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Don`t involve Mkapa in my plight: Disabled man declares
2007-10-28 09:59:42
By Peter Msungu
Sixty-year old Yusufu Bakari Msale is both diminutive and disabled. He stays at one of the most heavily populated squatters of Dar es Salaam - Manzese.
``I hear a lot of noise to the effect that former president Benjamin Mkapa has donated a substantial amount of money to me.
Worse, the rumours are rapidly spreading at my home area of Mkuti in Masasi town. It is utter nonsense because honestly, I have never received such help,`` Msale says.
He does not understand the basis of the rumours but the diminutive disabled man measuring less than a metre high, believes they are manufactured and spread by people who seek to block assistance from potential good Samaritans.
Msale remembers, too, to have appeared in the local media appealing for moral and material assistance to ease his plight, but does not recall any pledge from Mkapa.
He recalls: ``The retired president of the third phase government and I hail from the same district.
People know that I bought a small house at Mkuti, which I improvised by roofing it with iron sheets I had bought through alms extended to me by well wishers.``
Msale is ardently appealing for moral and material support from good Samaritans, including government, religious, and civil society leaders, to enable him lead a reasonably comfortable life.
He moves from point A to B by jumping froglike using his buttocks, or using a worn-out tricycle donated by a certain NGO some three years ago.
Msale, who has been a beggar all along, feels that his efforts to beg for a living are frustrated by the malicious rumours. ``Yes, I once appealed to Mkapa for assistance through the media but I have never received any .
The small house I have built at Masasi is a result of my own efforts of begging from good Samaritans,`` clarifies the dispirited Msale.
The man both of whose hands and legs are deformed, is also worried about his marriage to Amina Issa (33) as some financially and physically well-to-do men are frantically enticing his wife to abandon him and marry them. ``They want me separated from my wife so that she marries them.
They say I am no good for the lady they describe as too superb and too beautiful to be married to a crippled person like me.
It is unfair to be treated this way,`` he bitterly complains. Msale also remembers the Government`s involvement to ease his plight.
``The Second Phase President Ali Hassan Mwinyi had ordered Masasi district authorities to build me a house, and to the best of my knowledge all the necessary materials had been sent to Masasi.
I personally made follow-ups, only to be disappointed that one senior district boss misappropriated the materials,`` he narrates. ``I am crawling daily to Kariakoo area to beg.
I am unable to do anything on earth. I am spoon-fed and cannot even answer to calls of nature independently,\"he sorrowfully narrates, adding: ``I am lucky I have a loving and caring wife who does almost everything for me.``
Msale dismissed allegations that his wife had tried to kill him using some magic charms so that she could inherit the wealth allegedly extended from former President Mkapa.
``I could have died long ago had it not been for Amina`s love and care. I owe her a lot and God will bless her. Let people say all bad things about her but I highly value her assistance,`` notes Msale who came to the city nine years go accompanied by his wife.
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