It was the eve of summer, and despite the heavy downpour, the Transcorp Hilton's Hall was filled as people from all occupations defied the weather to celebrate a young Nigerian who, against all odds, embarked upon research that found the cure to Cancer.
When Atakpa was called to the podium to share his story. He began thus…
Before my birth, the elders of the land prophesied that my mother was going to give birth to a saviour who would liberate humanity from her woes. How this was to happen, no one could tell.
As my mother’s pregnancy progressed, a team of insurers visited my village to enrol members of the community on an insurance scheme. Since the community was an agriculturally based community that depended upon farming for livelihood, the villagers ignored the program and headed for their farms.
Unfortunately, for the community, a drought caused by the effects of climate change adversely affected the harvest, to the dismay of everyone.
My father, who was equally respected for his farming skills, suffered untold losses too. As he battled in penury, my mum went into a prolonged labour that lasted for several days.
Since he was unable to raise the money needed for a caesarean section, she bled to death after successfully giving birth to me.
Although he regretted not heeding the call to enrol for the insurance scheme, he secretly insured me in an educational insurance scheme without the knowledge of his relatives.
One day, while he was tilling the soil in preparation for the planting season, a viper bit him. With no hospital in sight, he lost his life.
This left my family in shambles. Life in the village became gloomy and hopeless as I battled with the choices that lay before me: either to go to school or to become a poor, wretched farmer like my ancestors. The former looked appealing, but there was no money. My albinism condition, which should have given me a soft landing, compounded my woes and often left me excluded during decision-making processes. The belief held by my community was that albinos were offspring of the marine world. Hence, ill luck was directed to me.
With only my poor Grand-ma willing to care for me as an orphan, I resorted to hawking locust beans barefoot in a neighbouring community to fend for myself. From the proceeds, I enrolled in a local primary school, twenty kilometres away from my village.
On my first day of school, the muddy swamp on the footpath stained my oversized uniform as patches of red mud clung to my bare feet with each forward step. After a two-hour trek, I arrived at the school compound in a pitiable condition. This never deterred the disciplinary master from properly caning me for resuming late. The lashes were expertly delivered with swift precision in a manner that made it impossible for me to massage my little buttocks.
As I made my way into the classroom, my new mates who had been watching through the rugged school windows burst into laughter. "Don’t they empathise here?" I mused. Well, past neglect over my disability taught me never to depend upon anyone.
With no seat to spare, I sat on the floor ruminating over the bitter experience. Suddenly, a rumble ensued as pupils jumped out of the window to flee from a Mathematics lesson.
In no distant time, a tall, dark man, probably in his forties, walked into the classroom with a mighty whip in his left hand.
The class, which was now quarter-full, rose to greet, "Good morning, Sir".
Being ignorant about the school's norms, I remained seated.
"Good day, class, and how are you doing?" Asked the teacher.
Before the class could respond, the stern-faced man walked up to me and said, "Okpani melanin, can’t you greet me? Education isn’t meant for people like you. You are not even supposed to be here because you don’t see during the day".
With this line of banter, the class burst into rowdy laughter while he scribbled 5+8 on the board.
He turned in my direction and offered me a chalk saying, "Come and solve the sum on the board."
"Doesn’t this man know I am a newcomer? Why does he want to further disgrace me?” I said to no one in particular.
I had a good knowledge of numbers from my hawking business, and this gave me the confidence to give the sum a try.
As I stood before the chalkboard, the rays from the rising sun reflecting into the classroom blurred my vision and made the number 5 look like 8.
Seconds later, I wrote down "16" as my answer.
"Can you see why I said this boy is not supposed to be here?" the teacher blasted.
This question came with a torrential rain of slaps on my little oval face, which left me uncoordinated. With my face swollen like a Christmas balloon inflated by an infant, I cried my eyes out, but there was no one to comfort me.
As the bell rang for school closure, I waited until everyone left before clinging my slate to my armpit for the taxing journey home. I dreaded returning the next day while embarking on the monotonous trek down the lonely path to my village that sunny afternoon. With half of my journey covered, my intestines started rumbling against each other like a drunk bee. This temporarily halted me as I climbed a fruit-laden palm tree to gather some kernels. This provision brought soothing relief to my grumbling, hungry stomach while I made an effort to cover the last lap of my trek.
As I lay back on my bamboo-strewn bed that night, my body ached with pain. The hope for a better future however jolted me to rescind my initial resolve to quit school as the cock crew the next morning. I hastily dressed up and headed early for school to avoid another brouhaha.
The school began to get better as the education cycle progressed, despite mockery from my mates for being an albino. With an unflinching quest for success, I developed a thick skin against their jeers.
One fateful day, while he was in school, a team of insurers from Heirs Insurance visited my village to search for my father. During their interaction with the village head, they learnt he had died from a snakebite. This paved the way for me to enjoy a fully funded scholarship from high school to the University. This feat eased me from the burden of hawking to generate my tuition fee.
After sixteen years on a fully funded insurance scholarship, I graduated with a first-class degree in pharmacy with my research thesis, providing a cure to cancer.
As the cream of the society gathered at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel to celebrate this remarkable achievement, Atakpa never relented to thank the Heirs Insurance team for the support they rendered to help him in the discovery.