8th September, 2014
Kazeem Ugbodaga
Two physically challenged groom and bride have wedded at the Lagos State Vocational Rehabilitation Centre for Persons with Disabilities, Owutu, Ikorodu area of Lagos, southwest Nigeria.
A Baptist pastor joined the couple in holy matrimony at a well attended wedding also witnessed by officials of the Lagos Office of Youth and Social Development recently.
The physically challenged couple, Simiat Abiola and Dare Akinyemi, tied the conjugal knot to the admiration of all the guests. While Abiola is 20 years old, Akinyemi is 42 years.
Akinyemi has speech impairment and has extremely low intelligence quotient, IQ, while his wife also has low IQ and cannot write her name despite several years of coaching.
This was why their marriage was declared special, being one of the few to have taken place at the centre.
Principal of the centre, Mrs Folusho Adeolu, said the centre had been taking care of children with special needs since it was established in 1997.
“The bride and groom are not like other children. Simiat, I was told, was fostered at Idi-Araba by a woman who later died before she was brought here. She went through school up to JSS but cannot write her name because of her condition.
“One of our ex-trainees took interest in her. He also has speech impairment. We did all the proper wedding for them, from traditional wedding to church wedding. A Baptist pastor came here to wed them,” she explained.
The principal said the sister of the groom offered to look after them because of their vulnerability.
“They will be living together, but close to the house of his sister. The groom learnt shoe making from our centre, so he is going to fend for his wife,” she said.
Adeolu stated that some of the people brought to the centre had very low IQ at the initial period, but that after lots of mentoring, they improved.
She added that the next stage is to re-integrate the couple into the society, so that the husband and wife could adapt to a new life of marriage and family.