Monday, August 10, 2026
News and Views from the Global South
NIGERIA-HEALTH: Hunger Forces Lepers onto the Streets.
Toye Olori
- The metre-high concrete divider in the middle of the Lagos-Benin dual carriageway forms the main wall of hundreds of makeshift tents that adorn the highway.
In some cases, palm fronds form the roofs of the tents, which extend for over five kilometres along the road. In others, it’s a piece of polythene less than a metre wide with the ends held down by two rocks.
The men and women they shelter are mostly lepers. As the drivers try to avoid the potholes and rough patches on the expressway, they move up to the vehicles. “Brothers and sisters help me and God will bless you,” they chorus.
When passengers in a slow-moving 18-seater bus throw a few banknotes onto the road, the beggars’ young children rush to pick them up. None of the children appear to be more than eight years old. The youngest is about three.
The more than 250 lepers from Ossiomo-Abudu camp, which is about two kms from the expressway, have been forced to beg alms along the road in order to survive.
“It is appalling that the hospital, whose aim is to treat and restore leprosy patients in the country, is on the verge of collapse due to lack of finance for the maintenance of the hospital,” says Felix Ogbeide, medical director of the Specialist Hospital in Ossiomo-Abudu .
“The situation had led many of the patients to escape from the camp, thereby constituting a medical threat to many,” Ogbeide added.
“A few of the patients had deserted the camp a few months ago due to the considerable hardship facing them,” he explained. They later returned and told the rest about the money they had made by begging, and as a result, many of the other inmates joined them, he added.
Food was being prepared on a small kerosene stove under the palm-frond roof of Sule Abdulahi’s roadside tent when IPS stopped by. The structure shields Abdulahi, his wife and their two children from the sun and the rain. “I make nothing less than 200 naira (about three U.S. dollars) daily and with the money, we eat,” he said. “It is better than going hungry in the camp.”
His children, like those of other lepers who have deserted camps in various parts of the country, are unable to go to school since they are forced to help their parents beg alms.
Ogbeide warned that if money was not provided for the maintenance of leprosy camps, an outbreak of the infectuous disease might be imminent in the country.
A woman commuter in the 18-seater bus, who gave her name as Mary, said society should do something for the lepers. “All these new-generation church leaders who exploit people and make millions of naira off them should at least help to take care of them if the government can no longer help them,” she suggested.
Ossiomo-Abudu camp is one of several leper colonies in Nigeria. It was established in 1953 as a hospital and camp by a group of white settlers who maintained it until they handed it over to the government of the former Western Region.
When, in 1965, that region was subdivided, the hospital fell under the government of the Midwestern region, which has since been split into two. Now the institution is maintained by administration of Edo state.
“At present, the government of Edo state can no longer maintain the hospital single-handedly,” Ogbeide said. “The Federal government’s quarterly subvention through the federal ministry of health cannot be sufficient unless others in the society come to the rescue.”
He did not say how much financial support is received from the government.
According to Ministry of Health officials, there are more than 20,000 lepers in Nigeria. Most are found in 10 areas where leprosy is endemic. The government is now carrying out four pilot projects in as many states with the aim of wiping out the disease.
According to Yemi Sofola, Co-ordinator of the National Tuberculosis and Leprosy Control Programme, “a national plan of action against leprosy and tuberculosis will be implemented at the completion of the pilot scheme.”
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