 Welcome to the Advocates, where topical issues are discussed in a no-holds-barred manner. In other words, we call a spade by its name. My myth is, with the insensitivity of the federal government towards persons with disabilities, mostly in relation to the COVID-19 situation and the relief funds, Baba Sholaz is saying we should stop with the unnecessary hailing of our politicians over bare minimum. Kayode is talking about the injustice of the Nigerian justice system. Shola, who makes her debut, takes us through the legal issues with e-commerce and finally Tolu explains the council culture to us. Sit back, the panellists are here to present your Sunday dose of provoking thoughts after this break. COVID relief funds persons with disabilities. Back in July of this year, it was announced that the federal government would begin data collection to identify people with disabilities to benefit from the post-COVID relief funds. Chris Aber writes in his article, the executive secretary, national commission of persons with disabilities, NPWD, in a press conference announced the plan of federal government through federal ministry of humanitarian affairs, disaster management and social development to transfer cash to 50,000 persons with disabilities as COVID-19 intervention fund. He stated that the ministry will implement the program through the commission which would start identifying PWDs to benefit through a data capturing and thereafter the cash would be transferred to them electronically. Now, fast forward to the evening of Saturday, August 14th and parents with children who have special needs, like myself, received notification that we should come to Teslan Balogun Stadium Lagos by 9am with our special needs child for data capture. Immediately, I had serious reservations. Firstly, the use of the abbreviation PWDs already pointed to the lack of consideration. They are actually real human people and not an association or entity to be abbreviated. Secondly, the federal government and its associates wanted all parents in Lagos to bring their children with disabilities to this one location, one location in the whole of Lagos. As far as I'm aware, COVID is still here and so is the Delta variant. I could already imagine the scene, rowdy crowd, no social distancing and no organization. There was no way I was going and putting my child who has down syndrome and a heart condition at risk. But I have that choice because I come from a place of privilege. For some parents, they had no choice but to go in chance of gaining access to crucial funds to aid their families given the devastation of the past 18 months. I feel for these mothers and fathers who take their children with disabilities to the stadium, the government did not even consider how people would get to and from the location given for many mobility is a massive issue. Why not decentralize the exercise to the local level so that access would be much easier? Instead, these families and especially the children had to endure more trauma. In my opinion, this exercise was utterly reprehensible. From 9am to beyond 10pm, these families were there and many unfortunately unsuccessfully in the exercise. On top of the lateness, meant mosquitoes and hunger. As far as I know, all they were given was pure water and gala to sustain them. My heart and the heart of many of our special needs parents and advocates broke that day and many tears were shed. Why? Because it was a stark confirmation in physical form of what we already suspected. Our special needs children are not considered valuable as full human beings. The federal and legal state governments do not have sincere intentions and frankly do not truly care for the state of our disabled people in this country. That is all eye and lip service. If there was true will behind this exercise, it would have been decentralised for easier access and consideration for those the funds are actually for. That corruption and wickedness is so bad to the point that they are literally stealing from the mouth of babes. So, I, you see lately, you say I'm stuttering but I don't even know which words to use first. First of all, before we go into the children with special needs and let's look at the idea of grouping people at one place and it goes back to that attitude we have as a people and that attitude is we like to be quote-unquote being charged. We want to be, yeah, the Mezac, I'm the one doing it. So that's why nobody, I can't imagine how like you said, all over Lagos you're bringing people to one place. During a pandemic. Even without a pandemic. I want to learn from what happened during the immigration recruitment years ago where people died and now you're bringing children with special needs. They don't have total control. They need help of someone and all that. And you see that's the same thing we do with our retirees. When we say 80-year-olds, 70-year-olds come for a recapture almost at the point we have to tell mom leave it. Is that a big deal? So that one on its own is an issue that we need to trash both in government and outside government as a people. Now the idea of addressing these children, like I like what you said that they