Disability, Polio, and the Everyday Struggle for Food Access in Kano Nigeria
Kano’s Unfinished Fight: Disability, Polio, and the Everyday Struggle for Food Access
These findings are based on reporting from the November 25, 2025 AllAfrica/Premium Times investigation, which documented conditions in Farin Masallaci, Bichi LGA, and highlighted the ongoing exclusion faced by people with disabilities in rural Kano. Read the original report on AllAfrica.
Kano’s global reputation is simple: formerly Africa’s polio epicenter, now certified polio-free. But that headline hides a painful truth. Kano is only free of wild poliovirus. The region still faces cases of circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus (cVDPV), and disabled residents still face daily barriers that make food, health, and survival far more difficult than the world assumes.
The November 25, 2025 AllAfrica report documenting life in Farin Masallaci, Bichi LGA, exposes something deeper than health gaps. It reveals a region where disability access has never kept pace with decades of polio-focused interventions. The virus was mapped. The people were not.
Polio-Free in Headlines, But Not in Reality
Africa eliminated wild poliovirus in 2020 — a historic victory. But Kano, like other northern states, continues to experience cVDPV outbreaks whenever immunization gaps open. These outbreaks persist because sanitation is weak, vaccination is uneven, and surveillance does not catch every case early. For local families, that means the polio threat never fully disappeared.
And yet, the 2025 AllAfrica article shows something even more shocking: the same rural LGAs that received decades of polio campaigns have health centers with no ramps, no interpreters, no assistive devices, and no disability budget at all.
Disability Access Determines Food Access
Polio and food are inseparable in Kano — because mobility determines whether a person can reach the market, buy groceries, cook safely, or even fetch water. In northern Nigeria, food is not delivered; food is walked to, carried, bargained for, lifted, ground, washed, and cooked over heat. If you cannot move easily, you cannot eat easily.
Markets Built for the Able-Bodied
Kano’s open-air markets — Sabon Gari, Dawanau, Gwarzo, Bichi — are vibrant, crowded, and physically demanding. But they are not designed for someone with post-polio paralysis.
- Uneven ground and drainage canals
- Narrow paths blocked by pushcarts
- High tables inaccessible from wheelchairs
- No railings, ramps, or smooth walkways
A short trip for tomatoes or millet becomes a physical hazard. A trip for fish or eggs sometimes becomes impossible.
What the AllAfrica Report Exposed
The AllAfrica/Premium Times investigative report documented that rural Kano health centers still have:
- No ramps for wheelchair users
- No sign-language interpreters
- No assistive devices
- No disability-inclusive budget
- No trained staff for disabled patients
These are the same communities where vaccinators once knew every compound, child, and household. Yet, after all these years, a wheelchair user cannot even enter the local clinic.
Food Life Under Disability: The Hidden Cost
When disability access is weak, food life suffers:
- Disabled adults rely on others to shop, limiting dietary diversity
- Fresh produce becomes rare because it spoils and must be fetched daily
- Meals become starch-heavy — more rice, garri, and maize — and less protein
- Inflation hits harder because market trips require paid help or transport
- Farming becomes nearly impossible for polio survivors
Polio does not just weaken legs. It weakens access to nutrition, income, and dignity.
The Larger Contradiction
Kano received billions of naira in polio eradication support over decades. Surveillance teams mapped every street. Micro-planners tracked every household. Health workers visited door after door after door.
Yet the people most affected by polio still cannot enter a clinic, a school, or a market without struggle.
Ending wild polio was a scientific triumph. Ending exclusion is a moral necessity.
“Giwa ta wuce, ƙura ta biyo baya.” — Hausa Proverb (Kano Region)
“The elephant has passed, but the dust remains.”
For decades, Africa has supplied the world with the data it needs to publish papers, model outbreaks, and shape global health strategies. Yet the support almost never returns with equal force. When a region like Kano can be studied, mapped, targeted, and analyzed for polio — but its disabled residents still cannot enter a clinic or reach a market — you must ask yourself: Is this global health, or neocolonialism in modern clothes? You be the judge.