By Napoleon Ato Kittoe
Ordinarily, she may pass as a nonentity because she is an infant. Soon, however, you would probably be entrapped by the object swirling around you, and this certainly leads to a vivacious, charming little girl. Your delight would have the mix of the opposite feeling when you find her hopping on one leg. Then it will dawn on you all is not well with the four-year-old.
Priscilla Nonchele was deemed by the community to which she was born as an evil entrant. Her mother abandoned her and her father has set eyes on her only twice. His first acquaintance of the baby was when she was born. The happy father who rushed to her birthplace to delight himself with the newborn soon found his spirit turned into anguish seeing the physical deformity of the child.
Ending the child’s life was considered the only option by her parents and the community members. She was at first abandoned by her parents and when the wider community discovered her, they also did not find the sight of her pleasant and mulled to waste her away. In other words, there was a plot to kill the baby to relieve their shoulders of this burden.
It was on the nick of time that the Roman Catholic Priest, Reverend Father Andrew Campbell appeared on the scene to rescue the baby. It was during one of the outreach programmes to visit known needy people and uncover latent cases that led him to the discovery of Priscilla. His team scooped out the girl from danger to safety by sending her to the Weija Leprosarium. The girl has been here for the past several months. Her father disappeared after one visit to her new home which is worlds apart from the dungeon she previously was.
Her case transcends the spiritual realm to the world of the mundane as the Man of God seeks medical solutions to her condition. Father Campbell says, the toddler has undergone three surgical procedures on the amputated left leg yet the wound would never heal.
Spiritual protection guaranteed in the form of the assistance given by the priest, the girl has attracted a major benefactor in the person of the Vice President of the Republic of Ghana, His Excellency Alhaji Dr Mahamudu Bawumia who paid a visit to the Leprosarium. Touched by what he saw, the Vice President immediately offered to help the girl as a special case within his broad concern for lepers.
Priscilla, considered a bad omen by her native people of Wa in the Upper West region of Ghana and on the casp of being dissipated, now has a lifeline. The Vice President has pledged to sponsor or apply the full weight of government to the girl’s case for corrective surgery on the girl’s foot which now hangs on the knee.
In the search for answers, Father Campbell identifies Bologna the orthopedic fortress of Italy as the place to go. He made the discovery when he paid a working visit to Pope Francis at the Vatican. With Father Campbell known over the past fifty years as a helper of lepers and society’s poor in the quest, and the Vice President of the Republic of Ghana, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia in full alignment, the innocent little Priscilla Nonchele whose ordeal is covered by her playful nature, might well be saved in the eleventh hour.