The Centre for Citizens with Disabilities (CDD) has decried the exclusion of Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) in the ministerial list currently being screened as sent to the Senate by President Muhammadu Buhari
The Executive Director of the centre, Mr. David O. Anyaele, at a news conference on Friday in Abuja, said the president’s list of 43 ministerial nominees without a single person with disability violated the provision in part 6, section 29 of the Discrimination against Persons with Disabilities (Prohibition) Act.
According to him, while President Buhari deserves commendation for signing the National Disability Act, which ended the 18-year struggle to secure a legislation that would protect over 25 million Nigeria with disabilities against discrimination and other harmful practices, excluding them in the list of ministers is a setback.
“We are concerned that unemployment among persons with disabilities is estimated to be more than 97 per cent in Nigeria, with many employers of labour assume that PWDs are unable to work. We are worried that the leadership of the ninth session of the National Assembly (President and Deputy Senate President, Speaker and Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives) made appointment to their offices. Only the Speaker House of Representatives appointed a person with disability as an aid,” Anyaele in company of scores of PWDs leaders and members said.
He therefore urged President Muhammadu Buhari to urgently send at least three additional competent names of persons with disabilities as ministerial nominees to enable them join other nominees for screening at the Senate.
He said, “We also call on the leadership of the ninth session of the National Assembly to appoint PWDs as aids in other to fill the five per cent employment reservation for PWDs in the National Assembly. We demand that President Buhari implement part 7, section 31 of the Discrimination against Persons with Disabilities (Prohibition) Act 2018 without further delay through establishment of the National Commission for Persons with Disabilities (NCPWD).”
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