in the
morning, and then we go out to market and converge here in the evening,”
Emeka said.
He is married to a tall
woman, Chinasa, and they have a daughter who is not a dwarf. Emeka said
he was pleased that his daughter, Happiness, did not take after him and
so, saved from the pains that characterised his childhood. Emeka, who
grew up in Abia State, only had elementary education because according
to him, much of his childhood was spent as a lonely boy.
He said, “I was always alone and I had no friends; it was how my mind wanted it.”
But in spite of his
stature and unlike Emeka, Ogbaji considered himself a ‘yuppy dwarf’ and
his dressing bore testimony to his claim. While speaking to Saturday PUNCH,
Ogbaji had two earrings on his left ear, one on his right and another
ring to adorned his nose. His permed hair, combed backwards, was black
and shiny.
Ogbaji drinks, goes
clubbing and even asks women for a dance, although he admitted that his
advances are not always successful and that dancing with a tall woman
could sometimes be awkward. He said little men are good in bed that
women fight over them, adding that he has two tall girlfriends, one of
whom might become his wife later in the year.
“I have two girlfriends
and they are tall. I wooed the first one but it was the second one who
wooed me and now, they are fighting over me,” Ogbaji said, attributing
his love dilemma to his ‘dress sense’ and ‘sweet loving’ nature.
He said he was lucky to
get his first girlfriend to agree after several failed attempts to get a
woman. Ogbaji recalled an unpleasant experience he had with a lady, who
declined his love advances some years back.
“I was lucky with my
girlfriend. I remember one tall girl I wooed one day, who said, ‘you no
dey shame? You short person coming to meet me’. She laughed and said she
didn’t want a child that would look like me,” Ogbaji said, adding that
the lady left him standing as she walked off.
Even though, Ogbaji has starred in several movies including Golden House and Land of the Dwarf, he said he still sometimes feels bad when people jeer at him and call him names.
He said, “I always tell them that I’m a normal human being but sometimes, I still feel annoyed with myself.”
A consultant family
physician with special interest in mental health, Dr. Gbolahan Abideen,
of the Nigerian Airforce Hospital, Ikeja, said dwarfism could be caused
by any or more than 200 conditions, identifying the two categories of
dwarfism as ‘proportionate’ and ‘disproportionate’.
According to him, people
with proportionate dwarfism are unusually small, but with bodies that
are normally proportioned, while those with disproportionate dwarfism
have one or more body parts with apparent growth variations.
Abideen, however,
identified disproportionate dwarfism as the more common type and
abnormal bone growth, which is genetic, as its most common cause. In
addition, Abideen said dwarfism could be hereditary or come as a result
of growth hormone deficiency.
He said,
“’Achondroplasia’, which is an abnormality with bone development, is the
most common form of dwarfism. It’s responsible for about 70 per cent of
the dwarfism cases you find around. What you essentially find in them
is big heads, big tummies, abnormally short limbs and protruding chests
as a result of curved backbone.
“When the cause is
hormonal, two dwarfs could marry each other and their children would
grow tall, but when it’s hereditary or familial, it means that it runs
in the family; an example of this is the pygmies.”
Abideen added that
dwarfs in Nigeria are usually disadvantaged from birth as “they are a
point of ridicule in childhood and an object of discrimination in
adulthood.” He, however, noted that the solution lies with the society,
which “should be encouraging and supporting them.”
He said, “They (dwarfs)
don’t get jobs and even when they get, they are given the lowest of the
low, like cleaning and so on. In school, they get so much attention and
sometimes sympathy, so they sometimes end up having low self esteem and
that’s why many of them don’t finish school.
“They are bullied, they
are called by derogatory names. So because of the discrimination, they
tend to cluster together. Some of them get depressed, particularly in
their teenage years when their peers are growing, and they tend to
remain the same. Most times, you also find that they are poor because
they are unable to get good jobs.”
Abideen also added that dwarfs’ “intellect is intact, in spite of their small size.”
“What they need is for
the society to support them so they can blossom and reach their full
potential. They do not need dole-outs or people’s sympathy, what they
need is empathy,” he said.
