Alfred Ehime Olowookere is an architect and an accountant with disability from Edo State but working and reside in Jos, Plateau State, He is 52 years old, married with three kids and despite his disability, he is well educated. This eloquent and smooth talking polio survivor studied architecture first and later dabbled into the field of accountancy as an alternative to architecture because of rigorous activities involved in practicing architecture due to his physical disability and inaccessibility of the environment that made it practically impossible for him to practice.
In an interactive chat with Chris Agbo, ED, The Qualitative Magazine TQM, he shared his experience while going to school, employment challenges and other challenges faced by persons with disabilities (PWDs).
Agbo: So you were not able to operate as an architect because of your disability and lack of access to your environment. It is quite understandable that the stress you are facing in moving around was actually created by the society because our government have not seen reasons to make the environment more inclusive even with the existing laws that have given them mandates, it is unfortunate that it was why you had to quit your most loved profession and had to go into something else that will keep you in one place to make ends meet. The decision was a giant stride on your part and it is also a clear indication that inaccessibility of public infrastructures affects persons with disabilities negatively.
Agbo: How did your disability occur?
Yeah, it was polio at the age of 5 and I can’t really say how it came. All I knew was I grew up and saw myself in this condition and I had a father and mother who cared so much for me. My father was a military officer, a colonel in the army and my mother is a lawyer so they were able to cater for me till I finished my University education. They encouraged me to choose a course of my dream but the actual fact is that the disability really restricted me a lot in the sense that even when I was at the primary school I have to be given some special considerations. In my primary school we were 4 physically challenged persons in Command children’s school Jaji. Myself, Ini Osoro and two others were given that special considerations in the sense that even when our class room were supposed to be upstairs in the arm we belong to, they brought our classes downstairs for us and the same thing happened in Federal Government College, Kaduna, where I schooled. In my class when in was in JSS 3, I was supposed to be upstairs but because of my condition, our class was brought down for me and Samuel Ajidawu to avoid the stress of climbing the stairs but when I was at University of Jos, I had to experience a different scenario because the University will not bring down the lecture room from upstairs to downstairs so I had to encourage myself throughout. We were few physically challenged persons in my department and one of the girls had to drop out from school because she couldn’t withstand the challenges but I had to endure till the end.
Agbo: So one of the physically challenged person had to drop out because of the inaccessibility of the school facilities at University of Jos? whoa!!! Whoa!!! Whoa!!! That’s a very tough one, so in your primary and secondary levels you didn’t have so much problem but the problem was at the University level?
Yes!
Agbo: So what it means is that lack of access is an issue we must address. You have said that your father saw you through school, then apart from this, you had issue of access in your university days. What are other challenges or maybe other discriminations that you faced, is there any?
Yes, I remembered when I applied for a banking job and after the second interview. We had a written and oral interview, my name was removed from the list of those qualified even when I know that I was among the best five (5) in that interview because they also confirmed it. After then I had to do something to understand properly what they were doing whether it is my disability that was counting against me, I had to apply for the position of a chief security officer in that same organization and I was selected and contacted to come based on my resume and immediately they saw my resume, they were excited that they have gotten the best man for the position but immediately I appeared, they told me No that there was a mix up in the name somewhere and that was how I was dropped. So the moment they see you on clutches or wheelchair they just believe you are a liability to their organization or you are there to slow them down, I concluded that if this is the case, I become a serious advocate of entrepreneurship for people with disabilities. Entrepreneurship trainings for people with disabilities because we will actually do better as employers of labour instead of being job seekers. It can turn the table around and things will surely work out for us. I see people with disabilities being CEOs of big farms, CEOs of big companies, accounting firms, architectural firms.
Agbo: To you, this is one of the solutions, you think can work to curb unemployment among persons with disabilities.
Yes! but it may not be the only solution.
Agbo: Yes, because there should be reasonable accommodation for persons with disabilities in workplcace because they also deserve to work. I understand your submission quiet well, it is in order but we still don’t rule out the possibility of the organizations to create an enabling environment for PWDs because we don’t need to create a world of our own, we are part of the world, there should be an inclusive society. Everyone must be part of it, so that is what we should be promoting more now but what you said can be looked into but is good for us to discuss it as our inward strategy and try to engage ourselves with things that can make us employers of labour but when speaking to the public, we have to make them understand that they have to create enabling environment for us to work anywhere we want to work. As an entrepreneur, you also need to move around. It is a very insightful one and I am so happy you shared it with me. I may ask, is there any other discriminations that you think that PWDs are facing apart from the ones you faced especially those that didn’t go to school, those in the hinterland, those who did not have the kind of opportunities you had, what do you think they are passing through and what can be done to address them?
