TQM report,
National Commission for Persons with disabilities (NCPWD) have resolved to harmonize different versions of sign languages in Nigeria to develop Nigerian Sign Language.
The Executive Secretary, NCPWD, Mr. James Lalu disclosed this during a press briefing yesterday to mark his one year in office as the Executive Secretary of the Commission.
In his words, he said that Deaf people from different zones in Nigeria have different sign languages, a deaf person from the northwest cannot understand a deaf from the southeast and so on. He said that the Commission would work to develop Nigerian Sign language that would be acceptable all over the country and Deaf people in Nigeria will have their own language.
Speaking further, he said that “US have American sign language and UK have theirs, and people are copying their sign languages. We will develop Nigerian Sign Language, let them come and also copy our own sign language and we will work to ensure that the Nigerian Sign Language would be recognized as an official language in Nigeria after English.
In a similar vein, the ES, also disclosed in the Press briefing that NCPWD have started engaging Universities to inculcate accessibility engineering in their curriculum so that in the nearest future, we will have experts in accessibility of public building who will always advise on how best access can be provide for persons with disabilities in a public.
He expressed dismay that our building engineers understanding about accessibility in a public building is just providing ramps. He stated that it is the persons with disabilities that understands what accessibility means in a building and accessibility affects every cluster of disability differently and all that, should be considered while designing a public building and the accessibility engineering expert should be the one to always provide the necessary guidance.
He informed that the NCPWD have plan to provide accessibility facilities in some Universities in six geopolitical zones to model the need for accessibility facilities in public buildings(starting from Usmanu dan fodiyo University, Sokoto, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria and University of ilorin) and also encourage persons with disabilities to attend Universities.
He recounted about an incident that happened when he was at the University, one of his course mate who had accident that affected his spinal and a wheelchair was recommended for him but the inaccessibility of the buildings in the University made him to drop out from the school.
He recognized the huge challenge facing the commission on the issue of accessibility because there are a lot of old buildings across the whole country that fall short of accessibility for PWDs and reminded that we are in the third year of the transitory period that the Act prescribed for all public buildings to be modified in conformity to the provisions of the Act.
“We don’t have to take anybody in court to enforce the law, we want people to understand us and we can proffer solution and the right thing would be done. That is why we have been engaging organizations to understand what is expected of them, but in a situation, we have applied all these options and some organization fails to comply, we will go to court to enforce the right of our people” he added.
