Parent Avocate - Tagbo Okeke

Tagbo is the proud father of 12-year-old Kanye who has autism and has found his voice through his extraordinary paintings. Kanye now exhibits his works all over the world and is breaking ground in the art scene.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
We just noticed that at about theage of two two and a half,
a few things were slow his speech, his own cognitive skills were a bit
slow. Hello and welcome to SpecialMoms Africa, the podcast Real Talk on

(00:24):
special needs parenting. My name isa Baffy Kemy Lutha and I am your
lead host on today's episode. Ialso have in the studio with me my
lovely Amazonian drama queen today Tonia FugiKissy, and we also have the Lovely

(00:48):
Lady Red Missus book Cola Are inDay? Are in? Day? Hell?
Are you day? All right?Okay? So today our focus will
be on the connection between art andautism. Our guests today, Tago Okak
is a proud father to twelve yearold Canyer who has autism. Oh my

(01:11):
God, who are so proud?Who has autism and has found his voice
through his extraordinary paintings. Canyon nowexhibits his works all over the world and
is breaking ground in the art scene. First of all, let's remind ourselves
of what exactly autism is. TheUniversity of Ibadon says Autism spectrum disorder ASD

(01:34):
is a serious developmental disorder that impairsthe ability to communicate and interact. It
impacts the nervous system, and therange and severity of symptoms can vary widely.
Common symptoms include difficulty with communication,difficulty with social interactions, obsessive interests,
and repetitive behavior. Early recognition,as well as behavioral, educational,

(01:56):
and family therapies may reduce symptoms andsupport developments and learning. Veryhealth dot com
says one of the hallmarks of autismspectrum disorder is a difficulty with verbal and
social communication. In some cases,people with autism are literally nonverbal and are
unable to use speech to communicate atall. In other cases, people who

(02:16):
have autism have a hard time processinglanguage and turning it into smooth, easy
conversation. Meanwhile, some people withautism have an extraordinary ability to think visually,
which is in pictures, and manyhave the ability to turn this to
good use in processing memories, recordingimages and visual information, and expressing ideas

(02:38):
through drawing or other artistic medium.Art is a form of expression that requires
little or non verbal interaction and canopen many doors communication. So today we
can't wait to meet our amazing guests. Spoiler alert, there's about to be
some big daddy energy all up inthis house, ladies, I wish you

(03:00):
could see anyway. Let me justkeep my marshals all right, So we're
just gonna go to a quick breakand we'll be right back. I'm Toye

(03:22):
fa loogi Akis. If you're enjoyingthis episode of Special Moms Africa, brought
to you by Simon's Oasis and AfricaBusiness Radio, then why not listen to
our other podcast, represented storybooks andmore for African kids. Now, don't
forget to subscribe, put on yournotifications and share with loads of people out

(03:46):
there. Thanks for listening, allright, So welcome back everybody. So
today let's meet our guest. Mistertagbot Okak is married to Sylvia tagbot Ok.
He's a lovely father of three children, a young lady called Who's That's

(04:12):
my best Day's name? And threeboys, Auzzy Kanye, Yachiko, Kanye
and MICHAELA. He's a graduate ofPolitical Science, University of Ibadle MSc,
Legislative Studies n I l DS.He works as a National He works at
the National Assembly under the Office ofthe Clerk to the House of Reps.

(04:35):
Thanks very much. He's the boardand co manages the Kanye Yachiko Autism Foundation.
Welcome mister Tagbot okay ah, feelingthat daddy energy about to happen.
Thank you, thank you so please, mister Okak, tell us how your

(04:55):
special needs journey started and how youreceive your diagnos says for your amazing son,
Kanye Okay. First of all,thank you guys, thank you for
having me. Like I said before, I'm really excited to be here because
I really I relish and a treasureof view opportunity to speak about Kanye check
first of all, and then alsoto talk about kids with special needs and

