Barrister Danlami Basharu has called on organization of persons with disabilities to unite in order to make progress in fight for the rights of persons with disabilities.
He made this assertion when he was making a speech at a virtual workshop organized by American Center, Lagos in collaboration with Center for Citizens with disabilities (CCD) with the topic: Access for All: celebrating the 30th Anniversary of American Disabilities Act.
Barrister Danlami Basharu, a former National President of Joint National Association of Persons with disabilities and a member of UN committee on the rights of persons with disabilities said that it is a pity that at all times, persons with disabilities have to fight for their rights before they can make any headway, but if organizations of persons with disabilities are united, they will fight better. Speaking further, he informed that the UNCRPD doesn’t produce new rights but it stands to ensure that persons with disabilities enjoys all the existing human rights.
Also in his speech, he said that the 5 years moratorium given in Nigeria Disability Act for all public building to adjust and adopt facilities to make their building accessible would not be met because even the so called Lagos state Special People Law have not been fully implemented. He said that he referred to it as so called special people because he is not in support with such a nomenclature for persons with disabilities, he felt that by referring persons with disabilities in this law as special people is discriminatory.
He also said that accessibility and reasonable accommodation are two ingredients that the convention is serious about and they are promoting them seriously. If persons with disabilities does not have access, there would be setback, there would be no development of persons with disabilities such as right to information, transportation, access to physical structure. Reasonable accommodation is making adjustments to accommodate a person with disability, it could be in his workplace, events etc. Without reasonable accommodation, persons with disabilities would not perform optimally.
He also said that the charity model is still stick in Nigeria because of the public attitude towards disability and it is very difficult to change people’s attitude. Until the public’s attitude and perception is changed, we will not achieve much in the area of accessibility in Nigeria. Unfortunately, a lot of our politicians speak so knowledgeably and passionate about the issue of accessibility because they have traveled and have seen the way it is done elsewhere, they see parking lots for PWDs and so many other things put in place to ensure comfort for persons with disabilities, but when they come, they are still failing to replicate what they have seen and observed.
He lamented that the UNCRPD that Nigeria rectified 8 years ago, Nigeria have not been able to submit any report of implementation as required by the Convention. It is worried because some smaller African countries like Niger, Togo, Ghana, Uganda, Kenya and South Africa have already been submitting reports and talk about how they are implementing the convention. Nigeria is still far behind in the implementation of UNCRPD, it is not too difficult to implement the UNCRPD, building ramps, making materials accessible for the blind and enhancing communication for the deaf. It was evident during the COVID-19 information dissemination, the deaf were not carried along and the blind were also cut off.
