 We're glad to know you're still there and watching the run-up today. We did promise you that we're going to be talking with, or we are going to talk about how much preparation INEC has done to include the people living with disabilities. And in case you're wondering, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and its optional protocol 2006 defines persons with disabilities to include those who have long-term physical, mental, intellectual, or sensory impairments which in interaction with various barriers may hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others. So even building on that I would say that the people living with disabilities are those that cannot perform optimally because of what is available to them in the society which they cannot use to their advantage. So we see that in situations of forced displacements, persons with disabilities have the same rights and basic needs as others and face the same challenges. However, they face numerous additional barriers that face particular protection risks including a heightened risk of violence, exploitation, and abuse and high level of stigma. They have difficulties assessing humanitarian assistance, education, livelihoods, healthcare, and other services. They may be denied certain legal rights and are often excluded from decision-making processes and leadership. With the 2023 elections in view, we will be looking at the concerns of these PWDs, that is people with disabilities, how much are they included in the electoral process and many more, and what are their concerns. So joining us to discuss this is Dr. Adebukola Adebayo, a specialist in disability rights, inclusive development, governance, and public policy, former England, United Kingdom. We are glad to welcome you to the program today, Mr. Adebayo. Welcome to the run-up. Thank you. Good morning, viewers. Okay, let's just, because every year, or from time to time, definitions about what a person with disabilities is changes, you know. So let's just start with what, in the Nigerian context and recognize the world over, is a person with disability, regardless of what we have just told the people in our introduction. Well, what you have told the people is actually the right thing. And Nigeria being the signature to that convention has adopted that definition in the disability arts, that discrimination against persons with disabilities prohibition act of 2018 that was signed into law in 2019, January by the president. And if you'd like to know that it's a national commission for persons with disabilities that was established in August of 2020. So Nigeria adopted that self-pity definition and that's what is operational all over the country, as we speak. Okay, so this commission has just been established, 2020 is just two years ago. So far, what is the current situation of persons living with disabilities in Nigeria? Because of this new innovation, let me call it, of Nigeria, establishing this commission and to take care of the people with disabilities. How has the situation changed for the better or for the worse? Of course, we will see that the signing of the act itself was a major achievement. If you look at other countries like Kenya, like Uganda, South Africa and so on, many of them had national disability arts for many years before Nigeria. And for Nigeria to now have this disability arts after many years of struggles, I think, is a major achievement. And this will have something, a framework to guide policymakers on how to support persons with disabilities, how to ensure their total inclusion in all sectors, those spheres of life. It's been a gradual process. But let me also add that before 2019, at state levels, many states like Lagos, like Batu states, had the Fauci state assigned their disability laws. So we had state-level disability laws even before the National Disability Act. And so many of these states had even set up their agest system, the many laws before the National Disability Commission came on board in 2020. So we are not actually on ground zero. But of course, we must agree with media that there's a lot of grounds to cover because of the way we conduct governance in this part of the world. There's a lot of road to cover in various sectors like education, like health, like public infrastructure, transportation, and so on. And even in terms of general public attitude, the behavior of the public towards persons with disabilities, the general lack of awareness. So we are still not where we want to be. But we are actually taking off. And of course, albeit very slowly. But at least you agree with me that something is being done. It's the quality of what is being done now that is the debate for us as a disability community, and especially as the elections drawn here. All right. Taking it up from where you just stopped, you know, mentioning how that the elections are drawing there, how has the inclusion of PWDs, forgive me, been in the whole electoral process, you know, from both the registration of voters and even at the point of collection now, how has it been for PWDs? Yeah, the journey of inclusive electoral process, especially for people with disabilities started in 2013, 2014, preparatory to the 2015 general election. At that point, what we were even asking for was like, OK, can we even be prioritized? Can we be allowed to vote first? We call it priority voting there. And that was what really happened in 2015. But going forward from 2015, the advocacy stepped up, and we were talking about more accessible election beyond priority voting, being able to vote independently and secrecy. And I think that based on the theories of advocacy, which I happened to be privileged to be involved, INEC developed what they call the disability framework for the inclusion and participation of persons with disability in the electoral process. That framework was developed in 2018, and it really had the landmark impact on the 2019 election, because we then began to see tools and technologies that allowed PWDs to vote not just in terms of priority voting, but of course, use of gadgets like what we call the braille ballot guide for the blind. The magnifiers for persons with diabetes in them, the positioning of polling centers or polling units in places that are physically accessible for wheelchair users, and the deployment of sign language interpreters as much as possible. So all of this started in 2019. But of course, we weren't satisfied with some of the results, because we saw that INEC didn't have the data base of voters with disabilities. And advocacy stepped up. And as we speak, in the last continuous voter registration that took place, INEC has not been able to disaggregate its data by disabilities, so that INEC now knows in any polling booth how many persons with disabilities are registered in that polling booth and what type of disabilities they have and what needs they should be provided for them to vote just like every other person. And we saw this demonstrated in offices in elections in Oshun and in the QT and other places before these 2023 elections that we are all not planning for. So that has been because of my direct involvement. I can see a very, very significant improvement in that journey towards having a more disability-inclusive electoral process. So we hope that in 2023, we will be able to vote, you know, we have more persons with disabilities coming out to vote. Of course, we were registered. We campaigned, we worked with INEC to ensure that persons with disabilities came out to register, you know, and we hope that we will have more voters with disabilities participating in the 2023 elections. Okay, I don't know if you... I wanted to ask, you know, still talking about inclusiveness, do you think political parties have, you know, done enough to make the grounds bearable or level enough for persons with disabilities to also come out and vie for political offices? Well, unfortunately, with these elections that we are preparing for, we've left that stage now. But I will tell you that these are the political parties that we still have issues with at the moment. Although