(05:16):
then Joly to talk about kids.So thank you, thank you for having
me. My journey with artism Istarted none Kanye was born. Of course,
you see that this is always anissue with a lot of artistics.
They look totally normal. So whenKanye was born, he was I mean
normal kids. Recently, my wifeused to call him, oh, the

(05:40):
most beautiful Kanye was really light skin, very fair, and everybody goes,
oh, Kanye, Kanye Kanye.So we just noticed that at about the
age of two two and a half, a few things were slow. His
speech, his cognitive skills were abit slow. Of course, we took
him to a lot of specialist,a lot of doctors, and everybody kept

(06:01):
on saying the same thing. Oh, he's a boy. The development is
slow, not as quick as asgirls. But I kept on telling them,
you know, I have a girland then I have a boy,
and I never had these problems.Not every child goes the same way.
Okay, fine, So we unfortunatelyleft him and all they do was just
taken him from one school to theother, believing that there was something that

(06:24):
we were we could deal with.Maybe it was just a slow du developmental
process. So it came to usfinally when he was about three m three
and a half. The last schoolthat we took him to quite a really
good school in a Budja here.They just called me when they and said,
listen, they couldn't handle it anylonger, but I have to take

(06:44):
Canyre for proper treatment. From myproper treatment. Nobody has ever to nobody
else told me anything every time Iasked you, because I was particular about
CanYa. So I picked him upfrom school. I dropped him in school.
If I don't my wife was alot of driver, not a nun.
Because you know where we were reallyparticular about him. So when they
told me they couldn't handle it anylonger, we took him out. We

(07:05):
went to one specialist somewhere I'm notgonna mention names. She also said the
same thing, that he's fine,he's fine, he's fine, And I
told my wife, you know,he's not fine. That's not That period
was the period where we were justliving in denial. So we just said,
okay, I lost if we canget him out of the country,

(07:25):
so we went. He was bornin Canada, so we went. We
took him back to Canada and thereimmediately told that he had autism. Now
that's when the journey began. Sonow I know he has autism. I
started trying to find out what artismwas all about, because even I too,
I didn't know what artism is allabout, you know. So I
started reading, and I started googling, and you know, Google is not

(07:47):
really your best friend sometimes, mSo the journey started from there. We
came back to a Bujar. Wegot him enrolled in a particual school where
we insisted that he had to havea shadow to be in class with him,
because we wanted him to have Wewanted to in all our readings.

(08:09):
We stumbled on what was called inclusivelearning, and we just wanted him to
have that inclusive learning. We wantedhim to be a part of other kids.
Of course, remember that he wasa part four years old by them
four five and there was still thisidea that all things can be okay,
we can can't totally fine, andhe can be better. So, you

(08:30):
know, I think God that wehad that those ideas, And now that
I think about it, you know, some of those ideas are kind of
dumb, but you know, Imean, thank God we had those ideas
because because of those ideas that wekept pushing and we kept we kept pushing,
and we kept trying to you know, take him here, take him
there. We got with a shadowfor him, We got an institute blue

(08:52):
JACKO LG. And Org was workingwith him as well. And then from
there, you know, we started, look what are the what are the
things that we could do to keephim busy. We tried soccer, we
tried basketball, which he still playsright now, and then we went into
art. We wanted to ask.Now he's going into ask was totally different

(09:13):
journeys, Like I'm going to stopyou for one second, because you're actually
going into the next question, whichis okay, so it's fine. So
he's basically asking, you know howyou discovered his creative talent with I'm sure
you're just about to go into soyou can actually really expand on that,
And how did you find a paintingwas an avenue of expression for him?

