Meet Malam Jubril Isa Diso, the blind Nigerian who has a PhD degree

 Malam Jubril Isa Diso is visually impaired from birth. He is the first in the country to read his way to the enviable position of an associate professor with 12 publications to his credit in the Faculty of Education, Bayero University, Kano (BUK). 

The lecturer was a Special Adviser to the former governor of Kano State, Malam Ibrahim Shekarau, on Physically Challenged.

He started his educational career in 1962 when the Royal Common Wealth Society for the Blind introduced education for the blind in Nigeria.

Dr Diso was recently interviewed by Daily Trust last Sunday and here's a bit of what he told them:

In the course of your struggle for education were there any incidents you suffered?

Well, there was at the beginning. At the earlier stage there were instances of discrimination. The serious problem and embarrassment I faced was during my examinations. Whenever I wanted to write exams there were no brail scripts. The only thing they could do for me was just to get somebody to come and sit beside me and read the questions to my hearing.

Now we have what is called embosser here for blind people. During exams the machine will emboss the brail for them unlike in my time. Thank God today everybody in the university, from the cleaners, messengers up to the lecturers and vice chancellor, are ever willing to work with me. Since they introduced this Department of Special Education I have no problem with anybody and people are always ready to give me any assistance I need.

Would you say you are fulfilled today after all you went through?

Well, nobody can really say he has fulfilled all he wanted until death. I am still willing to help other visually impaired people and those living with other disabilities. I am presently working on my NGO to help the disabled in the North. 

When you are disabled there is stigmatization, especially if you are not educated. Nobody would like to be associated with you if you are deaf, blind or crippled. Society always looks at people in these conditions as different people. When people are disabled the only thing they thought they could do was to go to the streets to beg for alms and our religion does not want that. I will base the project on three principles: Education, health and empowerment.

Are you saying government is not doing enough for the disabled?

I can say yes and no simply because we don’t always have the right representatives of people living with disabilities in government. We are presently making it an issue with the Federal Government on the need to create a commission for people living with disabilities. Until we get this commission, that is when we can say government is doing something on the plight of the disabled in the country. 

I am the first blind person ever to be appointed as Special Adviser on the African continent. I was appointed by the former governor of Kano State, Malam Ibrahim Shekarau, from 2006 to 2007 as his Special Adviser on the Disabled Matters. Many people were against it but thank God I did well. I was able to get free education for them and I also secured employment for about 400 disabled persons. Now that there is nobody in government to fight for us we have gone back to square one.

Daily Trust