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Mother Theresa of Gowon Estate helps the needy
A policeman’s wife, popularly called Mother Theresa because of her regular assistance to the poor and needy, and her daughter are now battling to save their ‘daughter’ who they adopted from a ‘mad’ woman from going blind, writes JULIANA FRANCIS
Nine-year-old Divine was apparently not in the habit of sitting still. She was all over Queen Mabel Irom’s body; stealing a kiss here and there.
The duo had just returned from the military hospital, where doctors are trying to seek treatment for Divine’s depreciating eye sights.
As Queen made attempt to start conversing with our correspondent, Divine, who calls her mummy, kept demanding for her attention. Even when she allowed Queen to begin the story of their lives together, she kept interrupting, filling in the gaps for her ‘mum.’
Yes, if Divine calls the 25-year-old lady ‘mother’, it would not be far from the truth. Queen was just 16-year-old secondary school girl when Divine came into her life and that of her mother, Mrs Arong Patience Obeten Irom.
Queen had done what shocked most people in her Gowon Estate residence. She had temporarily dropped out of school to assist in caring for the baby. It was only a matter of time before people started calling her Divine’s mother.
Queen did not bother to correct them, already fiercely falling in love with the baby like she was her biological mother. Queen, her mother and Divine had stuck together like leech.
There had been trying times when Queen and her mother wanted to throw in the trowel because of the baby’s capricious health, but they had clung, prayerful that she would grow out of them.
But alas, the different ailments persist. Divine is now nine and yet other baffling ailments have continued to assail her. This time, it is her eye sights. Queen and her mother are worried that the girl may soon go blind.
It was this fear that made them to step out of their shells, asking for any Good Samaritan to come forward and help the little girl before it was too late.
The family had worked to the bones and spent all to tackle one health issue after another. The saddening truth, however, is that Divine is the daughter of a mentally deranged woman. She was born a twin, but the second baby died days after they were born. Presently, nobody knows where her mother is.
The last anyone heard of her, she was in Akwa Ibom State, wandering the streets. Smiling shyly, Queen, an HND1 student of Industrial Maintenance Engineering, Yaba College of Technology, said: “When we brought Divine to our home, it was difficult for everyone because her mother was not available to breastfeed her.
The woman is mentally sick. The baby had infection and we needed to give her every treatment that money could provide. “I needed to work. I dropped out of school and got a job in a pub.
People who knew my dad mocked him because of me. They could not understand why I would drop out of school to help a child that I had no blood ties with. The beer joint was paying me N3,500.
“Whenever people asked me why I was working, I would say, I had a baby whom I needed to take care of. I never told any of them that the baby was not mine. People used to contribute money for me.
Some would give me baby food. “I feel happy and fulfilled whenever I help people. I sometimes used to tell myself that if I was a goddess, I would do everything to put a smile on someone’s face. Doctors said that Divine needs a special doctor.” Patience is the wife of a policeman.
But in the Gowon Estate where she resides with her family, people have come to know her as Mother Theresa of Gowon Estate. The 59-year-old woman has a penchant for picking stray women and kids.
Perhaps what stood her out mostly was taking care of Divine. According to Patience, assisting people in need makes her happy, even though she does not have the resources.
She had tried several times to control the urge, but the urge simply grows stronger the more she fought it. So, she stopped trying and gave reins to her feelings. Patience said that she first noticed Divine’s mother in Gowon Estate.
She was mentally unbalanced and heavily pregnant. Nobody knew who was responsible for her pregnancy. The woman was also aggressive, making people to avoid her.
Patience said her heart went out to the woman and her condition. The woman had no home and was quite dirty. She was always roaming the streets, muttering to herself. Patience braved the woman’s explosive attitude and won her over. Patience would bathe her some days and ensured she had clean clothes.
With time, the aggressive woman started dredging up a smile at the sight of Patience. She had become familiar with Patience. On the day she went into labour, the residents of the area ran to call Patience. She delivered a set of twins. One later died in the hospital.
Patience said: “Divine was two months’ old when I took her from the hospital. At that time, my husband was transferred to Jos, Plateau State. Queen was working at a pub and we were using her salary to buy diapers and baby food.
It was last year we discovered that Divine has severe eyes problem. “But she had been having different sort of health issues. We have done a series of tests. Last year she had a fever.
The fever almost resulted to convulsion, but doctors said it was meningitis. We had to go for therapy and many other programmes to get her walking again after the fever. The meningitis almost deformed her.” Almost crying, Patience said that Divine’s eye sights were affecting her educational progress. “The eyes seem to be getting worst.
We have started going back to hospitals. What we need now is money to treat her eyes once and for all. We do not want her to go blind. I have spent all I have. I want God to send someone to us, to take Divine overseas and treat her eyes.
She is a brilliant child. You should listen to her speak,” Patience added. Sick and tired of his wife’s penchant for using ‘feeding allowance’ to care for strangers, her husband had sent her packing out of her matrimonial home several times. Each time Patience promised to change, she ended up doing more for another set of strangers.