(09:33):
Okay? Yeah. How we gotto discover Kanye's artistic skills was, you
know, Kanye would come home fromschool and he'd get paper, pieces of
paper that we're lying about it.He'd be scrubbling on that. He keep
scrubbling on, scrubbling, and sowe thought, okay, this is something
to keep him busy. So we'llget roles of paper and keep it and

(09:56):
you'll tell him, you know,take just ten pieces, take five pieces,
can you? When you told yourback hander used up the whole world,
and he scribbled scribble, And whenI turned them back and I said,
okay, used the other side.Of course, he used non verble,
so he just shakes his head down. Okay. So we left him

(10:16):
and he kept scribbling and scribbling,and it was almost becoming a brother.
Yeah yeah, yeah, because youhave pieces of paper line all over the
house, every day, every hour, all over the house. On the
floor, on the bed, everywhere. And so so one day we were
blessed. We were blessed to havethis friend of my wife come to the

(10:37):
house and she goes, why don'tyou take him to an out class on
art school? And I was like, but they teached them out in school.
Okay, go ask go find outif you know he he's being carried
along. We found out he wasnot. He's not really trusted when we
get to school, so we tookhim to this art teacher. We were
blessed again that the first art teacherwe went through was like, no,

(11:01):
I'm sorry, I can't work withhim. And then we met this Pakistani
lady. Her name is missus Cookapukand immediately she got to her studio,
she says, can we leave himand go let us because she just does
no thing about autistics, But shejust wants to sit down with him alone.
And so we left. Before wegot home, she starts calling,
calling, calling, calling. I'mthinking, okay, there's a problem,

(11:22):
and she's like, listen, gotto genius to me, he got to
genius that the strokes what he's doingnobody can do, even adults don't do
it. And I need to Ineed to can you keep him with me?
I need to work with him.I said, well, I can't
keep him with him, but Ihave my child. That's what it sounded

(11:43):
like. And I'm like, whenkeep him? Like you know no.
So basically that was how it started. And you know, I can tell
you that's really all I can tellyou. From there. He starts painting,
he starts to draw, he startsto paint, he goes into its
an abstract artist. And that washow we discovered his talente. Now Kenya

(12:07):
being discovered, you know, acrossthe globe is another different story. I'll
stop here just in case. Maybethat's the next question. I see Tago
has a sense of humor, butit's almost like he's in and you can
read you can It's obviously you canread our notes for this. Actually I'm
actually quite suspicious. But any whichway, we actually wanted to find out

(12:31):
about you know, Tago, I'mnot Tago. Kanye Kanye and you know,
as you said, he's you know, gone around the globe. Um,
how has this been? You know, what's the journey been like?
You know, with you know,Kanye exhibiting internationally, it must be amazing.
How did it start sounding exactly.He starts, I love just stories,

(13:01):
okay, and this one is areally good story, like really good
story. Um. We had hispaintings, you know, at home.
And then one day my step momcame to the house and she was working
in Vienna, and so she cameto Nigeria and she came to the house

(13:24):
and just joking, she says,Kanye, we should give me one of
your paintings. Give me one ofyour paintings. Of course, Kanye,
in this typical way, it justtakes one painting and throws it at her.
Yeah, and that part is thepart that you know, it's I
really like to trust that understanding mattersa lot when it comes to doing with
kids with special needs. It wasanother person that I just said, Oh,
you're just in the painting. Youdon't even trust it. Now she

(13:46):
knows that he has the problem.So she takes the painting. Oh,
thank you for so much, thankyou, thank you, and she takes
it away. Now she doesn't stopit that. She takes it back to
her office in Vienna and she handsit on the wall. Somebody comes to
see her in her office and says, she painted this. This is fantastic
this lovely and she says, mymy grandson. And then she persons,
how is your grandson and she saysfive, and the person say it's not

(14:07):
possible. It's completely impossible, andshe says, it's you want me to
put him on the phone. Soshe calls me, I don't pick.
She calls my wife. My wifepicks. They talk and then the person
is saying, can you get yourgrandfon to come to Vienna for an exhibition?
And she says, okay, she'sgonna talk to me. She calls
me. I tell Alison I don'thave the money to fly to her to

