Braving the odds: how nigerian parents are copi...

When 64-year-old Ben Arikpo realised, in 2012, that his son has learning challenges, he was devastated. An applied psychologist, Mr Arikpo was then living in Abuja, Nigeria’s federal capital, with his wife and their three children. Although his wife had complained to him years back about their son’s reading difficulty, he never paid any serious attention to the concern. “You are putting too much pressure on this boy!” Mr Akripo often told his wife instead. “He will outgrow it,” he would tell her whenever she talked about their son’s academic challenges. But the problem dawned on him during a reading exercise with the boy. “Now, spell house,” the father of three recalled asking the nine-year-old.