A group of Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) under the auspices of the Inclusive Friends Association (IFA) and Access Nigeria Campaign (ANC) have urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) address the difficulties encountered by physically challenged persons during this year’s General Elections.
The Executive Director of the IFA, Mrs Grace Jerry, said Saturday in Abuja at the Post 2019 Elections Review, that despite the Braille or Tactile ballots, which was first used in the 2018 Osun State governorship election and 2019 Presidential election, there were little to celebrate by the PWDs despite coming out droves to cast their votes.
She said that the long search for accessible elections by PWDs in Nigeria was beginning to yield results especially with support from the National Democratic Institute (NDI), USAID and UKAID the Inclusive Friends Association (IFA) led ANC.
She said that IFA collected Nigeria’s first sets of data on the challenges faced by PWDs in 2016 and has built a network of allies on the Access Nigeria campaign to pursue evidence-based advocacy for much needed reforms.
“INEC piloted the Braille ballot guide during the 2018 governorship election in Osun State and deployed it for the 2019 presidential election. The Access Nigeria campaign and INEC made history, as this was the first and second time in Nigeria’s history that voting aids were provided for voters with visual impairments.
“YIAGA Africa’s Parallel Vote Tabulation (PVT) findings showed that INEC deployed the Braille ballot guide at 46 percent of polling units across the country. The campaign also influenced INEC to deploy PWD-specific Election Day written instructions to assist voters with hearing impairments to vote. This was reported by YIAGA to be deployed at 81 percent of polling units,” she said.
According to her, irrespective of these achievements, PWDs faced enormous barriers, including inaccessible polling units, in their quest to participate in the 2019 elections as the dimensions of the ballot papers were also a little less than the braille ballot guides.
This, she said, deterred many voters with visual impairment to vote during the Presidential Elections.
She added that where the braille ballot guides and Election Day written instructions were also deployed to, some of the ad-hoc staff were unable to administer these innovations to enable these categories of voters cast their ballots unaided.
Some of the participants, including those who spoke through interpreters, said the polling booths were too high for those on wheelchair or those that were crippled, no interpreters for the hearing and speaking impaired and lack of understanding by majority of the election officials to act as expected with cases regarding PWDs.
They however commended some Civil Defence and some other security personnel for offering some assistance, and some voters who also help some of the PWDs to exercise their franchise.
They therefore among others, urged INEC and other stakeholders to sustain the gains and addressed other challenges.
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