Community of Persons with Disabilities in Nigeria calls for Implementation of the New Disability Law

After eight months of signing the Disability Bill into Law by Nigerian government, the Disability community asks the government to implement the Disability Law. This they say would protect their rights, improve accessibility and promote inclusivity.

Since Nigerian Independence in 1960, persons with disabilities have lived in an unfavourable environment where they were continually denied access to public facilities, their rights were denied and they were continually excluded from benefiting from certain public goods and services.

It was based on these that JONAPWD and other Organizations of Persons with Disabilities, OPDs campaigned vigorously for years for a law that would protect the rights of persons with Disabilities until the law was enacted and assented to last year 2018 by president Muhammadu Buhari.

This law has made provisions for the rights of persons with disabilities but these rights have continued to be violated because the law is yet to be implemented. The focus of organizations of persons with disabilities, including JONAPWD, the umbrella organization for persons with disabilities groups, at the moment is how the government would implement the Disability Law.

The above challenge has led to recent campaigns by different disability groups. One of the groups of Persons with Disabilities in Nigeria has called on the Nigerian law makers to implement the Disability Law recently signed by the president to protect the rights of persons with disabilities. Below is the link to a publication of their campaign online by a newspaper press called Vanguard Nigeria.

Source: vanguardngr.com