When two ‘special persons’ wedded

Mrs. Oni Okpaku (left), the couple and Mrs.
Grace Odetola with the wedding cake.It may have happened somewhere else in the world - perhaps, it frequently happens abroad - but it is certainly news for two mentally-retarded inmates of a skills-acquisition and life support home to make the wedding altar. As the event unfolded last Saturday, 21 March, Nigerian Tribune’s Abiodun Awolaja was in Ijebu-Ode, Ogun State, and reports on the special wedding.

IJEBU-Ode, as one saw the terrain on Saturday, March
21, is a rather quiet, ancient, Yoruba king- dom wedged between modernity and traditional life - too quiet, in any case, for one coming from boisterous, noisy Ibadan.

At Eruobodo Special Home, located on Stadium Road on the outskirts of the city, a unique event was unfolding; two mentally-retarded, yet passionately committed individuals were getting married in a colourful ceremony accentuated by the almost crippling quiet. Addressing a row of guests seated on neatly arranged plastic chairs was Mrs. Grace Odetola, matron of the home whose wards were set to bestride the nation’s matrimonial club.

As Odetola code-switched Yoruba and English, appealling to the audience to jettison their time-worn prejudice against “special children,” the audience listening with rapt, almost dramatic attention, the writer’s eyes darted across the crowd and noticed a sprinkling of well-turned-out special persons. But when Odetola introduced one of them, a certain Segun, head lolling and salivating.

The wedding was about to begin, and Grace Odetola’s words were beginning to take root. The market women, the expatriate elite at the head table, the special persons, the observers — all waited impatiently for the emergence of the bride and her groom. And she came out, resplendent in her wedding gown, and wielding an infectious, though perhaps peculiar, smile. Moriamo Oni-Okpaku, 26, bore the demeanour of a shy bride, but those who knew her well said she was a choosy and quick-tempered maiden who had rejected many suitors on the grounds that they over-salivated or were too ugly for her liking.

Abandoned on the streets of Lagos by her parents, Moriamo had been brought to Eruobodo home in 1997. A celebrity who sold second-hand stuff, Moriamo was very popular with the market folk, who loaded her with gari and other gifts any time they saw her. “Interestingly, all the gari you were giving her,” Odetola told the market women, “it was her husband that she brought it all to!” The audience replied with a resounding applause. And the shy bride, now on her seat, covered her face with the palm of her hands, a study in bashfulness.

The groom, Damilola Jamiu Taiwo, also abandoned on the streets, was brought to Eruobodo Home in 2007, 10 years after his bride. Also visibly mentally-retarded, Dammy, as everyone called him, was flashing a set of sparkling clean teeth throughout the ceremony.

It was Victoria Uzochi, abled-bodied and non-mentally challenged inmate, who told of the duo’s love story.

Hear her: “When Mr. Damilola came here of recent, about three months or after, Moriamo would always come to me and say ‘Mo like e’ (I like him). I said, ‘Why not go and tell Mummy?’ She would say ‘Mo fe fe e’ (I want to marry him). Sometimes, Moriamo and Damilola would wash at the back of the house, give each other gari. After maybe dinner or lunch, they would always go to the backyard, sit down and talk. Afterwards, Moriamo would come to me and say: ‘We’ve talked, we’ve played, I’ve washed clothes for him.

“Moriamo would always help Dammy sew his clothes, and keep everything about him tidy and clean. She always tried to supply his needs to her own capacity.”

According to Mrs. Odetola, she had dismissed Damilola as being unserious when he had first come to her, asking to marry Moriamo, knowing how quick-tempered a lady Moriamo was, even though all the children in the house had predicted that Dammy would marry Moriamo as soon as he arrived the home.

Indeed, Dammy himself had often protested vehemently whenever anyone had called him Moriamo’s husband, during his early days in the house. He had, however, so persisted in his request to marry Moriamo, once the duo had fallen in love, that Odetola had to inform Mrs. Grace Oni-Okpaku, the chairperson of the home. And even Moriamo herself had started appealling to be allowed to marry Dammy.

“But you know, as it often happens between boyfriends and girlfriends, they soon had a quarrel and broke off, vowing never to marry each other again. They became sworn enemies. It was Mrs. Oni-Opaku whom God used to bring them together again. One day, she came from Lagos and asked, Dammy: ‘So what’s your decision about Moriamo? Dammy said he would marry her. I looked stupid, because I hadn’t thought they would resume the relationship,” Odetola added.

The minister of the day, one Apostle Onward, charged the congregation to always assist the less privileged. “That is what Jesus came to do. Those who needed food, he gave them food; he healed those who needed healing. Jesus never left any work untouched. The Bible says anyone we can help is our neighbour,” he said.

As the couple were being joined together, the congregation sang the hymn, ‘Christ is our conerstone.’ The couple, however, had to be assisted in putting the wedding ring on each other’s fingers, Dammy smiling all the way through, with his dentition permanently being flashed at the guests.

As Nigerian Tribune mingled with the crowd, trying to sample opinions, someone explained: ‘O ga o. Nnkan n sele ni Ijebu Ode yi sa’ (Surprising! Things are really happening here in Ijebu-Ode).

When the Nigerian Tribune asked whether the couple would not also need to be assisted at night, the lady rebuked what she thought was this writer’s naivety.

“Won o ni se kinni? Awon to n wo TV, ti won mo nnkan to n lo? Won ma see daadaa!” (They won’t do what? People who watch TV, who know what’s going on? They will do it fervently!)

Different songs, at this stage, began to emerge from the guest. “O yege, Moriamo, o yege; Dammy ri e l’omoge, o si gbe e niyawo o, Alleluyah, O yege!” (You’ve succeeded, Moriamo, you’ve won; Dammy saw you a maiden and made you his wife; Moriamo, Alleluyah, you’ve won indeed). “Oni lojo ayo re” (This is your day of joy) and other wedding tunes began to be sung by the ecstatic guests.

Abduljeleel Akinyemi and Segun Adebowale, both unsighted, brought the occasion to life with highly-sophisticated ewi (Yoruba rhetorical chant), charging the guests not to write off physically-challenged persons, as “we too have great feats to perform in life,” which drew eager donations from the happy guests.

And when the wedding cake had been cut, the guests served jollof rice and champagne popped, the stage was set for dancing. If Moriamo had been bashful hitherto, now she came out of her doubts. She danced the juju musician, Yinka Ayefele’s music as if her life depended on it - and her husband was a willing accomplice, holding her hands as if he suspected someone might snatch her away from him, “digging it” (the Nigerian English expression for a dancing step in which the dancer bends the knees towards the ground, almost touching the earth, then rises gradually up, and down again) and flashing happy teeth.

Grace Odetola was probably the happiest person at the event. She recalled a time, about four or five years ago, when she had received a knock on her door at 12 a.m, 2 a.m, 3 a.m, all the while refusing to open the door. But when the decorous knocking had woken her up once again at 5.00 a.m and she had summoned up courage to open the door, behold Moriamo with a present and a card wishing her “Happy birthday.” She (Moriamo) had wanted to be the first person to wish Odeatola happy birthday.