By Blessing Udeobasi
Nigerian singer, Joy Eseoghene Odiete better known in music circles as Jodie, has revealed how strangers advised her to kill her son while lamenting the challenges of raising a special needs child in Nigeria.
The ‘kuchi kuchi singer, whose 6-year-old son Chinua lives with cerebral palsy revealed this in a post saying that the hospital where she had her son is to blame for his condition.
The mother of one also said she would have gone to a general hospital if she knew how things would turn out adding that because of her son’s disability, she cannot keep a relationship as her “soul is shattered”.
Jodie while lamenting that her son’s health condition has turned her into a beggar called on Nigerians to offer assistance to any special needs mom they know.
“My finances have been swallowed. My friends have abandoned me because I’m a beggar. My debts are new every morning.”
She added that many have advised her to kill her child, Chinua, “because such children are sent to swallow up finances.”
“Special needs children don’t eat regular food and need special care and this drains finances of parents.
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“I have done all sorts of jobs to provide for my child but the expensive child care takes it all.
“My son’s situation makes me fall ill almost every 3 weeks due to stress”.
“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.
“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. Do all you can about it now while I’m alive. I beg you Nigerians.”
Recall that Jodie was married to actor David Nnaji, the father of Chinua, but the marriage crashed shortly after the birth of their son.
