Stakeholders Call for Assent to Edo State Disability Law

By Lucky Isibor

Stakeholders in Edo State have appealed to Governor Godwin Obaseki to give assent to the Edo State Disability Bill passed recently by the Edo State House of Assembly. 

Stakeholders comprising market women, civil rights groups, faith based organisations, members of the Edo State chapter of the Joint National Association of Persons With Disability (JONAPWD) and journalists made the call at a learning event organised in Benin City Thursday, 20 October by the African Network for Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ) under the Anti-corruption Cluster of the Strengthening Civic Advocacy and Local Engagement (SCALE) project, funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by Palladium.

Cross section of participants at the event

In her remarks, the president of the Edo State chapter of JONAPWD, Miss Anne Ojugo pointed out that unknown to the majority of the  citizens, people living with disabilities are still discriminated against in several ways. 

While appealing to Governor Godwin Obaseki to give assent to the Disability Bill passed by the Edo State House of Assembly; Anne Ojugo thanked the Edo State House of Assembly for the passage of the bill, noting that it's provisions will cure the inability of persons with disabilities to access facilities that will enable them live normal life and arrest societal discrimination against them.

"There are a lot of discrimination and exclusion against people with disabilities. When they're doing programmes, they carry it to high rise building and people with disabilities will not have access to it.

"And if per adventure, a man manage to put a female person living with disability in the family way and she goes to the hospital for ante-netal; you will see that the nurses and doctors instead of attending to her normally like other pregnant women, they'll be saying, so is a man that still put you in the family way. They'll be raining curses and abuses on the man. Why will people be cursing a man for putting a woman in the family way, just because the woman is living with disability", she lamented.

 

Welcoming participants earlier to the event, Erhisohwode Ovie Assurance, programme officer of the  ANEEJ led Anti-corruption Cluster in the SCALE project, noted that the objective was to educate citizens on the rights of persons living with disability as provided in the the Disability Act 2019 as well as sanctions; just as he  called on the Edo State Governorovernor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki to sign the Edo State Disability Bill passed by the State House of Assembly into law. 

Inyingi Irimagha, an anti-corruption cluster member from GADA, who joined the conversation via zoom, harped on the need for government to provide the enabling environment for persons with disabilities to live a normal life and access every available facility in the society noting that the best way to do this is by putting the disability law in place.

While calling for the Inclusion of persons with disability in all facets of life and monitoring  of implementation of the law when it's eventually given assent by the Governor, Irimagha pointed out that people with disabilities in advanced countries; including those with visual impairment walk on the road because of the facilities put in place to enable them walk on the roads like other people.