There are tales so heart-rending, we hope they never happened. So poignant, we want to link them to make-believe scripts from a movie set. Yet, they are as real as day.
We have known men who could barely scratch up a daily bread; jobless and almost hopeless, yet they are blessed with the gift of baby-making. Most often, with awesome ease, they make more babies than they can ever cater for.
“We have also known men who had everything going for them – working class, young, rich and powerful – yet the blessing of childbirth and the ability to make babies continue to elude them.”
This category of men can comfortably raise as many children as they are able to birth, yet childbirth remains beyond their reach.
Unjust realities of life, some may call that, but this is life.
The beginning
Her name is Chikamso Ekechukwu. She is just about 12 weeks old. She was abandoned in a corner of a community hospital with her mother. Her mother, Ruth Ekechukwu, 23, could not afford their hospital bill. She could barely feed herself what more Chikamso; and could hardly afford anything else beyond the clothes on her back.
Naturally, the question will be: what about the father of the child? But sadly, it would seem, some children will do much better without some fathers.
Abandonment
About three months ago; days after Chikamso was delivered through Caesarean Section, her father walked away, abandoning her and her mother to perilous fate, when they needed him most.
The only offence committed against the father was the fact that Ruth Ekechukwu defiantly refused a callous proposal by her husband Onyedimma who suggested that baby Chikamso be sold to one of his relatives who was willing to pay good money for a baby.
Against such cruel proposal, Ruth Ekechukwu firmly and courageously stood up for her baby, Chikamso and refused to degrade her first child into an article of trade.
So the man who was supposed to be her husband, the father of her child and the bread winner of their home shocked her to tears when he warned that she would have to fend for herself and her baby if baby Chikamso was not sold.
But the nursing mother put her foot down: ‘Not this baby! Chikamso is not for sale, no matter how much.’
Trying times
Poor Chikamso, as vulnerable as she was; was left at the mercy of mosquitoes and didn’t enjoy the luxury of baby food or adequate breast-feeding as mother was too poorly fed for any quality breast breastfeeding.
Her hospital bill was N135, 500 and the hospital had done her a favour, going into delivery and particularly Caesarean delivery without insisting on a deposit. Inspite of the zero deposit, the hospital continued their post-delivery care-giving until it became obvious that the father of the baby wasn’t coming back.
That was how Chikamso and her mother were holed up in a corner of a community hospital in Isiala Mbano, feeding from hand to mouth for about three months without a glimmer of hope in sight.
Poor Chikamso was always taking ill. But for the humanitarian intervention of the hospital management, the plight of Chikamso may have been fatal. The lovely baby girl was losing weight and emaciating as the days went by.
They had exhausted all their options and nobody they knew could help. The mother of Ruth, who at least, could have been bringing food, took ill. That spelt exasperation for poor Ruth and her baby.
For every woman who puts to bed, feeding is critical. Yet for Ruth, feeding was tough! She depended largely on charity and hand-outs from other patients or compassionate nurses.
Ruth was helpless and in deep despair. Most nights, she cried herself to sleep as the heart-rending cries of her starved and deprived baby, deepened her pains.
Good ending
The cries and travails of baby Chikamso and her mother eventually got to the ears of Mrs. Udoka Ikenga Imo Ugochinyere and her husband, Ikenga Imo Ugochinyere, the energetic spokesman of the Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP).
When they got wind of the plight of Chikamso and her mother, they made calls to confirm the veracity of the situation, following a call for help raised by Chidiebube Okeoma, a journalist who is also from the area.
Same day Mr. and Mrs. Ikenga Imo Ugochinyere confirmed that the predicament of baby Chikamso and her mother was real, was the same day they made funds available and the hospital bills were paid.
The couple also ensured that Chikamso and her mother were driven home safely to Ruth’s father’s house, supplied baby food and necessary provisions, and the mother funded to start a small business.
The couple further mandated that a case be incidented at the Divisional Police Station in Isiala Mbano against the deserter husband, Onyedimma compelling him to sign an undertaking to steer clear of the baby and mother except they wilfully return to him.
This was based on the understanding that if such ungodly plot to sell his own baby at day-old, could originate from him, Onyedimma, there is no telling what he could still do if allowed unhindered access to the mother and child.
“However, beyond the rhetoric of politics and the oratory of party publicists, humanity is what binds all men together.”
And the CUPP spokesman has shown that beyond calling out the incumbent government to their responsibilities and their wrongdoings, political activism is in doing the needful and the rightful when it is within one’s power to do so. That is what humanity is all about.
When, in the midst of plenty, we turn a blind eye to the plight of the poor and watch them consumed by their avoidable predicaments, humanity would be put on trial.
The message from Ikenga Imo Ugochinyere and his wife is to all men of substance and goodwill; to take the time and look over their high walls and lend a helping hand to the poor and less privileged all around them.
Watching baby Chikamso her mother leave the hospital that had become a sort of prison for three months would be a touching sight for so many.
Accompanied by nearly a dozen nurses, tears flowing freely, the joy in the air would make anybody’s day.