Let me start with people who did not have the opportunity go to school, you can see that they didn’t go to school and learning a trade is the only option they have but that depends on the kind of disabilities they have or level of disability, there are some that can make use of their hands very well but the legs are their challenges and there are ones that can use their legs very effectively but their hands are their challenges and they are some without the hands and legs while some are autistic so we need to look at it from that angel, but based on the question, I am going to make a holistic statement that those who didn’t go to school will have to be trained in one vocation or the other depending on the level and kind of the disability person has. Secondly for those people from the hinterland who don’t have access to any of these things, you will discover that they are always coming to the cities with the only option of begging for alms and we have to remove this stigma because I have had an experience one time, I was at a bus stop trying to board a Keke Napep and a woman came to me and was handing 50naira to me thinking I am a beggar.
Agbo: So the public have now generalized it as if any person with disability is a beggar?
Immediately we entered the Keke Napep togrther because we were going towards the same direction, in our way I decided to prove to the woman that not all persons with disabilities are beggars, so I brought out 1000naira and paid for her fee and obviously she didn’t have up to the 1000naira on her. She was impressed and ended up apologizing to me. PWDs need to see how we can meet as a group to make the public begin to see us as people who have potentials and not beggars. The disability is only a condition not an obstacle for persons with disabilities. PWDs are living beyond it with hardwork and determination, it is never a hindrance to one’s success.
Agbo: you have really delve into my next question because I was about to ask you, what are your advice for persons with disabilities because earlier, you were talking about so many of them being beggars so it really occurred to me that they actually need special people like you to motivate them or tell them the best ways to live their lives. You have said something on it but let’s still have more things you will say on that?
The only thing I will add is that we should be given opportunities in terms of trainings, secondly access to funding, let me give an example, N POWER programme that they pegged the age at 35, what will happen to PWDs who are above 35, they were excluded from these opportunities, so I believe that the government should look into it because most people who their disability are as a result of polio.
Their age range is slightly above 35 because the polio virus infection was very rampant during the 70s and early 80s, so when you now screen them out, are you saying that these people should struggle on their own till the end, knowing fully well that majority of them didn’t have higher degree certificates, never had opportunities of accessing good health services, never had the opportunities of accessing government funding, so I will implore that government should look into the category of this particular group, so that they can have their hands in something, having them trained or established in one area or the other, at the end of the day Nigeria will be far better for it, this way you will have less dependency on people, less beggars on the street and more PWDs providing for their families.
Agbo: That’s very insightful and you have also delved into my very next question which is your advice to the government but you have touched it, so what is your advice to the general public. As persons with disabilities we understands that the greatest challenge of people with disabilities are facing is the public perceptions, it was the perception that made somebody on seeing you just handed 50naira to you. Our problems are caused by the society because if the society would accept the persons with disabilities the way they are; the society would be a better place. It is perception that will make a family to reject a person with disability from marrying their daughter or son, and are many more examples. So what do you have to tell the general public about persons with disabilities?
Persons with disabilities are like every other person, we have the blood running in our system, we have the same brains, we have the same rights and we are staying in the same environment, so we are actually accessing the same air, so we are like every other person. There is an adage in my language that says you don’t throw away the baby with the dirty water, now based on this fact the community or the society should accept and understand that we are part of the community and that we have our own quota to contribute to the development of the society, so they should see us as people that are challenged but with little assistance, we can excel in every field of endeavors and become victors.
Agbo: How lucrative has your job been? I mean the Job you are doing right now.
Well I have to say It is lucrative not in terms of finance but in the terms of self-satisfaction, I derive satisfaction in doing what I do. I am happy, it takes care of me, my family and I still give out stipends to those living around me who really need it. I thank God so much in spite of the disability, I am able to render help to some people.
Agbo: Thank you, thank you so much my brother, I must say I’m very grateful to have chatted with you.
