All Progressives Congress, APC, governors have been called to prioritize implementation of Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities, Prohibition, Act 2018 towards an inclusive society.
Making the call in a communique at the end of its maiden APC, Persons with Disability,PWDs, national summit for state, zonal leaders and national leader on Thursday in Abuja.
The national summit is a channel used to raise awareness on the need for fair and equitable inclusion of PWDs in all the 36 states of the federation including the Federal Capital Territory. After extensive deliberations the group appealed to state governors who haven’t domesticated the act to fast track its implementation.
The communique signed by Tolu Bankole, APC, National Leader,
PWDs who said the state governors should implement the act as an enduring legacy to the PWDs community.
“We appeal to our Governors, who are the leaders of the party to give PWDs leaders in the Zones and States listening ears in order to fulfill their mandates of political, economic and social inclusion of PWDs in APC.
“With 25 million votes from PWDs, we resolved to set up all inclusive PWDs campaign structure to the polling units level, to work for the victory of our presidential ticket; Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Senator Kashim Shettima; our Governors and other candidates of our party.
“To achieve this, we ask that PWDs must be involved in all the campaign structures of the party at the national and various states by setting up PWDs directorate to accommodate the peculiarities of the PWD community.
“Like Oliver Twist, we call on our dearest President to complete his love for PWDs by appointing PWDs as Minister, members of federal boards and parastatals in his cabinet to finally put a nail on the coffin of discrimination, stigmatisation and rejection of PWDs in Nigeria.
“We registered our gratitude to The National Chairman of our great party, APC, His Excellency, Senator Abdullahi Adamu and the entire NWC members for demonstrable inclusive ideals.
” We emphasized that Nigerians must understand that disability is never by choice, and nobody is immuned. We are PWDs either by birth, negligence by our parents and guardians, accidents, war, age, disease and epidemic.
” We agree to set-up PWDs Campaign Council for Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu/Shettima 2023 immediately, to ensure victory, knowing that APC is for Nigerians and Nigerians are for APC.
Speaking further, the group resolved to write to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to know the correct data of PWDs voters. “We ask INEC to extend the continuous voters registration exercise to prevent the disenfranchisement of eligible PWDs voters.”
Similarly, a development worker and participant at the summit, Olumide Olaniyi stated “Go beyond just having the issue of a policy or issue of making statements in their books of social inclusion for persons with disability but to assure the implemented those policy, I seem to be aware that at least 30 million Nigerians that are persons with disability and what that means is that we cannot afford as a nation to leave behind any segment of our society”
The national Summit charged all PWDs leaders to carry along women and children as a matter of priority.