Homeless mother of one seeks help after 5 years of battling depression

The mother of one started to take alcohol shortly after she began to live under a Lagos bridge.

Blessing Okon, a 28-year-old alcohol addicted woman, has sought out help after years of battling depression.

This writer gathered that the mother of one left Akwa Ibom in 2015, after losing her widow mother, for Lagos.

On getting to Lagos, he met one Samuel, who was a gardener at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), and they both explored a romantic relationship.

“I had my baby towards the end of 2017 for him (Samuel). In 2018, my husband and a man from Ibadan stole some bottles of beer at a party. His friend managed to escape, but Samuel was unlucky. He was beaten to a pulp after being caught and taken to the office of the Oduua People’s Congress (OPC) from where he was handed over to the police. He was consequently charged to court and he had since been at the kirikiri prison.

“As if that was not enough, our building on No 2, Ewunmi street, Idi-Araba, was sold and our new landlord evacuated the tenants. And since I couldn’t afford to take a rent, I took my eight-month-old baby at the time to start a life living under the bridge,” Okon said as she narrated the situations that plunged her into depression.

Okon, who’s presently at Adejoke Orekoya ward at the Federal Neuropsychiatric Hospital and Rehabilitation Centre in Yaba area of Lagos State, appealed to Nigerians to help her secure an apartment.

“I don’t want to return to living under the bridge where I was picked. I just want to have at least a room apartment of my own so that I can look after my daughter,” she appealed.

When this writer reached out to Kenneth Obaraye, the Good Samaritan looking after Okon’s daughter, through his Twitter page @lakencreation, it was discovered that the child had already been enrolled into school.

“I picked interest in her case because I believe she wasn’t mentally deranged as many people thought. And thankfully, she was willing to be helped because she was the one that even recommended rehabilitation because of her addiction to alcohol. But now, even though I have helped her enroll her child into school, she needs to get her life back to escape from depression forever.

“She needs to get something sustainable doing so she can feed herself and cater for her child’s needs,” Obaraye told this writer.

Obaraye further explained that any financial help secured for help would also be deployed for her rehabilitation programme.