Patience wanted to keep her marriage and still help people, thus she took to hiding the indigent people in her shop, where they sleep and she would take food to them secretly.
Naturally, her husband always finds out. At a point, the husband realised that he couldn’t change his wife’s softheartedness and joined the bandwagon. Asked whether she was motivated to help people because she is rich? Laughingly, Patience said: “No. I’m not rich.
I started helping people right from my youth. My mother used to sell cartons of fish. Whenever I see people cooking without fish, I would take my mother’s fish to them. I knew such people could not afford such items. “There was a time I assisted some people who said they came to Lagos to work.
I left them at home and went to work. By the time I returned, they had absconded with some of my belongings, yet I could not stop assisting people.” She noted that she would never forget the time she assisted a pregnant woman in 1998 at Egbeda.
She said: “I was waiting to board a bus to Iyano-Ipaja when I saw a pregnant woman. She was heading to Isheri.
She was in labour. She was with her husband in a cab. The cab driver said he would not take them further because they had not paid for the first hospital he took them to earlier before they were referred to the general hospital. “I went over to the cab driver.
I told him to take us all to the nearest hospital. At the hospital, we were asked to deposit N30,000 before they would commence treatment. I paid the money and also gave the lady money for feeding.
I later learnt she had a baby girl. After that day, I never set eyes on her again.” Whenever Patience sees women and children roaming the streets, in search of shelter or food, she would reach out to them.
She has also assisted a lot of people to raise money to get accommodation and sometimes to pay rent. She said: “Even here in this estate where I reside, there are about 12 persons that I have assisted.
Many are now married and have children. Some kids that I picked and assisted, I have taken them back to their villages and family members.”
‘Mother Theresa’ added that most of the kids she assisted were picked from Calabar in Cross River State and Akwa Ibom State. Most of these kids had been accused of witchcraft and abandoned by their parents and family members. “I saw these kids when I travelled for an event.
They had pot bellies, signs of malnutrition. I found out that their fathers were dead and their mothers had abandoned them. I had to start taking care of them,” Patience said.
When the kids grew up and turned out beautifully well, she returned them to their mothers. “Yes, I took them back to the same mothers who abandoned and rejected them for fear of witchcraft. That was the situation with two siblings, ages four and six.
I trained them. When both girls got to their teens, they started running after men. I had to take them to their mother. The woman had remarried. She welcomed the supposed witches to her home.
She saw that they have turned out well. I still communicate with them,” she added. Patience recalled another incident which stood out sharply in her mind. It was at Agege Market where she saw a young boy, crying his eyes out.
Other kids were chasing him as if he was an outcaste. Patience was in the bus when she saw this. The crying broke her heart. She stepped down from the bus and went to ask why he was crying. The woman later named the boy Mathew. As she narrated the story, tears welled up in her eyes: “He could not talk.
He just kept mumbling mummy, mummy, mummy. People in the area directed me to where he lives. When I got there, I found out that his parents were dead. The kids were three; two boys and a girl. They were aged 12, nine and four. I was also told that their parents died of HIV/AIDS.
“The eldest was selling brooms to take care of his siblings. I asked if I could be allowed to take the fouryear- old. They agreed. I took the boy, trained him in school up to secondary level before he impregnated a girl from school.
The mother of the girl came to my house. I had to take him back. I explained to his siblings the reason for my action.
I told them that he could be going to school from their house, while I would be responsible for his up keeps and education. “He completed his secondary school and started working with a Chinese company.
He met and married a girl. They had a baby. I didn’t get to know about this until the day that he came to my house with his wife and baby. They came to invite me for the baby’s christening.
I call him Mathew. I screamed his name in joy when I saw him. I did not know that he had told his wife that I was his biological mother. “I told the girl how Mathew came to stay with me. Mathew fell down and started crying. I was confused.
He said I should not have told his wife that I was not his biological mother. I asked him how long one could keep telling lies. But to him, I’m his mother. He said I had succeeded in telling his wife that he is a bastard.
He was so angry that he got up and vowed that he would never step foot into my home again. I have not seen him since then.” Patience had also rescued a 15-year-old boy whose mother locked up inside the shop for reasons nobody knew. The shop caught fire, but the boy narrowly escaped death.
Since that incident, the boy could not speak, only demonstrating with his hands and behaving abnormally. The boy’s father is dead, his mother, a petty trader, was carrying on with another man and did not pay attention to her only son.
Patience tried to reason with the woman, but she shunned her. Patience decided to take care of the boy.
“I started taking care of Lucky. I used to bathe and give him food myself. I spoke with a mechanic who stays close to my house, so that Lucky could be sleeping in his shop.
I started taking him to hospital because of his inability to speak. After taking him to different hospitals and several tests were carried out on him, I was told that the problem was convulsion which affected his nervous system but that with time, he would talk.
I was surprised when Lucky started talking. I was told to register him in a private school, so that he could mingle with other students and improve his speech. He is now in Ondo State,” she enthused.
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