An auxiliary nurse and a mother of one, Happy Odegua Okojie, has cried out to the three leading governorship candidates in the September 21, 2024, governorship election in Edo State, Asue Ighodalo of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Monday Okpebholo of the All Progressives Congress (APC), and Olumide Akpata of the Labour Party (LP), to come to her aid in procuring a prosthetic limb to enable her live a normal life.
Okojie, an amputee, who hails from the Udomi clan in Esan Central Local Government Area of Edo State, said that she had all the while relied on the benevolence of kind-hearted individuals for sustenance.
According to her, she was lucky to be alive after she survived a ghastly car accident which led to her leg being amputated in 2010.
Okojie, who made the appeal at the weekend at the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) Secretariat in Benin, told newsmen that she decided to cry out to the governorship candidates for assistance to enable her to get proper medical attention.
According to her, in 2012, she attended a prosthetic clinic in the United Kingdom (UK), where she was assessed and provided with a prosthetic leg, adding that the leg had long expired prompting her to seek for support of politicians and other public-spirited individuals.
She recalled that in 2017 and 2021, Governor Godwin Obaseki supported her financially, but it was not enough for her to make the trip to seek for medical assistance from her doctors in the UK.
“Since I had the accident that left me incapacitated, life has been difficult for me and that is why am using this opportunity to also appeal to well-meaning Edo indigenes, and other Nigerians, to renew my prosthetic leg that had long expired. I have made several attempts to reach out to them (the candidates) all to no avail.” Okojie pleaded.