By Leshi Adebayo
Lara Owoeye-Wise, the Senior Special Assistant on New Media to the Deputy Senate President, Ovie Omo-Agege, has shared the story of how she adopted a young orphan and gave her a new life.
The broadcast journalist narrated the story on her Facebook page on Tuesday, alongside a video of the girl reading a book.
In the lengthy post, Owoeye-Wise said when she first met the unnamed girl, she dismissed the idea of taking her in because she considered such move child labour.
But on hearing the girl’s sad story from her brother at the time, she knew that she had no choice than to help her.
“I instantly knew that her destiny was going to get messed up if did not act. At 13 when she came in, she had lost her mother and was exposed to so much evil in the village. At 13, she had never been within the 4 walls of a classroom and could not communicate in English,” she recalled.
Owoeye-Wise disclosed that she refused to communicate to the girl in her native dialect, Hausa. Instead, she began tutoring her and later enrolled her into primary school and even got her a private teacher.
She recalled the many nights she saw the girl sleeping on a mat — though she had a bed — with her books scattered around her.
“Initially I did not understand but I later used my psychological mind to interpret her action. She was too excited to be learning and would not want to pert with her books, so I relaxed. It cost a lot because sometimes she would roll over the books and get them damaged,” she said.
The aide went on to reveal that the girl is currently in Primary 4, and recently won a partial scholarship for an outstanding performance.
“Last week she told me she would want to sit for Common Entrance exam “so that can go to JSS school” looked at her mouth and again, my heart melted. So my girl speaks the Queen’s English now but she sometimes mixes it with American English. So you hear “ops” and “damn”. You hear “did you sleep well?” and “oh figured it out” “Mum are you okay?”, “How is your body?,” she added.
