Jutha Gupah, Maiduguri
A Borno State blind vulnerable boy, Bakura Muhammad has adopted the braille to read the primetime news on the Al-Ansar 96.1 FM radio to mark World Children’s Day in Maiduguri, the state capital.
Bakura, 15, of the Borno Specialists School (BOSS), did not appear like what he has been through as a vulnerable child, while attending Mudagannari Senior Secondary School.
He was heart racing but hands steady in reading the news broadcast at the radio station with his hands over his white Braille news sheet and said to listeners: “This is the news hour brought to you at 11am. I am Bakura Muhammed, your news anchor for Monday.’’
He lost his mother when he was only 30 days old from birth.
The trauma of the 13-year Boko Haram insurgency which also compounded the tragedy of personal loss, he said in an interview with The Guardian: “I didn’t know my mum. I never heard her voice.”
He, therefore, with courage and resilience the vulnerable child has come full cycle since the strings of tragedies.
Bakura on the WCD, however; read the news as a child anchor on Al-Ansar FM Radio. It was a giant step for him to realize that he wanted to be a newscaster when he was 13 years.
Continued; “My father had a transistor radio he listened to,” stating that whenever he stepped out of the house, he used to take it from his room and listen to the news.
“When he found out, he gave me his old radio as a gift,” he noted.
Since then, Bakura started listening to and admire famous broadcast journalists, including Nasiru Salisu Zango of Deutsche Welle (DW) and Ibrahim Isa, a reporter with the British Broadcasting Commission (BBC).
He said that this is what informed him to fall in love with broadcasting.
On what inspired him into broadcasting, he said: “I love the way they present their reports and sign off their names with glamour. I wanted to be like them so I joined the debate club in my special school to improve my presentation skills.
“I was also lucky to be chosen as one of the anchors of Da Rarrafe Yaro Kan Tashi, a children’s radio programme.
“But I was still worried that my disability could not stand in realizing my dreams.
Despite his fears, Bakura had his day in the sun when he was chosen by GoalPrime, a UNICEF-supported non-governmental organisation, to present the news to mark WCD 2022.
The presentation, which was done in collaboration with Al-Ansar Radio, was supported by the European Union, Education Cannot Wait and the Global Partnership for Education.
Speaking on the challenges of disabilities, he disclosed: “When I translated the news on the Braille sheet, my fears however; disappeared by holding the sheet in my hands,” noting that his confidence boosted with God’s will.
He would love to work with either the Cable Network News (CNN) or Voice of America as newscaster when he completes his education.
“I can also work on the media including the sensitization department of UNICEF,” he boasted with an ego of performance.
Despite his lofty aspiration to become a broadcaster, he almost missed being enrolled in school and having the lifelong opportunity that education offers.
“I have been blind for as long as I have been alive,” he declared, explaining that he is his last mother’s child, as she died about a month after giving birth to him.
Continuing; he added: “I was not enrolled in school until I was seven years. Some neighbours advised my father against enrolling me in school because they felt that I would be better off begging for alms,” stating that his father did not listen to them and he is grateful.
Bakura, who speaks fluent English, told The Guardian: “Education is an opportunity for conflict-affected children like me.
“With education, anything is possible. I used to doubt if I could make something out of my life, but the opportunities I got from education have reassured me to secure my future.”
End.
