23 years bedridden, Daniel thanks media for life support

And complications had multiplied to include a hole in his liver—which left him weak and his condition worse, reported the Punch this April. Weeks earlier, Vanguard Newspaper had published a video interview with him.

The stories go back year after year to 2003. He was fresh out of secondary school then, landing on a job, stepping out of a delivery van and right onto the head of a raging cattle.

He recalls the fleeting seconds of sheer terror as the cattle ran with him on its horns, with people shouting aghast on that street in Onitsha, Anambra State.

When the cattle threw Daniel off, he landed hard. Two bones snapped in his neck, some more in his legs and hips, X-rays would later show. He has been on his back on a mattress since—being moved only between hospitals and shelters.

The stories about him chronicle his battle against immobility, his struggle to live, his spirit to thrive—with the media the only thing between him and Nigerians.

On Sunday May 3, Daniel turned 44—but 23 of those years have been spent on his back or chest in a bed.

“And still counting,” he added in a message.

Despite his condition, his message sounded chirpy, bright, resolute, defiant even. He said he was grateful to God for the “gift of life”, for using “his selfless children and well-meaning Nigerians” to sustain him till date.

“I will love to use this very remarkable and historical day in my life to specially thank and appreciate the Nigerian media,” he said, in a video he recorded to mark his birthday.

For more than a decade since I encountered him, his story is one the media seasonally reports on. Nation, Vanguard, Punch, This Day, Daily Trust, Authority, NTA, AIT, and counting other radio, TV, print and online platforms, including BBC, have all had at least one journalist during my time of active field work who has written up a story about Daniel.

“I also thank and appreciate fellow Nigerians and the general public for their love, kindness, support and prayers for me whenever my pathetic critical health condition is being published,” he says.

The stories have kept him in the face of nongovernment organisations, philanthropists, kind hearted ordinary Nigerians, good Samaritans—all of whom have contributed drops to the basket of donations to put food in his stomach, a shelter over his head, drugs at his bedside.

When the world shut down in the coronavirus pandemic, Daniel had been bedridden for 16 years, and treatment took a back seat: all Daniel wanted was food, Daily Trust reported.

His bank details [Daniel Emori, UBA, 2072008766] and phone numbers [MTN 07031655209, Airtel 08082453717] had been broadcast on television and across social media seeking help for him, while he was cooped in a residence in Dutse Makaranta in Abuja. It was the donations of Nigerians that saw Daniel through the lockdown.

“Only God knows what would have happened to me long ago if not for the Nigerian media. I really lack the words to express my gratitude to Nigerian media, especially the print media and fellow Nigerians.”

Treatment start and stops

A barge of treatments and treatment options have come and gone since 2003. Physiotherapy, rehabilitation, surgeries have been done but there never seemed to be enough funds at any point to complete most—and then his challenge with nutrition sometimes got in the way. Instead of a motorized wheelchair, he uses a regular one, pushed around by a helper for when he visits hospitals. Other than that, he is either on his back, chest – on rare occasions, side – in bed, all day, every day. He has gone through bouts of infections and treatments with bed sores up till 2026.

The catheter attached to him drains urine and—without a helper—has in the past held urine for days, causing bouts of urinary tract infections. That’s how he spends his days. Carers put on stipend revolve through the door of his tiny single room as rent provided by well-meaning Nigerians bounce him from one location in Abuja to another. He keeps in touch with the world via a mobile phone, peeking through social media, chatting, making sure the world has not forgotten him.

The first time I met him was in a tiny room in Jikwoyi, where I visited with a camera to record his story. The second was in Dutse Makaranta before the Covid-19 lockdown. He kept in touch until he turned 41—having spent half those years in bed. The things red-blooded 41-year-old do were out of his reach—no relationship, no wife, no child. He worried about having nothing, no one to come after him, no legacy, no sign of his having been on earth.

As 44 years rolled around, it came with the new challenge—and the very human, very mortal realization that the inevitable was imminent. He had been having hospital visits, medical opinion was that may never walk again, but now his liver was getting in the way.

“There is a medical possibility that I might not live longer anymore due to a strange hole in my liver, which is making me weak and worsening my health condition,” he messaged in March.

His plan was to relocate by March 27 to his hometown in Abi, Cross River—“back to the village and stay with my aged mother and manage life with her”, he said.

“I have been planning it since last year [2025], but challenges upon challenges. But I have concluded everything now for my upkeep.” His upkeep still runs on trickles of donations and pledges from large-hearted—some anonymous—Nigerians keep tabs on him in the news.

“In case you never hear from me any more while in the village, please,” he added, with a praying hands emoji, “it’s never intentional.”

March 27 rolled around. By 10am, the move was on. His possessions—a mattress, a jerrycan, plastic chairs that accommodated the occasional sympathy visitor—were bundled from his tiny one-room place into the back  of a pickup. His wheelchair was folded in before the tailgate.

Daniel’s lower half is usually swaddled in that familiar red-and-yellow wrapper that covers him in his second bed. That wrapper is visible in photos of him bedridden that have appeared in the media.

On this morning of moving, his carers had helped painstakingly pour his lower half into a pair of white, loose knickers. His upper half, covered in bed sores, was helped into a black T-shirt. And he was helped, carried into the front passenger seat—that familiar wrapper now a Mackintosh that blanketed the seat beneath him. The ever-present catheter was still in place, running into a fluid bag between his feet on the floor.

In a photo from that morning, he looked serene, quiet, stiff with pain from body sores, arms folded in a X across his chest, as his journey to Cross River began.

“Sir, please,” he messaged with a praying hands emoji, “if you don’t hear from me again, never forget me.”

Back home

Two weeks later, he is still laying prone in bed. His aging mother is his main carer now and those bed sores are clearing up. But it is his birthday—44 years of living and breathing, more than half of them in bed.

In a video he shared from that day, the camera tilts down on him laying supine on a mattress on the floor, arms across his bare chest as he relates how sores and swellings have eased.

The camera tilts through an open door—baby chicks chirp busily out of shot—to an external space where he describes as the “kitchen, where we manage to cook”. That’s where his aging mother of nine, who has spent her life farming, cobbles up vegetables from her farm to sustain nutrition for her sixth child, who at 44 now depends largely on her.

“Thank God for life,” he says. And he used the “opportunity of my birthday” to thank Nigerians, the media, and all who have contributed to sustain him.

“If not for you guys, who have already shown the world my predicament, nobody would have known talk more of support me.”

He goes through a short hearty list of groups he wants to thank. In the same frame, his hands come up to rub his forehead, then go back down to cross over his chest.

But his needs and need for support are not over, he says.

“I’m no longer talking of medical support or medical treatment. I have completely lost hope, medically.  The assistance I need now is my daily upkeep, to take care of myself—till God says it is my last day.”