By Felix Uka, Abakaliki
Luck at the weekend smiled on an abandoned mother of triplets, Mrs,
Lucy Okpuru Mgboke, in Abakaliki, the Ebonyi State capital, as the state Governor, Chief David Umahi, rented a two-bedroom flat for her.
Mgboke is a native of Agbaja Umuhu community in Abakaliki Local
Government Area of the state.
The governor also paid their medical bills and for welfare of Mrs. Mgboke’s family.
The woman’s predicament was made known to Umahî through a news report.
Though he was in Bayelsa State when the story broke, the governor told our reporter: ”I direct Commissioner for Women Affairs and all the SAs on Women to jointly look for the woman, hire a house for her, send them to hospital to evaluate the children and mother, give me all bills plus two years upkeep allowance to the mother and children. I apologise to the woman on behalf of the government even though it was not under my administration but governance is a continuous entity. Umahi”.
On Saturday, the woman and her children were given new lease of life.
She was said to have been displaced with her family members from the husband’s ancestral home by the former administration for the purpose of acquisition of lamd for the Centenary City.
Since then, they have been living in makeshift attachment where they had five children and the latest, triplets, a development that threw them into unbearable situation.
The woman, a hawker and her five children as well as the husband were living in a one-room water logged thatched house before the arrival of
the triplets.
The triplets compounded their economic woes as the family finds it very difficult to feed and carter for the babies.
Mrs. Mgboke was hawking soft drinks in Abakaliki metropolis when she was pregnant for the triplets.
The governor sent the state Commissioner for Women Affairs and Social Development, Mrs. Rebecca Ogbuewu, to visit the woman in the hospital and make some donations to her and ascertain
her health conditions and that of the triplets.
The commissioner said, “I just got a call from the governor and wife that a woman put to bed triplet at MHC that I should rush and see her and know how they are doing.
“Before coming here, the governor had already instructed that I find a good accommodation for the family, maybe he has their details before now. He said we should make sure that we make two years payment for now, ensure they are in good hospital if not we should pull them out
from there to a good hospital. He said if they are not in good health we should ensure they are well taken care off. He said we should provide everything they need. In fact, as we leave here we will start looking
for accommodation for them. And we will implement to the last the
instruction of the governor”.
On her part, Matron of the hospital, Mrs. Elizabeth Oge, said that the hospital had been taken care of the woman and her triplets.
She added that the woman and her triplets were still in the hospital because of the condition of one the triplets who weighs 1.4kg, adding that the baby would have died if the hospital had discharged them.
“We have been taken care of them through the assistance of people. We bought a dozen of infant milk for the babies, we bought pampers from the money Dr Adaeze Nwuzor, brought. We also bought clothes for them;
another person sent N20,000 and we bought food items for the mother
because she needs to feed well to breastfeed her babies.
“The main reason we kept them here is to help nurse the babies. If we had allowed them go maybe by now they would have told a different story of one of the babies, who was so small at birth, because the
condition of the parents is so bad that the father of the children
used to come here to collect what he eats.
“We thank the governor and wife for remembering this woman. Its not all
governors can do this. Lifting this woman from one room to a flat. I know from here this woman will become a changed person. Her condition
will change. We thank him and we thank God that did this”, she said.
Mrs. Mgboke, who shed tears, commended Umahi for
coming to her aid.
She said that she had no hope until the governor came to her rescue.
According to her, her children had dropped out of school.