I married a deaf man to avoid maltreatment, gossip –Edeh-Nnadi, female lawyer

Nigeria’s first deaf female
lawyer, Catherine Chinyere Edeh-Nnadi is a study in courage. An
alumnus of University of Ilorin, Kwara state and Humphrey School of
Public Affairs, University of Minnesota, USA, the Enugu state-born
advocate of inclusive education is also a disability rights
campaigner, social entrepreneur and motivational
speaker.

The founder/coordinator, Voice of Disability Initiative (VDI)
spoke to Saturday Sun through a sign language interpreter on the
challenges faced by deaf students in pursuit of tertiary education,
gender violence and other issues. MAGNUS
EZE conducted the interview in Enugu.

Why are you pushing for inclusive education in Enugu
State University of Science and Technology?

My sole aim is to give back to the society and because there was
no such facility in the whole of South East, I had to travel all
the way to University of Ilorin, so I decided to bring this to the
South East because many deaf people abandoned their education at
secondary level. That’s why I initiated the project of floating the
deaf resource centre in Enugu State University of Science and
Technology. Luckily for me, the good people of Enugu state were
interested; the Vice Chancellor of ESUT, the registrar, Speaker of
Enugu State House of Assembly and many others liked the idea. We
wrote proposal to ESUT and it was approved; we’ve also sourced for
a professional sign language interpreter to become the pioneer sign
language interpreter there. She was the best graduating student of
sign language in the University of Jos and hails from Enugu state.
ESUT recently appointed her and she is undergoing training, very
soon she would occupy her position.

But the challenge now is how to get deaf students to enroll in
ESUT; many are frightened that ESUT fees are high and that they
don’t have the facility to manage deaf students, they are still
having the erroneous feeling that it’s waste of resources, how do
we engage sign interpreters without having deaf students get
admission. That’s why we have decided to step up the advocacy to
let Nigerians know that a deaf resource centre has been established
in ESUT and encourage parents of deaf children who have finished
secondary school to allow them seek admission in ESUT.

We also have the plan that certain number of deaf students that
will be the first to get admission will be tuition free till
graduation as a way of encouraging others.

What was your experience as a deaf student pursing
education in University of Ilorin and even in the United States of
America?

Before you get admission in University of Ilorin, you will visit
the deaf resource centre in the university; they will discuss with
you and it’s the centre that will decide whether you’ll be admitted
or not after going through your records. So, after securing the
admission, as a student, you will go to your department, copy the
timetable and submit to the deaf resource centre. It’s the centre
that will take the responsibility of sharing you among the
interpreters using the timetables submitted by the various deaf
students. You don’t need to run to the centre to remind them
anytime you have lecture as the sign language interpreter assigned
to you will always use the timetable to be in the class even ahead
of you.

How many deaf students were in your class both at
Unilorin and the law school?

I was the only deaf law student in my class but before me, the
institution had produced a deaf lawyer and the Obafemi Awolowo
University, Ile-Ife was the first to produce deaf lawyer. But I am
the first deaf female lawyer in the country.

I must confess that there were challenges and frustrations but I
didn’t give up. I was encouraged by the kind of assistance I
received from especially the law faculty in Unilorin. In fact, once
the lecture is over, my interpreter will return to the centre and I
will remain in the faculty; so, whenever I missed lectures, my
lecturers and classmates usually assist by providing me with the
lecture notes to copy.

But my greatest challenge was in the law school because there
was neither sign language interpreter nor deaf resource centre
there. I had to start from the scratch. When I applied for law
school admission, I had to go to the headquarters in Bwari Abuja. I
learnt that they have what they called special centre for special
students, but they had not handled my kind of case. The first deaf
person that was called to bar finished from the Lagos campus and
used to hide his disability but I don’t hide my
disability.  So, I came to sensitise them that I was a
deaf student and there was serious argument as to my eligibility.
The Head of Department, Academics then, suggested that he will take
me to the National Hospital, Abuja for cochlear implant so that I
will be fit to study at the law school but I turned down the offer
because I came for my studies not for cochlear implant. After much
argument, I was privileged to have a course mate who studied abroad
and knew how they handle special students abroad. The person
accompanied me and we approached the school management and asked
them to provide me with sign language interpreter, that it’s my
right. It was then that the management of the law school employed
sign language interpreter.

What do you tell the government about people with
special case like you?

I am telling them to stop playing politics with us. Every
administration that comes will start afresh to push for the
disability bill in the National Assembly; the bill will pass all
the legislative stages but they will keep dribbling us. When it
gets to the President for assent, we will hear one story or the
other until that administration goes, then when another comes, they
will begin again to waste resources without achieving anything.
There is so much discrimination against people with disability in
Nigeria, the educational system is not inclusive. Some schools on
their own decided to be inclusive and not through the effort of
government but thank God that President Muhammadu Buhari recently
assented to the disability rights bill. I believe with this
national law protecting the disabled in Nigeria, it will be
compulsory for all the schools to upgrade to inclusive education in
the country. And when the disabled people graduate, there should be
jobs for them and not the kind of frustration that all of us are
facing today.

What has the Enugu state government done to help
inclusive education?

Through relentless effort, a lot of graduates were employed into
the state service during the recent employment exercise. Besides,
this effort to make ESUT inclusive is also with the moral support
of the Enugu state government. Also, we are working on producing
the disability rights bill which was earlier abandoned; we want to
reintroduce it in the state House of Assembly and seek the
governor’s assent.

What’s your take on disability-based gender
violence?

I decided that I must marry a deaf person like me because I
didn’t want for instance where the family of my husband will be a
challenge to me, maltreat me and gossip about my disability. They
can also influence their son to maltreat me; I know the society we
live in and how it views physically challenged people, the
discrimination. That’s why I decided to marry somebody like me. But
since I got married, my husband is from Enugu state too, not that
we’ve not had differences, but we sort them out by ourselves. We’re
living happily and promoting each other. But if a woman with
disability marries a man without disability, no matter how they
love each other, it will get to a point that the man will start
maltreating her because he will say that she has become some form
of obstacle to his success or other things. It will take much to
keep that marriage; the lady will have to endure so much and with
time, he will turn her into a punching bag.

Even in government, a lot is against girls and women with
disability. They know me and how stubborn I am in the Enugu
Government House; I don’t just take nonsense. Women with
disabilities suffer a lot even in the hospital especially the
pregnant ones. The case is worse if you are pregnant and on wheel
chair. They will say look at, this one is pregnant as if it is a
sin for somebody on wheel chair to get pregnant. Then when the
person is deaf, it becomes another matter altogether if there is no
interpreter. Even in an emergency, when they hear that the person
is deaf, they will say please stay aside that they have people to
attend to. All these increase the mortality of women with
disabilities; so much challenge, so much discrimination that we
must all join hands to fight.

Culled from Sun

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