Meet mobile tailor who wants to become medical doctor

Twenty-nine-year old Abubakar Mohammed is a mobile tailor. In Lagos State, the parlance for such tailors is ‘obioma’, an Igbo word for itinerant street tailors mostly from the Southeast who flooded Lagos in about the last quarter of the last century to eke out a living. While the ‘obioma’ tailor still pounds the streets in […]

Twenty-nine-year old Abubakar Mohammed is a mobile tailor. In Lagos State, the parlance for such tailors is ‘obioma’, an Igbo word for itinerant street tailors mostly from the Southeast who flooded Lagos in about the last quarter of the last century to eke out a living.

While the ‘obioma’ tailor still pounds the streets in Lagos, most of them are no longer of Igbo extraction from the Southeast. Replacing them to do the same job are boys and young men from northern Nigeria, as well as aliens from Niger Republic and Chad who so much cut the same looks, names and idiosyncrasies with northern Nigerians as make no difference.

Muhammed is one of such northern ‘obioma’. For four years, he has been toiling in Lagos as a tailor, even as he dreams of becoming a medical doctor.

The father of two, who is a primary school drop-out, told Eko Trust that he came to Lagos about four years ago from the North in search of money to enable him take care of his family and, if possible, go back to school.

“If only I can get a sponsor, I will be willing to start over, complete my primary school education and move on to secondary school. After graduation there, I will proceed to the university where I will like to study Medicine,” he said.

He admitted that would be quite a tall hill to climb, for making ends meet as he moves from street to street hoping for meaningful patronage has not been easy. Mobile tailors undertake largely mere patching of torn clothes and charge their customers as low as N50, or as high as N500, depending on the extent of repair and the number of clothes to be mended.

Muhammed lamented relying solely on patching and sewing bits has not been easy for him, thus making it difficult for him to pursue his dream of acquiring more education. He, however, said he remained resolute about becoming a medical doctor at whatever age he gets a breakthrough.

On how he would feel about virtually starting education all over again at his age, he said, “I am not ashamed of seeking education at whatever age. All I want is knowledge to achieve my dream in life. I could not acquire education at the early stage of my life because I grew up in the village with my grandparents who were farmers and were not financially buoyant to sponsor me. I was only able to acquire Islamic education.”

So why is becoming a medical doctor that Muhammed has set his sight on? “I want to touch lives positively; I want to save lives. I want to provide quality health services for the people to the best of his ability.

“I want to help reduce maternal mortality. I am not happy with the way women die of complications during pregnancy or childbirth. I really want to positively impact on the lives of Nigerians. I want to be a doctor with a difference,” he quipped.

Muhammed described himself as an intelligent and talented person, adding he had realised he needed to complement those qualities with western education.

“I sing, I compose songs and I mime, but above all, I want to become a medical doctor. That is the only thing that can give me fulfilment in life,” he stressed.

The constraint against achieving that “only thing” is finance, he said. Would Muhammed be able to meet the challenge of intense reading to actualise his lofty dream if funding came his way?

He smiled, looked up, returned his gaze on the reporter and softly replied, “yes”.