Ghanaian giant reportedly the world's tallest man
The rural clinic could not be sure of his height because it did not have the correct measuring tools
A local hospital in northern Ghana has reportedly measured the height of a 29-year-old man to be 9 feet 6 inches making him possibly the tallest man in the world, BBC reported.
Sulemana Abdul Samed during one of his recent check-ups was measured to be 2.89m by the hospital.
However, the rural clinic could not be sure of his height because it did not have the correct measuring tools.
Keep updated, follow The Business Standard's Google news channel
Diagnosed with "gigantism" a few years ago, the young man was attending a monthly appointment to deal with the complications of living as a giant when he was asked to stand straight against a measuring rod.
A shocked nurse told him, "You've grown taller than the scale."
Better known to everyone by his nickname Awuche, which means "Let's Go" in Hausa, he found the hype centring him entertaining.
He was not surprised to hear he was taller, given he has never stopped growing – but it caused anxiety for the staff, who were not prepared for such a scenario.
The duty nurse called out to her colleague, who in turn called out to another for help. Before long, a group of nurses and health assistants gathered to solve the puzzle of determining his height.
One suggested they find a pole and use it as an extension above their stick to measure his height – and this is how they arrived at their estimate.
"When I first came across Awuche a few months ago when travelling in northern Ghana, where his fame had spread across the area's grasslands, I did not have a measuring tape on me to verify his height.", said the BBC reporter, who in order to settle the matter, visited the Gambaga village with a 16ft measuring tape.
The plan was to have him lean against a wall, mark it by the crown of his head and then determine his height using the measuring tape, said the reporter.
"The way they measure me, I cannot say everything is perfect," Awuche admitted – happy with his plan to get an exact measurement.
He turned out to be taller than most of the houses in his neighbourhood, but a building with a high-enough wall was soon found to measure his height against.
He took off his shoes – large slip-ons specially made from car tyres and nailed together for him by a local handyman as he has been unable to find shoes to fit him.
One of his neighbours clambered up on a wooden stool to reach Awuche's height so he could mark the wall with a piece of charcoal.
After verifying the line, we stretched out the measuring tape firmly from the marked line to the ground as Awuche looked on in anticipation.
The measuring tape reads 7ft 4in, which is one foot short of the current Guinness World Record holder of the tallest man in the world – Sultan Kösen from Turkiye.
"I'm still growing tall. Who knows, maybe one day I may get to that height too," Awuche remarked – not at all upset by the discrepancy with the figure given to him by the hospital.
"Every three months of four months I grow… If you've not seen me for three months or four and you see me, you'd realised I have increased," he explains.
Awuche's increase in height became noticeable once he became 22 and started living in the capital of Ghana, Accra.
At one stage, he began to tower over everyone and sought medical help as the growth brought other complications.
He has been left with an abnormally curved spine, one of the prominent symptoms of his condition, Marfan syndrome, a genetic disorder affecting the body's connective tissues.
It results in abnormally long limbs.
More serious complications involve heart defects.
Doctors say he needs a surgical procedure in his brain to stop the growth.
His treatment was getting costlier and even is very difficult for the local healthcare system to take care of. "I don't have a problem with the way God created me," said Sulemana Abdul Samed.
His first priority is to try and raise money for plastic surgery to deal with a serious skin complaint on one leg, ankle and foot caused by the excess growth of the limb, adds the BBC report.
But looking at his bandaged toes, Awuche refuses to be disheartened by his predicament.
"That is how Allah chose it for me, I am OK. I don't have a problem with the way God created me," he added.
