by Chris Agbo
At the flag-off of FCTA COVID-19 Palliative distribution by Minister of State, FCT, Hajiah Ramatu Tijani Aliyu, some Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) were invited to monitor the process. As a result of this, Mrs. Lois Auta, Founder/CEO of Cedar Seed Foundation was invited to be part of the process. According to her, she observed that persons with disabilities were not captured in the whole exercise. So when she had the opportunity to speak, she expressed concern over the exclusion of persons with disabilities in the whole process and advocated for persons with disabilities Inclusion. This resulted in a meeting being fixed with the Hon Minister of State FCT to address the issues as it concerns persons with disabilities and the COVID-19 Palliative distribution. At the meeting with the Minister and PWDs, the heads of cluster groups suggested that the Palliative meant for PWDs be handed over to the PWDs for distribution.
Based on the outcome of the meeting, the Minister inaugurated a nine-man FCT PWDs COVID-19 Palliative Committee headed by JONAPWD FCT Chapter Chairman, Alhaji Abdulmumuni Ujah with the mandate to ensure equitable distribution of the Palliative to persons with disabilities. The Minister released 3000 food items for 3000 households. The Committee did a marvelous job in distributing the Palliatives to PWDs across the six Area Councils without any complaints from anyone or cluster group.
This analogy from FCT was cited for you to understand that COVID-19 response for PWDs Nationwide failed because of the failure of JONAPWD National to manage their crisis. FCT worked because Organizations of Persons with disabilities in FCT jettisoned their personal interests and worked for the common good of all especially those that cannot advocate for themselves.
It was easy to organize and mobilise PWDs in FCT because they have a rancour free Chapter of JONAPWD. At least, there is an organised entity for FCT authorities to engage unlike National JONAPWD which her absent made Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs not trusting any other organization of persons with disabilities to distribute their Palliatives. After the flag off of the Palliative distribution by the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development at Karamajiji Disability Colony in FCT where 430 households benefited. Since then, nothing was heard of the COVID-19 palliative distribution for PWDs. Even though the Minister promised that they will reach out to 3.1 million households of persons with disabilities. Unfortunately, no group or organization of persons with disabilities followed up so that other states can benefit from the COVID-19 Palliatives and also for equitable distribution among clusters. That was how the albinism community lost out of the COVID-19 palliative distribution.
“Who to blame”
Unfortunately, most of the so called leaders in the disability community who contributed to the death of JONAPWD got to where they are today with the help of the association. The association have not recovered from the last election held in Abuja in 2018 where irregularities was alleged and some concerned members and the two leading candidates Ekaete Umoh and Barrister Yusuf Iyodo headed to the court seeking for one plead to the other. This senseless fight has kept the association on a hold and 80% of persons with disabilities who live in the rural areas are the ones suffering for it.
At the wake of this COVID-19 pandemic, many other concerned persons with disabilities have made frantic effort to reach out to government authorities which led to the stakeholders meeting, the minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Haijah Sadiya Umar Farouk organised with some persons with disabilities which was criticized by some members of Disability Community questioning the eligibility of those invited to the meeting. Even at that meeting, there were tussle on who supposed to be there and so on. The Chairman, JONAPWD FCT was of the opinion that the Ministry should recognized only JONAPWD because it is only the umbrella body, this complaint came about because the concerned persons with disabilities approached the ministry under the auspices of Coalition of Disability Organizations (CODO) which didn’t go down well with Mr. Abdulmumuni. The group was invited to the meeting as a coalition representing organizations of persons with across the country. As good as his point maybe he has forgotten that there is no JONAPWD National to engage. JONAPWD FCT can’t stand for JONAPWD National, JONAPWD FCT being in that meeting was because FCT was among the three major states FG were focusing at that time. The stakeholders meeting gave birth to a technical Committee which advised the Minister on how PWDs can be mainstreamed in the Social Intervention Programmes and the Palliative distribution. (a work JONAPWD if in existence must have done earlier and engage the ministry with it). The Committee worked on the set objective and sent the recommendations but since then, the committee are still waiting for the Minister’s response but the Ministry has commenced the Palliative distribution and they also said that they are profiling PWDs to include them in the social intervention programmes. (OPDs and PWDs sidelined in the FG palliative distribution Process for PWDs and profiling of social intervention programmes beneficiaries because there is no coordination that JONAPWD would have provided)
Since there is no umbrella association, no opportunity to track the progress of these claims by the Ministry and it also occasioned PWDs being totally sidelined and excluded from the entire process.
However, in the course of this COVID-19 pandemic, Organizations of Persons with disabilities still have ample time and opportunity to jettison their selfish interests, reconcile their differences, provide a peaceful coordinated front and work for the helpless persons with disabilities to achieve the following:
- Intensify advocacy towards the establishment of National Commission of Persons with disabilities because there is no better time to push than now. The Nigeria Disability Law was totally ignored and PWDs were excluded in almost all the government Interventions because there is no Commission to oversee the implementation of the act.
- Lack of Aggregated Data of Persons with disabilities was another greatest undoing to OPDs in the quest to get the authorities in different states to reach out to the community. OPDs should work together to engage the government to see how they can urgently carry out census of persons with disabilities for future occurrences.
- OPDs should work together now because hunger is ravaging many households of persons with disabilities, there is need for a coordinated front to engage the government for far-reaching palliative distribution to persons with disabilities. Again, post COVID-19 challenges on PWDs would be enormous and there has to be engagement of all sectors of the economy to understand the degree of the COVID-19 effect on PWDs and design programmes to cushion the effect.
In conclusion, this is the time for PWDs to put their house in order. The effect of COVID-19 pandemic to the economic wellbeing of PWDs should be an eye-opener for us to do the needful. No individual is bigger than a association; Disability community should rise up and reclaim their association for the benefits of many. All the elites in Disability community should write their names in gold by standing up now for the truth, salvage the precarious situation disability community find themselves especially now that the helpless PWDs need them most.
This article is written to ignite the consciousness of disability community towards peace building in Joint National Association of Persons with Disabilities (JONAPWD) the umbrella body of associations of persons with disabilities.