a couple of the political parties or some of them have tried to, you know, bring in persons with disabilities into their leadership, into the leadership of the parties. For example, in some parties, let's say the APC now, I think even the PDP, I don't know much of other parties, but I know those two parties at national and state levels, and even at local government levels, have elected persons with disabilities to represent PWDs in the leadership of those parties at those levels. But in terms of providing for elective positions outside of the political parties that is maybe as a councilor, or council chairman, or as state assembly candidates, or governorship, or national assembly, we have not seen that in at all. That is still very, very perfect. And largely because of the costs associated with electionary in Nigeria, the very high costs, and the fact that government, unlike in some other countries like the US, does not support, you know, political campaign funding and things like that. So one of the things that have kept persons with disabilities out of the value for elective positions, apart from party leadership, is the cost of elections in Nigeria. And I think that one of the solutions to that is to adopt the affirmative action that we see in Burundi, in Uganda, in some other countries where persons with disabilities are given quotas, especially in parliament, to hold certain positions. Those positions are left for PWDs alone to contest among themselves, so that they can have a voice, especially in parliament. So we have not seen that in Nigeria. And of course, when it comes to appointments into political offices, the appointing positions, we are also still very far faced, because the only trend that is going on now is that in states where you have agencies to manage disability affairs, you see people with disabilities being appointed into those positions. But we are saying that just as you have positions for women, positions for youths, you have ministries of women affairs, you have ministries for youths development, you know, and you see how women and youths being appointed into other positions, apart from those specific agencies established for them. So we are saying that you shouldn't limit people with disabilities just to disability agencies that are set up for them. I am a development consultant, for example, and I am a public policy expert. So I'm not just talking about disability. I deal with public policy generally. So you can just limit me to those being appointed as a manager or as a member of an agency for disability affairs. So that's what we are pushing. We are pushing for more and more inclusion. That's where we are now. Before the 2023, are there other concerns that the people living with disabilities have? Because recently, we still saw the PWDs on the street still talking about 2023 how they need to be included. And they even still mentioned Braille and interpreters at the polling units and all the things that you have mentioned that INEC and the federal government have done graciously to make sure that you are included. Are there any other concerns that you would like to be addressed and that you know can be addressed before 2023? Okay. I want you to take out that word graciously. It's a right. It's not a favor. It's a right. I take it back then. We want inclusion of businesses with disabilities to be rights based. It's not to be based on waves and capris or the favor of anybody in government. That's first. But secondly, in terms of our asks for more inclusion, I have just told you the fact that we've been let out of our ability to contest for position. But when it comes to appointive positions, I think it is where the government of political actors have the opportunity to really engage more persons with disabilities to bring them on board. But in terms of apart from that, you also need to look like I said earlier, the quality of inclusion across sectors. Okay. For example, here in Lagos, we developed and launched a charter of demand about two, three weeks ago in order to push the local state government to really improve on the quality of inclusion. We don't want to kines him. Okay. We want a more systemic and sustainable approach to disability inclusion in Lagos state, for example, and around and all over the country. Because when you look at the education, for example, many states would say they are implementing inclusive education. But when you go around, the quality of this inclusion is very low. That's all you see is mainstreaming or integration, not really inclusion. There are no teachers. There are no enough teachers. There are not enough teaching aids, assistive teaching aids. Many of these schools do not have safe and accessible environments. Okay. And so on and so forth. We've done a lot of research around all of this, and we put a lot of information out there for government to use to develop, to improve on the quality of inclusive education. The same thing with health. In Lagos state, I keep using Lagos because that's my base. For instance, in Lagos, you have this health insurance program. And you also have that national level. But you will see that the components won't make up the focus of this health insurance does not take cognizance of the health needs of persons with disabilities. For example, people with intellectual developmental disabilities, they often need a lot of health support. You know, therapies, all men have therapies, you know, physical, occupational therapy, and so on. But all of these are not covered in the health insurance program. The same thing with persons with diabetes, persons with cancer, cold injuries, and so on. Or persons with spina, barfida, and adiocaphalus. Many of these disabilities are very complex and the need, they are really dependent on consistent medical support. So when you have an health insurance program that does not cover their needs, health needs, or you do not even have special intervention programs to take care of their needs, then there is no way we will say that health insurance is inclusive. Okay? The same thing with even the way the covenants of disability are faced generally. Most of the time, the process of covenants of disability are faced, is limited to state capitals. If you go around the state, for example, go to the internal, the distant government, you will not feel the presence of the disability agents across the states. Okay. People still have to come to the state's capital to register, to pick forms to do as they can be documented. Dr. Bayo, I think there is more to be said, but once again I take back the wrong terminology that I used about graciously. It wasn't intended in any other way than to say they have done the needful. But it's a right, like you said, and the advocacy will not only remain with the people living with disabilities. I think we, even in the media, need to step up as well. But we also need to have the correct data from both sides, whether the government or the PWDs themselves, so that their advocacy can be stepped up a notch higher. But it's always a pleasure talking with you, and before we get into 2023, I'm sure we'll still need to engage you a few more times, and we're hoping that you will still oblige us when that time comes. Thank you so much for being a part of our show today. Thank you so much. We've been talking with Dr. Adebu Kola Adebayo, specialist in disability rights and inclusive development governance and public policy. And he has been telling us what the challenges are and how far the government has gone. And I do hope that all their needs will be met. Like I said in the beginning, disability is not just someone who has missed a limb or something. If, for instance, all literature were in bril, I would be so disabled. Because I can't read a thing. Oh yeah, that's a good one. So everybody is disabled in some way. If the society has not put in place the right things that you can use to your advantage. And this is it on this segment of the program. We will be going on a quick break and the news will come up at noon after the news. We will return. Don't go anywhere. Stay with us.