(14:30):
Vienna right now, so I'm notgoing to be now okay the garden.
She's like, no, you needyou to be honest. I said,
I did you me dates. I'mlike, I'm like, I'm not coming,
you know. And then next thingthey called me back and they say
no, they want to know whateline you want to come with you and

(14:54):
like you're flying or scene there's likeyeah, I say, I said,
yea, how many of us areyou came out? The evil came out?
Then? How many of us?I said, how many of us?
They said as many as few peopleare? Wow? I said you
know, he has a shadow.They said okay. I said, okay,

(15:16):
you're gonna fly him and myself andmy wife. They said, yeah,
definitely. And then I'm like,he has a brother the list.
So we saund the list. Westill don't know where we're going in for
you know, Kanye was listed amongstthree very great African artists to showcase their

(15:39):
work at the OPEC Fund for InternationalDevelopments. That's the first one. Now,
while that was being put together,the Duke and Duchess of Austria saw
his works and said that they wantedhis works to also be exhibited in the
museum which they co founded. Wowthat was going on. Wow, he

(16:04):
was listed to be given an award. Um, I mean there was a
selection process and his name was amongsthose. At the end of the day
it was agreed that he should begiven an award. So he was given
an award, the Flame of PeaceAward at Vienna by the Art up and
a Duchess from Austria. And thenwhile we were there as well, we

(16:26):
now also started getting offers from differentmuseums in Austria asking for his artworks to
be flown in that they wanted toexhibit them I think at first the buzz
was he was five years old,and then it became a bigger buzz when
they found out he was also artistic. So that was how the journey to
his international or would you claim hisstad but his international all around, all

(16:51):
around like such an amazing blessing.And while yes, you know every special
needs child may not be so talented, you still accept them where they are.
And what I'm getting from your storyis that you and your wife just

(17:14):
decided to accept him as he is. He just happened to have this talent.
And it's important for our listeners toknow that, just as with neurotypical
children, we don't know what they'regoing to be. We hope for them
as we hope for our special needschildren, and some do have amazing talents
and some don't. And it's thesame thing with our specially able children as

(17:38):
well. Honestly, I mean,I'm so I'm in awe anyway, So
tell us a little bit quickly aboutthe Knatrical Autism Foundation as quickly as possible.
As quickly as possible, this foundationwill set up to take care of
our kids who are living with autism. Now, what we did is we've
built a kiatrical autism part of Sowhat the foundation does is we have identified

(18:04):
institutions and schools around the areas wherethese artistic children's them live. So what
we now do is we get adonor to pay for the actution and to
pay for their therapy around where theylive, around where they live, because

(18:25):
we don't want to have to goto the stress of it of an artistic
child having to take transportation. Notso around where they live. We identify
schools who are ready to work withthese children in order too, of course,
enhance inclusivity. So that's what we'redoing right now now. We are
focusing on a Budja. We're startingwith Abuja because we just started this foundation

(18:49):
last year. Of course, coupledwith the COVID and all that, we
have to slow down. We areplanning to launch that part at Kenyon's next
exhibition, which is going to takeplace in April Autism Month World Autism Monthe
I'll get O'll definitely turn to yourQueen Summaria, I'll get it to you.
So we're gonna launch it on thatday. Um, we have a

(19:12):
lot of people already, We've gota lot of people who have made pledges
already, so everybody's going to beable to track any child who you are
sponsoring. They're gonna have a linkthe donor to the child, so you
know exactly what you are paying for, depending for tuition, we'll be paying
for therapy, we'll be paying forfeeding. Whatever it is that you want.

