BY TIMOTHY AGBOR, OSOGBO
In January 2019 when President Muhammadu Buhari assented to the Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities (Prohibition) Act, 2018, no fewer than 30 million PWDs in the country celebrated the development with a sigh of relieve.
However, despite the law prohibiting discriminations against persons living with disabilities, their experiences are daunting and debilitating. Majority of the physically challenged continue to recount that among other things, they are either being underpaid or rejected by their employers.
On a daily basis, the physically challenged said that they continued to suffer one form of rejection or the other from co-workers, members of the public as well as government agents. They agonize in silence without any respite despite the new law that is emplaced.
Ekundayo Ojerinde, a physically challenged person, was a teacher at a private secondary school in Edo State. He lamented that he was being poorly paid by the school management due to his disability.
A native of Ipetumodu in Ife North Local Government Area of Osun State, Ojerinde said that he was being paid N12, 000 in the school while other colleagues enjoyed better deals.
He said that he was shocked when he discovered that his colleagues with the same academic qualifications were being paid N20, 000 by the management of the school.
In the end, he resigned out of frustration from the school and returned to his hometown to engage in farming.
He said, “I was in private teaching but when it was not encouraging, I went into farming. My exit was based on the attitudes of the administrators towards me as someone living with disability. They enslave most people, especially those of us living with disabilities. I am now into cash crop and animal rearing.
“Aside from the degree that I bagged from OAU, I also hold a National Certificate in Education from the Osun State College of Education, Ila-Orangun. When I finished the NYSC in Edo State, I moved to Benin-City because where I served was too rural and it didn’t help my disability. There are some portions of their roads that I would get to (in Edo) and I would not be able to cross the bad portion like other able bodied people do.
“Things were not better when I moved to Benin-City because they enslaved me in the school where I was teaching. They paid me less because of my condition. They paid me N12, 000 while able-bodied persons were paid between N18, 000 and N20, 000 even when we have the same qualification and do the same job.”
On how he had been coping as a farmer, Ojerinde said that it had been very excruciating for him to cultivate his farm land, pointing that “As a farmer, I have to do whatever it takes to survive and achieve success notwithstanding my disability.
“Most times, I would kneel down, prostrate or sit on the ground to plant or clear weeds. I feed my animals and pack out the waste. There have been occasions when insects and ants would bite me when I am on the farm. There was a day I even fell into a ditch unknowingly.”
He urged the government to prioritize the interest of PWDs by employing them, stressing that “I want the government to always consider the PWDs.”
Another person living with disability named Abisola Isaiah Odebode, a graduate of Food Science, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomosho with leg defects, lamented that he had been turned back many times by different firms after concluding the one year Youth Corp Service Scheme.
He said that the only offer that he got ever since was a job of N5, 000 per month. He, however, rejected the offer.
Odebode said that he resigned from the school where he was teaching due to the harsh treatment meted out to him by the school principal because of his disability.
According to Odebode who has walking disability, “after my NYSC, I searched for work but didn’t get any. The only one I saw, they wanted to pay me N5, 000 and I rejected it.
“I later got employed in a school as a teacher. There was a time the proprietor’s granddaughter saw me in school and started crying apparently because I walked with crutches.
The principal said they should sack me immediately since my physical disability made the girl cry. The woman didn’t sack me after pleas but transferred me to another branch of the school. The experience hurt me so much that I had to resign my appointment with the school due to the harsh treatments to which I was subjected.
“I later learnt painting after a friend introduced me to it. Now, I am the facilitator for paint production for the NYSC SAED programme (in Osun).”
Oke Olajide Adesunkanmi, a politician from Ipetumodu, Ife North Local Government Area of Osun State, agonized that his name was removed from the list of those contesting the councillorship position in his ward on the platform of the All Progressives Congress on October 15.
