Meet Sheidatu Abubakar;she was born without hands!

Meet Sheidatu Abubakar who, though born without hands, uses her legs to eat, write, and even do henna decoration for ladies.
From a distance, Sheidatu Abubakar looks like most of her peers in school uniform. The hijab she wears conceals the fact that the SS1 student has no hands, unlike her school mates. But meeting the humorous teenager, you get the feeling that what she lacked in hands, she more than made up through the maximum utilisation of her legs, and this makes her the most popular girl in her hometown of Lapai, Niger State.

Born 16 years ago without hands, Sheda, as she is fondly called among her peers, has refused to allow her physical challenges to stand in the way of her dreams. And determined to realise her potentials to the fullest, Sheda is not only going to school but is competing favorably in the classroom with her normal classmates, particularly in design and drawing.

“I use one of my legs to draw and design to specification. I have been using my toes to give women beautiful henna designs during marriage or naming ceremonies. And I do this (henna decoration) in about an hour or so depending on what the clients asked for,” she told Weekly Trust in Lapai, adding that “Nobody thought me how to make such designs.”

She said there are instances where she collects money for the service rendered. If I were to be paid, I collect N 50 per hand and leg, so the payment for complete service is N 200 per person. And I can do four in a day.”

Indeed, Sheida has been using her toes to do so many other things including writing in class, eating and washing clothes, as well as helping her younger ones to loosen their hair for plaiting. She, however admitted that she cannot plait as she would have loved to.

Speaking on her future plans, Sheida said she nurses the ambition of going to as far as university to study. “I started school after the age of six unlike most of my mates, but I will want to study Fine Art one day in the university,” she said.