Dragging himself steadfastly though the dirt, a polio survivor makes his way into the Kano Polio Victims' Association compound in northern Nigeria. Click photo for larger image.

Story by Virginia Linn ~ Photos by Martha Rial
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Alongside Kano's busy thoroughfare to the airport sits a line of shiny tricycles -- blue, yellow and green.

The large ones are for adults, the smaller ones for children. But there's one key difference from a standard trike -- the wheels are controlled not by foot pedals, but by hand cranks.

They're made by an unusual cooperative of polio patients, the Kano Polio Victims' Association, formed 20 years ago to help survivors of the disease learn a trade so they wouldn't need to beg for their livelihoods.

Martha Rial, Post-Gazette Abdullahi Lawli, 20, washes his feet as he prepares to pray with the other male polio survivors at the Kano Polio Victims' Association. Click photo for larger image.

Underneath their long silk caftans are shriveled limbs that long ago stopped working. Some hobble on crutches. Some crawl, lifting themselves slightly off the ground with two wooden blocks. Others walk spiderlike through the dirt on their knees, their hands tucked into sandals.

On this spot of borrowed land, men and women gather each day under canopies of guinea corn leaves and in a tin shack to build the tricycles, knit infant sweater sets and make petroleum jelly to sell. The men can build a tricycle in three days -- if the electricity holds out. But such luck is rare.

In recent months, the group has focused more on advocacy. Members have started accompanying the polio immunization teams in areas noted for their resistance, to show doubters what can happen if their children don't get the vaccine.

"I know how much my life has been affected," said Aminu Ahmed, chairman of the group. "If it had not been for this disease, I would have been a better man."

The Nigerian government provides little support for polio survivors, so the group depends on money from its sales and from private donations.

Part of the proceeds are used to help the youngest survivors, such as 8-year-old Yahaya Ali.

One of five children, he was struck by polio when he was 2 in the village of Kazaure, about 60 miles north of Kano. His parents eventually brought him to Kano to live and be educated by an Islamic cleric. With handmade crutches tucked under his arms, he comes to the polio association when he needs money for books or his school uniform -- there is no other source of help.

	Martha Rial, Post-Gazette Hamisu Abubaker, left, settles on to a prayer mat following a meeting at the Kano Polio Victims' Association. Abubaker is a founding member of the group and believes the government is ignoring the needs of survivors while focusing on vaccination of youngsters. Click photo for larger image.

Hamisu Abubaker, 44, a founding member of the group, believes the polio virus entered his body on a journey his mother took to another village when he was a toddler. On the way home on the long walk, she stopped at a well so they could get a drink. By the time he arrived home, a fever was raging and his limbs were weak.

Polio settled in his legs. The ninth of 10 children, Abubaker was cared for by his family. His older siblings tied him on their backs so he could play outside with the other kids. He received no formal education because he couldn't make the daily walk to the area's only school at a nearby village.

Life became especially hard when he started living on his own at 25. He had to beg, and it was degrading. Then he began to trade merchandise, like polyethylene sacks, at the markets. He went on to marry and have six children, ages 2 to 13, who are dependent on his meager earnings.

Until recently, this group of 5,000 registered members operated largely in the shadows, bitter over being neglected. But in September, the group vowed to take a bigger role in the war against polio.

"Kano state has unfortunately earned itself the unenviable reputation of being at the epicenter of wild poliovirus transmission on earth," the group wrote in a statement on its mobilization activities. "But no more will it be waged with minimal involvement of the people who have suffered the most."

Still, more needs to be done for the polio survivors themselves, Abubaker said. They operate their cooperative on borrowed time. The owner of the land has plans to erect a new business on the property and they're looking for another location.

Martha Rial, Post-Gazette Mariya Ibrahim, 26, twice widowed, sits in the one small room in which she and her three children live. Her second husband, also a polio survivor, was killed in a traffic accident in Kaduna, about two hours south of Kano, shortly after her 10-month-old baby was born. She now has to fend for her family on her own. Click photo for larger image.

The men and women members gather on alternate Sundays at the cooperative for a business meeting and to socialize. That's where Mariya Ibrahim, 26, met her second husband, Adamu, also a polio survivor. Both sides of Mariya's mouth bear deep cat-whisker-like markings, part of a naming ceremony common among families in outlying villages.

Just after her 10-month-old baby, Binta, was born, Adamu was killed in a traffic accident. Still numb with grief, she had to start fending for her family, which includes another daughter Shamsiyya, 4, and son Auwalu, 9. Last month, she was worried about having enough money to cover the rent for her tiny dirt-floored room lit by a kerosene lantern. She must pay 500 naira a month, about $3.75, but that is way beyond her means.

The cooperative also is where 15-year-old Maryam Umar has met her fiance, Nasiru, a strapping young man who plays on the national polio football team. She started attending school for the first time a year and a half ago after her family bought her a tricycle. She attends the National Library of Nigeria Women's Center, which teaches basic skills. A large sign on the wall at the school proclaims: "Educate a Woman, You Educate A Nation."

On a recent Sunday, she was all aglow, chatting with other girlfriends at the cooperative like any teenager, and exchanging mischievous looks with Nasiru.

	Martha Rial, Post-Gazette Polio survivor Maryam Umar, 15, plays with young chickens at her family compound in the Yakasi neighborhood of Kano. Umar began missing school because the chassis on her tricycle broke and she did not have the money to repair it. Umar is engaged to another polio survivor she met at the Kano Polio Victims' Association. Click photo for larger image.

But two days later, the chassis of her bike broke on the pitted roads near her tiny home in Yakasi, a neighborhood in the shadow of the emir's grand palace.

Gone was her transportation to school. And gone was her way to get to the cooperative. The sparkle had left her face as she crept slowly down the dirt road near her home, bent down, pulling her right leg forward with her left hand. Getting to school would be harder and longer now, a trek in the dirt on all fours.

Many survivors are bitter that even the foreign agencies don't do more to help them.

"The United Nations' effort to eradicate polio is like a parable of two houses," Abubaker says. "One house is on fire, the other is safe. The U.N. is putting all its efforts into making sure the fire from the burning home doesn't reach the safe one, while allowing the first home to burn down.

"We, the polio victims, represent that house on fire," he said during a recent meeting of the male members. "The larger world represents the safe house. We have already been ravaged. The U.N. and other agencies ought to give attention to us to assuage our pain."