By Abayomi Adeshida – Abuja
An America-based Non-profit group, Equal Rights for Persons with Disabilities International, has urged the Federal Government to leverage on the foundation laid by the Obasanjo administration thirteen years ago to protect over thirty million Nigerians with disability from deadly diseases including the ravaging COVID-19 that is currently increasing in Nigeria.
In a widely circulated statement that was signed by it’s President, Chief Eric Ufom, it implored the Federal Government under President Muhammadu Buhari to look into the UN document signed by the Former President, Olusegun Obasanjo to provide adequate protection from the current COVID-19 as well as other diseases that might affect them due to the problems of climate change in Nigeria.
“So far, there has not been adequate provision for protecting Nigerians living with disabilities and being vulnerable people, they would become helpless if the virus should infect them.
“President Muhammadu Buhari should, therefore, direct the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 led by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation., Mr. Boss Mustapher to work with the UN document that Nigeria endorsed thirteen years ago.
“That treaty of the United Nations provides adequate protection for the over one billion living with disabilities around the world if domesticated and implemented by countries that endorsed the vital document.
“Similarly, the document is capable of providing coverage for the over thirty-one million Nigerians who have been identified to currently live with one form of disability or the other in all the nooks and crannies of Nigeria”,”Chief Ufom submitted.
While giving some details of the UN Treaty, he said, on December 13, 2006, the United Nations member state adopted the Human Rights Treaty of the 21st Century, called, the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and mandated that; “The Convention follows decades of work by the United Nations to change attitudes and approaches to persons with disabilities.
“It takes to a new height the movement from viewing persons with disabilities as “objects” of charity, medical treatment and social protection towards viewing persons with disabilities as “subjects” with rights, who are capable of claiming those rights and making decisions for their lives based on their free and informed consent as well as being active members of society.”