Adesunkanmi said that “This present caretaker council, my name was missing from the list. I am contesting for the councillor position in my ward. I think it should be automatic for persons with disabilities since they waved for women aspirants in the party. That’s why we are fighting for the passage of the disability law in Osun State. I believe that my state as a disabled person should have given me an edge but they waved it.
“People with disabilities should not be begging and they should not let their condition look like a predicament to them. I was a footballer before I had the accident that affected my legs.”
My would-be mother-in-law rejected me because I’m an albino
“There was a time the proprietor’s granddaughter saw me in school and started crying apparently because I walked with crutches. The principal said they should sack me immediately since my physical disability made the girl cry. The woman didn’t sack me after pleas but transferred me to another branch of the school”
Taofeek Aries, a graduate of Educational Psychology from the University of Ibadan, while narrating his plight as an albinism, recalled that he was deprived the opportunity to marry a lady of her choice due to his skin pigmentation.
According to Aries, a Mathematics teacher at a private secondary school, his mother-in-law rejected him when her daughter introduced him to her as her fiancé.
He said, “There are some challenges that people with albinism or disability confront such as abandonment and relegation. Once Nigerians see people with disabilities, they would write them off. Nature is about what you can deliver. Nature is about practical life and not one’s deformity, mental, physical or social challenges.
“To me, it’s absurd that some Nigerians judge by the way you look. There is one lady that I love and the lady loves me too but the mother said that because I am an albino, I can’t marry her daughter. She said that she doesn’t want her daughter to have an albino as a child. One day, I challenged the mother because of her perception.”
From mysterious ailments to physical challenges
Checks have shown that some physical deformities were not inborn or from birth as many people became physically challenged after battling mysterious ailments.
Odebode said, “I was walking with my two legs normally until when I was three years old. My parents told me that I slept one night and suddenly screamed from sleep and ever since I couldn’t walk again. They said that a hen pecked one of my legs and in the morning of the experience, I became so hot and before they knew what was happening, my body got paralysed. I couldn’t even move my head, hands and legs. They took me to one clinic in Ile-Ife and from there I was transferred to the General Hospital but I was unable to walk.
“Later, they took me to a Church; they used to put me inside a bucket and would support me with clothes and a pillow. They said that on a faithful day, I started rolling on the floor from the altar down to the entrance. After that experience, they discovered that I could control my neck and raise my hand but I couldn’t walk well with my legs. I was told it was mysterious.”
Reliving his own experience, Ojerinde said, “I used to walk and play football before the ailment struck me at age five. I couldn’t just walk well again and my parents said that the hospital was unable to diagnose the cause of my inability to work normally.”
State governors urged to domesticate National Disability Law
Meanwhile, the Joint National Association of Persons with Disabilities and some Civil Society Organisations have urged the state governors and the lawmakers of the 23 states that are yet to domesticate the National Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities (Prohibition) Act to do so without further delay.
The CSOs advocating for the inclusion of PWDs, including Festus Fajemilo Foundation, Society For Life Changers and Good Parental Care, and the Community Advancement Initiative for Self Reliance, expressed concern about the plights of the PWDs, noting that they needed the support of government as bonafide citizens of the country.
Afolabi Fajemilo, Executive Director of Festus Foundation; and Chairman of JONAPWD, Osun State chapter, Stephen Oluwafemi, urged Ministries, Departments and Agencies to implement the directives of the President by making their offices accessible to the PWDs. In the same vein, they also advised Nigerians to desist from discriminating against the special citizens.
Checks by The Point revealed that three years after the passage of the disability law in the country, most public buildings, structures and automobiles have yet to be remodified for the convenience of persons living with disabilities as contained in the law.
Also, it was gathered that only 13 states including Lagos, Anambra, Ekiti, Plateau, Ondo, Kaduna, Kogi, Jigawa, Bauchi, Kano, Niger, Kwara and Niger, have so far indicated willingness to adopt the National Disability Rights Act while 23 others failed to act.
