By Chris Agbo
Federal Government of NIgeria in their efforts to curtail the growing poverty rate in Nigeria put together some National Social Intervention programmes. These intervention programmes are targeted to assist the poor in the society but poorest of the poor which is the persons with disabilities are not included in the programmes.
Recently, going by President Mohammadu Buhari pronouncement that the Ministry of Humanitarian affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development should provide Palliatives to the poor using these social intervention programs as Government applied stay at home order to curb the spread of Coronavirus.
Going by this pronouncement, the persons with disabilities who apart of being the poorest of the poor, they are the most affected group by the lockdown. They have been reaching out to Honourable minister of Humanitarian affairs, Disaster management and Social development, Haijah Sadiya Farouk but the efforts have not received much attention by the Minister. In furtherance to this, one is expected to wonder why these four programs; Conditional Cash Transfer, Npower, Geep and Tradermoney have long been implementing without PWDs among the beneficiaries, which template was used for recruiting the beneficiaries to have abysmally excluded PWDs: The following questions are in the mind of PWDs and need answers from Government:
- Why is the programmes not disability sensitive?
- Why is it that persons with disabilities are not engage during planning and implementation of the programmes?
- Why did the implementation of programmes contravenes section 26 of Nigerian disability Act which provide for 5% job opportunities for persons With disabilities?
Persons with disabilities expect Government to answer these questions because a government that signed NIgeria Disability bill into Law will not turn around to decline its implementation and also exclude PWDs in social intervention programmes. If government is serious about reducing poverty when for a fact, Nigeria is the poverty capital of the world, they would have properly integrated persons with disabilities who are the most vulnerable among other social groups.
In the efforts to combat Coronavirus, government should as a matter of urgency revisit all the social intervention programmes and bring the PWDs on board for better impact of the programmes.