(19:33):
We have a list it is thatwe want to provide for a child
or children, it will be therefor you. So that's what we're doing
right now. While we are doingthis is because in this journey we found
out that there's so many kids whoare living on the spectrum, who are
at home who are locked up eitherbecause of the stigma associated with it or

(19:56):
either because the parents just can notafford to look after. We want to
make sure that you know they twohave an opportunity to fly. Thank you
so much, Tagger. That isjust an amazing initiative and so helpful for
children. Now we've come to avery special part of the podcast and we
are so looking forward to what you'regoing to share with us. So this
section is called the Honest Truth unlessTruth. So you have one minute to

(20:26):
share an honest truth which you've neverspoken out, never told anyone about something
about this journey, something about autism, something about Kanye, or something that
you've never shared with anyone before,and you have the opportunity to share with
us here in this beautiful audience.You're honest truth over to you, honest
truth. Honest truth. For mewould be I come out on social media

(20:53):
Instagram, Facebook, I talk aboutKenye. I'm his biggest fun I really
all the way everywhere, everywhere,and it looked like I said, I'm
living a fantastical life. But yousee what I go through and what we
go through every single day. SometimesKanye's during the tantrum. Sometimes Kanye has
a meltdown and we have to managehim. Most of the reasons why I

(21:15):
have to travel with him and Loan, it's because he has a knockdown more
often when his mom is around,so I have to always be with him
to come him down. It's avery painful experience. It's a constantly painful
experience. He had a meltdown likegoing ful Yestiday in the morning. It
happens anytime. It can happen atthe airpoint, you can happen at the
mall, it can happen in charge, it can happen anywhere, and when

(21:37):
it starts to happen, even uptill now. No matter how I try
to propagate, I try to tellpeople, I try to do whatever.
You still have this split too,little Tirey. It's a bit of anger
with him. Why should it behim? Why should it be me?
Why should I be going through thiswith him? So Number one is I
still have that fleet. Number twois I am very grateful to God.

(22:00):
This is something I'm gonna share anywith you, with my Queen Samarai for
the first time with anybody. I'mvery grateful to God. I know,
yes, some people have really reallyworse. Yeah, sometimes I look at
him, and then especially when he'shaving those his mouthdowns, and even sometimes
when he's just with his brothers andeverybody's playing and he's just on his own,

(22:22):
I just wish my boy was justmy normal boy that I can just
you know, I sometimes have thisfeeling, because I tell you one day,
dreadful feeling that comes upon most parentswho have kids with special means is
what's going to happen if I'm notthere to look after this child, how
would this child be independent? Youknow? So, so when I have

(22:45):
those thoughts. I'm gonna have thesefeelings. I just wish my boy was
just a normal just a normal child. No, thank you, thank you
so much for opening your heart tous and to let's nurse. I'm sure
Queen summarized like, oh yes,that's who Queen samarize. Yeah yeah,

(23:07):
let me thank you so much.And about key, let me just say
it was to Tagle on this talk. You are not alone very much.
I have that feeling all the timebecause my daughter has severe policy and you
know, I wake up feeling feelingoh why me? No, yes,

(23:30):
you still have that's well, youhave to go through the other You post
on social media all the fantastic pictures, but you know what goes on in
the house and how you every daylooks like. So you giving you a
vetual hub right now. Thank youso much. Thank you so much,
Tago. So we've run out oftime, and it's really I wish we

(23:55):
could do another episode for this one. I'd really like to thank our guest,
mister Tago KK. You have beenamazing and where can we find you
on social media? I think I'mfriends with Queen Samurai. But for just
underscore tabo, okay, okay,to see his artwork. You get to

(24:17):
see his programs, what he hasgoing on for the year, and what
we're trying to do with his foundation. You can follow Kanye on Instagram,
following TikTok on Facebook. Can youunderscore Tago? All right? Fantastic?
Fantastic. So I'd like to saya big thank you to mister Tagbo KK,
also to my beautiful co host whoI'm not going to be calling Queen

(24:40):
Samurai, and also the wonderful bookCola any day as well. You can
also, of course find us onsocial media with our handle at Special Moms
Africa and join us next time onSpecial Moms Africa Real Talk on special needs
parenting. Until then, we saySionara by. For sponsorship inquiries, you

(25:11):
can DM us at Simone's Oasis onsocial media or send an email to hello
at Simone's Dash oasis dot com.