are not, it's not an association where it's okay, oh these people, these are our children. They are human beings. They have the only things they have needs and even in other climes in spite of the needs, some of these children go ahead to be very influential and resourceful for the nation. But do we even have, okay, let's even say the capturing is done. What plans do we have for this case? That for me is the question. What plans do we have? How do we, okay, we just capture them, give them how much? Like I said, gala and water, so. It's not sustainable. It's the biggest problem. I mean, what you're talking in my head, I was just picturing a meeting room where human beings that have brains that function have sat down to say we want to deploy an intervention, right? These guys have brains, they're thinking, they thought, okay, it's a great idea. Oh, there are people with disabilities. Oh, let's help, right? I'm sorry, call them that, right? Then when you decided you made that decision, did you now ask yourself, how do we execute this? Like thinking people, you know, my problem is there's a thinking, it's a thinking problem. You know, did you ask yourself, well, there's a pandemic, did you ask yourself on the average, how many people will come to this place? Did you ask yourself when they get there, what is the process for accreditation? Did you ask yourself, what's the process for the actual from accreditation to, you know, registration and the introduction, disbursement? I mean, this is not rocket science, guys. This is not rocket science. And what about for the welfare while they're there? Exactly. I mean, it's, I mean, it's, you're trying to give money to what, 5,000 people, 200,000 people, you don't even know. I mean, it's ridiculous. So, I mean, I think it, I think it was a thinking problem because in my head, I'm thinking, this was probably a commissioner somewhere, or a governor somewhere, or a minister somewhere. These people went to school now. Who, I mean, fortunately, might have meant well. Let's not repeat the entire thing. Unfortunately, it might have good intentions. Oh, let's cater for this, you know, the children with special needs and all that, but I don't know about, I don't know about the implementation. You don't know about it. I don't know about it. Because it reads more as a PR exercise that went back. That's what I say. I don't know about the intention. To be honest, because who did they consider? Who did they talk to? Who did they go and meet? Who are the stakeholders for this? I do know that they trained about 70 people from, I think it's called the NIPPD, or it's an association, I think of intellectual people with disabilities. And they've trained 70 people who are disabled, some of the data capture. But that's the only thing, like community-wise, I think that was done. Really, if this is meant to be something that's happening over 36 states, it's also something the federal government has controlled over and the state governments will obviously be implementing. However, the actual work, I don't think anybody really thought about it, the actual people. The people, they add good intentions. I want to assume. Yes, I'll take it to assume. But the thing is, what would have been, the solution would have been to share this between the local governments. So if I stay in Ali Mosho, and I close to Ali Mosho, a child with disabilities has challenges with even moving to that location. So that's really the first thing. You bring me to somewhere close to where I can access these resources. And that's what makes it difficult for me. Or even go to their schools. I don't know what Baba Alemah is thinking back then in the UK. I know your case is different in the UK. You guys are well, you have a structure. I was going to say, let me come from another angle that I think is funny that in 2021, the federal government of Nigeria still believes that every child with disabilities is poor. Because if not, who sat down and thought the best thing we can do is to share money. I mean, this throwing money at problems is the reason why the poverty levels in Nigeria is increasing. And that's not killing ourselves. Nobody has good intentions. These guys are going to pilfer these funds and justify it with this fruitless exercise. It's very annoying to see that even despite all the criticism for this, conditional cash transfer schemes that have been in the midst of this, Nigeria has continued to do worse on the poverty index. But yeah, they still think that the only solution they can provide for people living with disabilities during COVID is to give them, share 10,000, 10,000 and a half of them. I mean, if 20-year kids have gone, they don't think the 10,000 and a half have done much, made the difference to her or to even the poorest kids. It's always like, we're always, we keep doing the same things. Even when we've seen that, it didn't work for normal people. And now we're going to do the same thing again. A really, really good point, especially in terms of throwing money at things. We actually have to tackle the problems. And it's not just about throwing money. So up next is actually Baba Jalla. Stay with us.