On-air personality Victor Oteri has revealed that he lost his sight to measles when he was only seven years old.
“I lost my sight when I was seven years old. Back in the 70s we had childhood killer diseases like measles and that was due to lack of vaccination in the country at that time,” Mr Oteri told Qed.ng in an interview held recently in Lagos.
“I was in the village somewhere in Delta State and I had measles which unfortunately went into my eyes. Measles is a very deadly disease it can cripple a child or make a child go deaf or blind.
“Unfortunately, that was my own case in 1979. I had to start afresh by going to the school for the blind in Surulere in 1980.”
Oteri had his secondary education in Ota, Ogun State and subsequently attended the University of Ibadan where he got his first degree in English. He did his national youth service at Radio Lagos Eko FM and was retained after the service year.
Oteri, who has risen through the ranks to become a deputy director in Lagos State Civil Service, noted that sending a blind person to school costs a lot more.
“As a visually impaired person, it takes more than triple the cost of sending a child to normal school because the equipment that a visually impaired person would require to successfully go through school are capital-intensive. So I relied on people who sponsored me through school,” he said.
Oteri, who is now head of programmes at Lagos Traffic Radio, confirmed that he also dreams and sees real images in his dreams.
