By Hamisu Kabir Matazu, Damaturu
Sheriff Gadi with his flock
In the middle of vast bush, a blind shepherd, Sheriff Gadi, 27, dressed in overall jacket, rain boot, with a stick and listens intently to the sound of a grazing herd. Although far from his home, at Maisandari, a suburb of Damaturu, the state capital of Yobe, Gadi tends the flock of sheep and goats at a far-off bush everyday.
Everyday, he collects the animals at doorsteps of the owners who pay him modest allowances for every sheep or goat that he guides to the meadow. Mala Zarami, a sheep owner, said that Gadi collects the animals from them.
“I entrusted him with 18 of my sheep but not for once a single one was reported missing for six years now. And another funny thing is that sheep usually get missing in the hands of people that relieved him when he returns to call Zhur (noon) prayer,” he said. For many residents in the area, it is strange seeing a blind man controlling a large number of herd but, for Gadi, it’s an easy job he has been doing right from childhood. Our correspondent, who went out with the blind shepherd, observed that the instincts, skills and a hidden talent of Gadi made him distinct from rest of the blind men in town. A typical day for Gadi starts at 4:00 a.m. when he wakes up for the early morning prayer. Infact, he calls the prayer at his neighbourhood mosque. “I wake up every day to call people to prayer at 4:00 a.m. We pray at the approved time and complete the prayer minutes after 5:00am. That is how I normally start my day. From there, I usually move straight home to feed my animals” he said. Gadi, married with one daughter, Fatima, is living in the same compound with his parents, where he keeps fowls and pigeons that he also dedicates his time to. He said they also serve as an extra source of income to him. “I always feed these birds before leaving for the bush. These brood of chickens were all hatched by this grey hen beside you,” he told me. His neighbour, Muhammad Sani, says Gadi uses his instinct to differentiate his birds’ gender, size and colour. “If we had not known that he has been blind from childhood, nobody would have believed that he is blind. But, Gadi is very creative and a genius because he uses his instincts and talent to operate independently. If you noticed his pigeons have tags on their legs. Only God knows what he uses that for,” he said. Gadi narrated that his predicament started months after he was born. “I had fever with a severe headache, so a native doctor came to our house and performed local surgery on the eyes. He forgot to tell my mother that she should apply warm water on the eyes as was the tradition with such treatment. After four days I turned blind. I was taken to different eye hospitals in Kano and Maiduguri but they couldn’t return my sight. They said the damage was beyond repair,” he said. It was time for us to move out on the day’s job. After cuddling his daughter, Fatima, we set out moving from one house to another to collect the flock. On our way to the bush I observed Gadi putting in various instinctive skills to keep track of his movement and that of the moving herd. At a distance of about 2km, Gadi suddenly stopped, and the animals pounced on the surrounding shrubs. We stood under a scanty tree shed, which availed me the chance to discuss about his life and the general behaviour of the flock. On why he decided to break from the long distance trek, Gadi said the movement of the herd always gives him a clue to where they would graze. “As we started moving from home, it’s only here that they slow down because once there is grass, they always slow down. I can also hear them munching, which means they have gotten food to graze on. “If you noticed very well, I moved quickly ahead of them. What I did was going further to confirm that no animal enters the water melon farm that bordered this farmland”. Surprisingly, there is a water melon farm, when this reporter checked. “Once they come close to this water melon farm, they always misbehave” he said Throughout the afternoon trek, Gadi complained on a particular sheep that bleats, saying that the owner had defaulted paying him his allowance for weeks. Also, this reporter observed another goat that Gadi always ran after and returned her to the flock, using his instinct to gauge distance and direction of the over 400 animals. “Sheep is easier to rear but it doesn’t withstand hunger, unlike goat that picks little food and survives the drought. It’s always difficult to rear goats, especially during farming season, they are very hard to control.” Sadly, with all the hours that Gadi spends in the bush taking care of the animals, he does not own a single one. However, the job enables him to feed his family and attend to some of his needs. “I wish I can have five goats or sheep of my own. I will grow them into flock and depend on them for livelihood” he said.
culled from Daily Trust
