From Okwe Obi, Abuja
The vicissitudes of life have altered the livelihood of original inhabitants of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, who are with disabilities.
These people converged recently on the FCT School of the Blind, located at Kwali Area Council, where they explained their frustrations.
The sitting was at the instance of the Resource Centre for Human Rights and Civic Education (CHRICED) that embarked on an assessment tour to ascertain their plight.
In one voice, they claimed to be victims of exploitation, as people try to expose them to street begging and also use them as political bait, against their wish.
The group’s president, Yakubu Festus, while venting his anger, spared no one. He started by taking a swipe at the FCT Administration, accusing the minister and those in charge of neglecting them.
Festus claimed that they had not received even a grain of rice, packet of seasoning cubes or a wrapper since the Federal Government initiated the National Social Investment Programmes (NSIP), in 2016.
He said it was morally and socially unjust for them to be relegated to the background in the community.
He added that even the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemi escalated their predicaments, as their small businesses, shoemaking, tailoring and baking, among others, slumped into distress.
Festus said: “Today is a wonderful day for me in the sense that for so long people of the school have been looking for an opportunity like this.
“We, the original inhabitants with disability in FCT, have been neglected. It is as if we do not exist.
“It is wrong. There is something we do not want to be identified with: that is roaming about the streets, begging for alms. And we do not want to be silenced.
“In our own understanding, we believe that, if you are attached with any type or degree of challenges, that does not mean that you should not be useful to yourself. “We need to have that at the back of our minds.
“The government did not deem it fit to support us because we do not roam about the environment to beg for alms.
“We see it as a forbidden act, a taboo. So, that is the reason we are sidelined by the whole society.
“We, the original inhabitants living with disability in the FCT, have discovered that from every angle of life that you can think.
“We want to be given support or a chance and opportunity in terms of getting ourselves educated or skilled, instead of roaming about the street.
“My appeal is that they should do well. If they can create that opportunity for us, we will be happy because we are ready to move on and make that difference with our lives.”
Speaking on COVID-19, he said: “COVID-19 was a real problem to us. During that severe time of COVID-19, some of our PLWD of FCT were deprived of having our daily living.
“For example, some of us are into tailoring, shoemaking, but they we were unable to carry out businesses. In fact, some of us dropped out of the school.
“The few ones that were in school dropped out, till this moment. Some of my members that had shops sold their shops in order to feed.
“I mean gadgets because those were the only things we were using to survive. You know, some of us are family men and women. So, because of that, COVID-19 has really dealt with us.”
He tackled the National Commission for Persons with Disabilities, saying his comrades have not been captured in the scheme of things.
He called on the commission to “employ some of us because we have graduates across the six area councils. They are supposed to give us that opportunity or that chance specifically but the reverse is the case.
“None of our members has been employed there. They have not reached out to us in any way.
“We have a Disability Act that has been signed into law by President Muhammadu Buhari. We want the Disability Commission to give us a copy so that we can have the knowledge of what it takes for us to know our rights because we know nothing pertaining to that for now.
“We want the government to come to train us in every aspect that we need to improve our lives because my people are very passionate to improve their lives.”
While corroborating Festus’ position, the group’s secretary, Yakubu Zamwawosayi, added: “We want the FCT Administration and the Federal Government to engage industrial training to involve our members because we know their training will be relevant to us in this modern day.
“Some of us are into handworks in different skills. We have phone repairers, caterers and many more.”
Enumerating the plights of disabled women, the group’s financial secretary, Henshi Zeichibu, said: “Themajority of the women were affected seriously during the COVID-19.
“Some of us that were traders lost our capital due to the lockdown. Some of them are unable to go to the market and they have not recovered from it.
“They have to stay indoors and we have families, so they started using the main capital instead of savings. At the end of the day, they lost the capital.
“They have been sponsoring their children through these means. Now there is no capital to sponsor their children, which is why some of our children are now at home.
“The money is no longer there to continue their education. So many of us have been affected in one way or the other. In this particular organisation, we had a savings scheme where we contribute money on weekly basis but since COVID-19 has affected some of us that were saving N500 per week or N1000 now save N200.
“So, instead of progressing we are now going backward. We want government to support and empower us financially.”
Meanwhile, CHRISCED’s programme officer, Armsfree Ajanaku, explained that the organisation initiated a project to get a first-hand knowledge on the wellbeing of FCT’s original inhabitants.
Ajanaku said: “This project is titled, promoting the rights of original inhabitants of Federal Capital Territory.
“It is a project that factors in the needs and rights of the vulnerable people and as you can see, we have the original inhabitants, persons with disability group.
“What necessitated the tour to see for ourselves and also interact with them was because if you are not going through the situation, if you are not in the shoes of persons passing through the challenge, you may not really understand what they are facing. So, that is why the organisation said, let us hear directly from the people that are affected and how the system has treated them.
“So, our project is all about mainstreaming the voices of marginalised population in the governance process. And you could hear them talk about some of the things they need like training and job opportunities. They want the government and agencies to be more responsive to their needs.
“It is a shame that government agencies can organise training for jobs and skills acquisition and not factor in the people who need it the most and these people, because of their disability, are not able to access opportunities and they feel neglected.
“You could see some of them close to tears, describing the kind of experiences of how the rest of population treats them with indignity.
“So, this is what we try to portray: we are not just looking at it from the point of problems, but we are looking at it in terms of way forward, solutions.