Ms. Abiodun Christiana
Abon, a dwarf, said she once ran into a woman on the road, who screamed
upon sighting her. Abon said she felt embarrassed and could not
understand why the woman made a fuss about meeting a dwarf on the road.
\
She said, “Our daily
life is supposed to be normal, but it’s not. When people see us on the
street, they call us all sorts of names and look down on us like we are
not part of the society.”
Abon said that growing
up was particularly tough for her because her mother deserted the family
because of her stature. Although her father is late, Abon said she
would forever be grateful to him for his support to her while he was
alive.
She said, “But the worst
feeling is when the discrimination comes from within the family. I was
still small when my mother left us because of me. At a time, while
growing up, I felt dejected. But my father was always there for me until
his death when I had to stop school.
“I had planned to study
law before my father died and I still wish to if I can get the support;
but the truth is that it’s not easy for dwarfs in this country.”
According to Abon, her
wish to study law came one day when her dad took her to meet a female
medical doctor, who was also a dwarf.
She said, “The woman
encouraged me and told me that she did not know her biological parents
because they dumped her somewhere. It was her foster parents who
nurtured and gave her all the support she needed to become somebody.
Right there and then, although I was still in primary school, I decided
to become a lawyer, but unfortunately, my father died.
“It is very difficult to
get a job. Many dwarfs no longer bother to look for jobs and the trend
is also discouraging the young ones from going to school since the best
chance they have is to be self-employed or be a trader.”
Abon, who has a Catering
and Hotel Management certificate from a catering institute, recalled
her experience when she was posted to an eatery for industrial training.
She said, “I was there
with four others but I was the only dwarf. They called the four others
into the office, attended to them, but I was left there and nobody told
me what was going on.
“After waiting for about
five hours, I spoke to an employee, who told me that the manager was
busy and that I could come back the next day.”
Abon said she met the
manager as he was arriving for work the following day, but that he only
gave her an illustration to explain why he would reject her.
She said, “He gave me an
apron to put on and took me to the kitchen. In the kitchen, he showed
me their huge cooker and said he would not take me because of my height.
He said I would not be able to use the cooker.
“By then, I had started
crying. He counted some money and gave to me, which I rejected. Instead
of giving me where I could fit in, he was comparing me with the cooker.”
Abon said it is common
to find a significant number of female dwarfs who are single mothers,
because most men are only interested in them for sex.
She said, “Men are only
after having sex with us just to see if it is different from what they
are used to. And even when we find sincere ones, they tend to face
intense pressure from their families who try to dissuade them.”
At over 30 years of age, Abon is not yet married, but she said she was in a relationship with a man of average height.
“Even at that, we are facing pressure but we hope to overcome it,” she said.
Another dwarf, Mrs.
Deborah Ogunka, lamented the challenges dwarfs experience in getting
married to taller persons, explaining that was why she eventually
decided to marry another dwarf.
Ogunka’s son has normal growth, but she admitted that she was a bit apprehensive before going into labour.
She said, “I did a scan, so I knew he was a boy, but I didn’t bother to ask if he would be short.”
Ogunka also said she has
had to cope with so many derogatory comments, but according to her, the
worst discriminatory statement she ever heard came from her neighbour,
who said, “You people should not be living in the cities, you should be
living in the forest.”
She recalled, “Tears ran down my face that day; even now, I still cry every time I remember that statement.”
Mr. Victor Udochukwu
Nwaogu is a 2008 Theatre Arts graduate from the University of Ibadan,
Oyo State. However, he was disappointed on two occasions when he had got
to the final stage of getting employed.
He said, “One was a
federal job, while the other was a private job. The moment they realise
that I’m a dwarf, everything changes.”
Nwaogu said dwarfs need platforms to enable their integration into the society.
According to him, such platforms could be by engaging dwarfs in the public sphere or by giving them important responsibilities.
He argued that such
platforms, along with enlightenment programmes to debunk cultural myths,
would gradually give dwarfs the opportunities needed for proper
integration.
He said, “There are very
few educated dwarfs because of issues of self consciousness. But a
platform for dwarfs to play active roles in the society will encourage
more dwarfs to be educated.
“People tend to look
down on physically or specially-challenged people, but an able-bodied
person can become physically challenged tomorrow, so it is important
that issues affecting people in the society are addressed.”
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