India-bound ‘Acid-Bath Girl’ can’t wait to see new face

  She, along with her uncle’s wife, Mrs. Manpesa, are to spend three months in India, during which Comfort will undergo stages of plastic surgery to get a new face. When that happens, Comfort can only rely on old photographs to say anything, or see how she looked like for three years and six months […]

 

She, along with her uncle’s wife, Mrs. Manpesa, are to spend three months in India, during which Comfort will undergo stages of plastic surgery to get a new face. When that happens, Comfort can only rely on old photographs to say anything, or see how she looked like for three years and six months before the surgery. Even with those massive keloid scars which have formed mounds on her face, Comfort could not hide a smile anytime India was mentioned.

How Comfort got to this pitiful state where she has spent close to four years in dire need of comfort, is heart rending. Comfort is suffering from multiple damages because of an acid bathe on her in May, 2008. She had informed the police who are still prosecuting the case at a Lafia Upper Area Court II, that her father, Sunday James, 66, emptied a can of corrosive substance on her face after he dragged her into an uncompleted building, a little away from the family residence along Maidoki Street in Akwanga.

 

The police report before the court says Comfort informed them that one of her aunt – the father’s sister, sought spiritual intervention from an Abuja based pastor over deaths in the family. The pastor claimed he knew the cause of the deaths, accusing Comfort of witchcraft and being responsible for the deaths.

Comfort was about 14 then and in her ninth year after she lost her mother at age five. She was in her second year in secondary school. She grew up between an elderly aunt, her father and his second wife. She is the only child of her late mother.

Concerned persons including her mother’s brother assisted and paid for her medical treatment at an Akwanga hospital which healed the burns. However, an NGO took her case up even further from there, presenting her to the National Agency for the Prohibition of Traffic in Persons and other related matters (NAPTIP), and the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), about a year ago, during a conference on child abuse in Akwanga.

The NGO had discovered Comfort not too long ago and the conference of the relevant agencies in the town presented an opportunity to push up her case. The NGO executive director, Tashi Tashi, had said he thought that raising her issue with the two relevant agencies can give her some reliefs. “We have been in constant touch with NAPTIP and NHRC and they have always said they are trying to do something. But all to no avail, he had lamented.

Therefore, Comfort remained all the while, without any effort for her to get surgery. However, help came her way, when, Nasarawa state governor, Umaru Tanko Al-Makura, sought to see the acid victim. He promised to fully take up her case so that she can have a new face and breathe again through her nostrils.

At one point, the Bauchi State governor, Isa Yuguda, on reading about Comfort in Weekly Trust, extended a helping hand. However, Al-Makura had already gone far with the process to fly her to India where a three-month surgical period is awaiting her. Al-Makura handed Comfort’s case to his personal physician, Dr. Mohammed Usman Adis who last week, sent her to Lagos for the patient to be examined remotely through a video conference with a team of doctors in India.

Telemedicine, as it is called, is a technology driven solution to cut cost of having to travel for consultations before a specialist is located for the actual treatment. This was carried out at Crestview Radiology Centre in Victoria Island, with Doctor Wale Alabi and Gbadamosi Anu, head of the telemedicine services in session at the video conference where Comfort was assessed by a team of doctors from Narayana Hrudayalaya hospital in Bangalore, India. They were led by the plastic surgeon, Dr. Sushil Nahar who is expected to handle Comfort’s case.

Comfort expressed gratitude that what remained only a pipe dream in the past three years and six months is now a reality waiting at her doorstep. It is a new face that which will give her confidence to move freely. “Sometimes, I just feel it is possible for me not to come out. But now, I am on my way to India. I will come back with a new face. I’m so excited,” she said. “I am so happy, and I thank God for our governor.”