People with disabilities have called on President Muhammadu Buhari to bridge the gap in the appointment of the governing council for the National Commission for PWDs by including them.
President, Association for intellectual and Developmental Disabilities of Nigeria, Mrs Joko Dawodu Omotola, made the call in a statement on Thursday.
She also urged the president to push for a balance in matters concerning PWDs, adding that the government should include PWDs in its social intervention programme.
She said, “While we commend President Muhammadu Buhari for the establishment of the commission, we implore the government to bridge the gap in the composition of the Governing Council.
“We observed that some PWD clusters, like the Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD), a marginalized cluster, were not considered in the appointment.
“We need a fair balance in the operation of the commission and therefore advise the governing council to ensure that there is proper inclusion of all the clusters, especially those that were excluded in its composition.”
Omotola advised all state and local governments to replicate the establishment of PWD commission by creating functional offices that should be manned by the different PWD clusters at their levels, to deal with the challenges facing the PWDs effectively.
Calling for the inclusion of PWDs in the National Social Intervention Programme, she said, “we are imploring the Federal Government to include the PWDs in the Social Investment Programs.
“Since the emergence of COVID-19, there has been no distribution of any Federal Government Palliative, either food or cash, to the PWDs in Lagos State, especially to the IDD Cluster whose members, the children, are the most vulnerable in the disability community.
“The pandemic has adversely affected us, and we urgently need support from the government to augment the little income that we earn for sustainability.”
