Deaf Nigerian Profile 008: Deafness Is A Blessing In Disguise, I Don’t Regret Being Deaf.” – Abdulkadir Abdulfatah

By Oyeleke Bernice

Mr Abdulfatah Abdulkadir is postlingual Deaf, he was born and bred in Ilorin, Kwara State. He serves in different leadership capacities, some of which are: Assistant secretary general, Kwara State Association of the Deaf; Secretary general, Deaf Political Action Committee, Kwara State; Representative for Deaf Youth, Kwara State chapter.

Meet Kadir Abdulfatai as he shares inspiring story to encourage others:

MY JOURNEY INTO DEAFNESS

At the age of six years old, I suffered from measles and high fever and was taken to hospital for treatment. This illness took seven months before I recovered and it led to my deafness. Afterwards, my father did all he could to restore my hearing, but his effort proved abortive. The deafness also affected the quality of my speech production.

Despite being deaf, my father enrolled me for Qur’anic lesson, but my efforts to learn the Qur’an were futile because of my inability to hear. I was also enrolled for different tutorials because my family wanted me to get education. But it didn’t yield positive result. All these steps were taken because my family members were ignorant of special school for deaf children. Following all these fruitless efforts, I was left at home for three years. I became very idle. However, I kept disturbing my father to enroll me at school, but he was reluctant because of my disability.

However, a year after the death of my father, two of my brothers got to know about a special school, Kwara State School for Special Needs Ilorin formerly Kwara State School for the Handicapped Ilorin and they enrolled me there for my primary education. I was introduced to sign language at the school and learnt it for the purpose of communication. I had my secondary education at the same school and obtained my SSCE certificate in year 2006.

I obtained my NCE certificate in 2010 at the Federal College of Education (Special) Oyo, Oyo State. After several futile attempts to secure admission to the university, I was eventually admitted at the University of Jos, in year 2014 and I graduated with a second class (upper division) in the year 2018.

To God be all the glory, I am currently a serving member of the National Youth Service Corp (NYSC).

In life, there will be challenges. There will be obstacles. There will be doubters. There will be mistakes. But with hard work, there are no limits.

MY SIGN LANGUAGE MY PRIDE

Language sign has helped me in many ways. I am happy knowing sign language because without it, I won’t be able to communicate efficiently.

DEAFNESS is a BLESSING in disguise. I don’t regret being Deaf.”