Nigerian singer, Joy Eseoghene Odiete, popularly known as, Jodie, a single mother of 6-year-old boy, Chinua, who lives with cerebral palsy, has said that her son’s health condition has turned her into a beggar.
The Kuchi Kuchi singer, in a touching post, stressed that because of her son’s disability, she cannot keep a relationship as her “soul is shattered”.
“My finances have been swallowed. My friends have abandoned me because I’m a beggar. My debts are new every morning,” she wrote.
Jodie disclosed that special needs children don’t eat regular food and need special care and this drains finances of parents.
She noted that the hospital where she had her son is to be blamed for his condition.
According to her, she would have gone to a general hospital if she knew how things would turn out.
She added that many have advised her to kill her child, Chinua, “because such children are sent to swallow up finances.”
She said she has done all sorts of jobs to provide for her child but the expensive child care takes it all.
She added that her son’s situation makes her fall ill “almost every 3 weeks due to stress”
The singer asserted that her and other special needs parents have suffered alone for too long because they have been ashamed of the stigmatisation.
“We are now shameless. We are now helpless. We have gone mad… We need a permanent solution,” she wrote.
She then called on the government, non-governmental organisations and other authorities to provide a “permanent solution” for the care of special needs children so that parents will not have to go broke to care for their special needs kids.
She concluded: “My head is heavy. My eyes hurt, because I cry every night. Don’t wait for singer of Kuchi Kuchi to die first before you do a memorial service while her child is left to suffer. Do not spend a dime when I’m dead.”
