 Welcome to The Advocate on Plus TV Africa, where your panelists discuss thought-provoking topics in an atmosphere of seriousness, decisiveness and laughter. Here we call a speed a speed and like we say here, no holds bird. Today I'm advocating for the inclusion of people with disabilities in all walks of life. Raymond is here to tell us about Nigeria's elusive search for nationhood and finally, any time is talking about the various social cultures in Nigeria. Stay with us, we'll be right back. Physical disability is not an ability. James was physically impaired after a near-fatal road accident. He has lived his life to the fullest capacity, living with the challenges of accessibility in a society that treats disabled people like third-class citizens. It is reported that there are over 27 million Nigerians living with some form of disability with physical impairment coming in at the third most common disability. The World Health Organization's 2011 World Disability Report states that about 15% of Nigerians population or at least 27 million people have a disability and many of them face several human rights abuses including stigma, discrimination, violence and lack of access to healthcare, housing and education and even in 2021 this number has not changed much. As though this is not enough bias, they are unable to get into a building in most cities in the country thereby limiting their quality of life. Now on January 23, 2018, Nigerian President Mohammed Buhari signed into law the Disability Prohibition Act after years of advocacy and protests by advocacy group. Of note in the bill is that the act prohibits all forms of discrimination against people with disabilities. If an individual is found violating this law, he or she will pay a fine of 100,000 Naira or a term of six months imprisonment. The law also imposes several penalties across all the provisions of the law and covers for many areas of infringement including authorization for buildings without disability access, 5% of employment opportunities going should go to disabled people, ability to litigate against any discrimination and section 31 of the act provides for the National Commission for Persons with Disabilities who will enforce and promote the rights of disabled people. It's pertinent to note that it has taken almost 20 years for this bill to be signed and I dare say this gives an indication of how discriminatory we are as though a disabled person is somewhat a lesser citizen. Bills and regulations are only the first step but as a society and people we must have a consciousness of how our ignorance and lackadisical attitude limits a significant population of our country. When was the last time you hired or referred a disabled person for a job? How many disabled people work in your organization? Have you tried to go into a building and realize that there's no wheelchair ramp, disabled parking, lift, toilets or other facilities for such people? Disabilities should not be a limitation in this country. We need to make a leapfrog attempt to better support this demographic to unlock untapped potential in 15% of our population. I must say it is quite a touching topic you have picked on to talk about today and I will be honest and confess that the general reaction and the feeling that comes up within me and I'm sure maybe a number of people is first of all to want to shy away from it to kind of recoil and you know how we are quite religious as a people that oh no you know that sense of wanting it not to come near you but it's a topic and a conversation that is sensitive and urgey and equal to action because with the line where you actually ask the question how many disabled people have been referred or even employed and I did a mental recap and I really can't recall working with any disabled person in a long time and this is a career that's probably spent over 15 years and I was like wow this is not really very encouraging and I guess I dare say it's a good call to action for all of us to take note of us as people. I don't know I'm sure maybe everyone had a different set of reactions from my reaction but I definitely was quite you know. Well I couldn't have had anybody should have a different reaction because the reality just stands at you in the face. Just like I started pointing out the last line of advocacy like it's so searching for each and every one of us out there. When was the last time you hired someone or were you the first someone who is disabled to any organization? So that speaks to our collective responsibility in this social business as it were and this the number she ruled out there 25 percent of Nigerian population that's 15 years. Yeah that means at least one out of every 10 percent is disabled. That's a lot. That puts in context the number, the share number of these group of persons in the society and we can't afford to actually not not not factor the peculiarities of their condition in social planning and everything infrastructure even before the I'll comment before the the comment into the signing into law of the disability legislation is actually a step in progress after a long time where these group of persons have limited to just advocating within their perhaps more smaller groups. That legislation for the first time has put that issue as in the front burner of national conversation and also I'd like to point out that in recent times I've been able to notice some form of institutional concern people who are disabled. The case in point is this, recently the Nigeria Bar Association at the last NEC meeting, the M.B. President Mr. Louis Dapata created a whole forum for disabled persons. That's interesting. That's fantastic. The section of persons living with disabilities put it in a good profession. It will cater to people in this group so that they will organize for themselves and also push advocacy to better make up their their their interests head. And then also the electoral act that is being proposed to be signed to the signs law any any day has also made provision for persons living with disabilities in polling centers, words and coalition centers. So I'm beginning to see a kind of institutional awareness about the plight of this category of S.A.C. in society. But I'd like to point out the conversation will continue and on all parts we have to do our own part of the job by actually going out of the way to make deliberate steps towards advising organizations. How about we employ someone who is disabled a year or two steps who go a long way? Yes. Creating that sense of inclusion would have been lacking for a long time. This particular advocacy for me, I want the burden to be on us. I want it to be on us. We have a lot of rules and regulations in this country but it all comes down to enforcement. But the truth is that there's a role of the government in nation building and then there's a role of citizens. If we look at 15 percent of the demographic and we say oh because the person is on a wheelchair then suddenly we forget the person's intellect. We forget the person's ability to contribute intelligently to conversations and to projects. Yes, I know that there are limitations of working in specific roles by virtue of their disability. However, what about everything except the actual physical activity? A lot of value comes from the strategy point of view, from the planning point of view. Execution is last mile really. So there's no reason why organizations shouldn't start to employ people like that. I don't remember working with any disabled person and for me it's it's it's I'm like why? I know people that you know are on a wheelchair and they are smarter than most people that I know. When you engage them in conversations they have phenomenal ideas but these doors have just been shot to them and so this particular advocacy it's on us. We need to start to have you know we can't continue to pretend that it doesn't exist until it comes close to us maybe somebody in our family and then suddenly we get angry right? This whole the whole purpose of this is that we are looking out for each other as citizens of this country. The government is not going to do anything for us and this government has nothing to do with it. You're right about that and I think really maybe one thing one area that would really help is to actually remove the stigmatization. You know how it is that already people just feel like a person with a disability should be stigmatized. It almost like like something you said that struck me hit me that the disability physical disability does not actually take away from their capacity or their thinking or their abilities to do things and the minute we can begin to push that as people and make a front boner it might help when removing the stigma because I've come to realizing advocacy that sometimes if you're not able to solve the benefit or the value of something advocating for it becomes slightly more difficult but just as you put it that way it hit me that you know what they're actually smart it's a physical disability not a mental disability and it only prevents some activities like okay you know what entering into a place and good thing technology working virtual working those are all values that add to your intellectual space. I'm telling you so I think all disability advocates have a field day pushing for disabled disabled people to be able to end more in the workplace of course the point she made about that the fact that they're being disabled do not take away their intellectual makeup yeah there is this popular saying that disability is not inability yeah true we have seen that being displayed in a very graphic way in the Paralympics that very true very true very true how they have with that disability and they're being exploited yeah so that means um these group of persons uh we are no better than them because that's true we still have our limbs and we could also be like them in the next moment so it's always good to actually put them in the front boner social discourse you know I also now that you talked about you know limbs we you know what we can also even start to do is when organizations are talking about corporate social responsibility and they have budgets what about we even put this money towards you know provision of prosthetic limbs for people like this yeah well you know their organizations that are doing that already but those are NGOs are they not well true that yeah and so you talk about corporate yeah so maybe that maybe that's a call to corporate societies or that what are you doing with your CSR budget so you're funding yes good good good good idea good idea good conversation up next is Raymond stay with us