By Osa Mbonu-Amadi
I told this story to a Facebook friend who has an eye problem and someone gave her his phone number and asked her to come and meet him for a complete cure. I believe the story will also be helpful to us.
I will advise you to be careful about consulting strangers concerning your eyesight. Of course, I believe you should know better.
I am a journalist. Many years ago, in Lagos, I was inside the molue bus, going to Mile 2 from Oshodi. A man who called himself Dr. Ekundayo (I will never forget his name) stood up to sell what he called an all-eye problem miracle cure. It was a palm wine-like liquid he put inside a used bottled water container.
‘Dr’. Ekundayo said his medicine cures all types of eye problems within few minutes; that if anyone was in doubt, let any person with an eye problem there inside the bus come forward and receive few drops of the liquid into the troubled eyes. “If the person’s eye did not heal before we get to Mile 2, call me a bastard,” ‘Dr’. Ekundayo swore.
I watched and waited.
To my horror, a man who sat close to me in the bus stood up, walked down to ‘Dr’. Ekundayo and presented his eyes to him. ‘Dr’. Ekundayo dropped a few of the palm wine-like liquid into his eyes and he returned to his seat near me.
My journalistic instincts took over.
I asked him what type of eye problem he had, and he said he finds it difficult to see object that are far away from him. I swallowed hard and waited for the bus to get to Mile 2 so that we would see whether the man would start seeing distant objects as ‘Dr’. Ekundayo had promised.
When we got to Mile 2, everyone got down from the bus except ‘Dr’. Ekundayo. I followed the man with eye problem. I noticed he continuously rubbed his eyes with his hands.
“Can you see better now?” I asked him. He said no, and continued to rub his eyes. I knew immediately that the man was in trouble.
“Maybe it will get better before you get home,” I said to him.
Before I left him, I took his phone number. “I will call you to find out how you are doing. I am a journalist,” I told him.
The next day I remembered and called him.
“Hmmm, my brother,” the man told me, “as I am talking to you now, I am completely blind. In fact, I got blind before I reached my bus stop that yesterday. That man who called himself a doctor is fake!”
I almost burst into laughter, but I restrained myself from doing so.
“I remember you said you’re a journalist. Please come and interview me concerning that devil. He must not go unpunished,” he said.
I was not prepared to write any story. There’s a proverb in Igbo that says you don’t use objects meant for cleaning the ear (like cotton bud) to clean the eyes. Obviously, the victim had gambled with his eyesight – an important organ that is irreplaceable once lost
