By Silver Nwokoro,
Centre for Citizens With Disabilities (CCD) has called on government to punish discrimination against Persons With Disability (PWD).
The executive director of the group, Mr. David Anyaele who gave the charge at the group’s 20th anniversary in Lagos, said the prohibition of such discrimination, should go beyond federal level, to the state and Council areas.
Anyaele said: “We want to see a Nigeria where political conversation, political programming, development issues, developments are designed with people’s disability in the forefront.
“These are the things we are looking at, that government, systems and processes recognise PWDs.”
He recalled that the past 20 years have been filled with determination, consistency, perseverance, pain, discouragement, ability to make corrections and also years of success stories.
His words: “Within these 20 years, we have contributed to the passage of Lagos state disability law and we succeeded in ensuring that National Agency for the Control of AIDS include PWD in their various strategic plans, thereby increasing access to HIV/AIDS information to the disability community.”
“In these 20 years, we have successfully secured the passage of the National Disability Act, the discrimination against PWDs prohibition Act, 2018 in which we begged Nigerians to get the law passed and signed by president Muhammad Buhari.
“In these 20 years, we have engaged people with disabilities, we have built their capacities, capabilities and encouraged them to be self-reliant. We are happy for the little contributions, our modest successes and we are excited that we didn’t go down in this whole struggle and I am happy at where we are today.”
He further urged the government to ensure that PWDs are given various positions during political appointments.
The chairman of CCD, Dr. Chuks Osanife, in his opening remarks, encouraged the body to do more to impact lives.
