The story has been told of Murtala Shuaibu, the Nigerian man who is blind and yet works at his job as a mechanic.
Without a doubt, there are perhaps a few people in the world today who can hold on to their goals and convictions tenaciously through the haze of disabilities like Murtala Shuaibu.
The visually impaired mechanic, who hails from Agbede, in the Estako West Local Government Area of Edo State, has been fixing cars for over 30 years.
Among many residents of Tugamaji, a community on the Gwagwalada Expressway, Abuja, where Shuaibu’s auto workshop is located, he is popularly known as ‘The blind mechanic.’
However, his popularity soared on social media recently when a Tik Tok user, who claimed to be one of his clients, made a short video about him.
In the viral video, which has now been viewed more than 80,000 times, the 55-year-old blind mechanic briefly describes how he accurately troubleshoots and fixes a variety of automobiles.
Speaking with Saturday PUNCH, the father of two, who resides in Kano State, said he became blind while driving a car in 1996.
With a tinge of confidence in his voice, Shuaibu explained that the encouragement he received from people around him boosted his resolve to continue working as a mechanic.
He said:
“I am a visually impaired mechanic. I am 55 years old and I have two children – a boy and a girl. I started learning this work in 1988 but I went blind in 1996.
“Before then, I was physically ill and sought treatments, some of which I think had side effects that affected my sight. I started to have blurred vision in both eyes. Initially, I thought it would go away but it got worse.
“One day, while I was driving, I lost my sight and could no longer see with both eyes. It was like being in the dark all of a sudden, but I resolved to continue as a mechanic because that was the only source of living that I knew.
