THE WAY FORWARD FOR DISABLE PEOPLE IN NIGERIA (AFRICA)

 by Innocent Aniekan, Jameson Zhei and Fayomi Tomide

photo credit: National Population Commision

In Nigeria according to the statistics we have 28 million persons living with disability and only 2% are privileged to have a comfortable life. If full inclusion of people with disabilities is fully considered, many persons with disabilities can get a lot of social subsidies and work benefits. Let’s look at the sports side, there are thousands of talented people with disability in Nigeria who would love to play soccer, racing, golfing, volleying, swimming, weight lifting and so on as a career, but couldn’t because of the societal shield of “THEY CAN’T”; which has been created for years in the society by nonphysical challenge individual. This act has deprived many in pursuing a career and the few who per adventure get through by their consistent effort are the ones seen displaying their talent at the just concluded Paralympics, people that were once called disable, representing their countries competing for various medals. 

In terms of work welfare, if every individual has both physical and nonphysical challenges, agencies, organizations, and the government will collaborate to raise funds in order to provide job training for the disabled people or create inclusive work environments in all industries then we will reduce or eliminate street begging from the disabled folk. The goal is to enable more people with disabilities to live their lives, but also to help them as much as possible so that they can survive on their own and come out of the shadows.

 Furthermore, from the perspective of social welfare, people with disabilities in Nigeria should be granted good social subsidies in the community like what some developed countries like China, US, France and so on are doing. This system will help in applying for rent and financial subsidies related to health care and education. This allows many disabled compatriots who are in the dark to come out and live the life they dream of.

 In general, if we as an individual or government agencies invest money, human capital, material resources and also put a lot of effort into medical treatment to reduce rate of disabilities by finding ways to help the disabled recover, such as fitting them with prosthetics, technologies and conducting surgery in other to correct the deformity then there wouldn’t be need for discrimination.