Albino Foundation has called on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to make voting materials for Persons With Disabilities (PWDs) sensitive ones during elections.
The founder Albino Foundation, Mr Jake Epelle, made the call at a dialogue session on disability inclusion in Nigeria on Tuesday in Abuja.
The dialogue was organised by Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room and Albino Foundation with support from UK Foreign, Communication and Development Office.
Epelle said that the call became imperative to ensure that necessary attention was given to disability materials to certify their effective deployment and usage during elections.
“The findings from the general and off circle elections are that although INEC had electoral resources that would address the issues surrounding persons with disabilities, those resources were not used.
“This is because one, INEC staff and some of the ad hoc staff are ignorant of that provision; they were also not used because many of them did not know how to use them.
“Thirdly, they were not used because it was deployed probably to the wrong location and that is why we are telling INEC to make disability materials sensitive materials so that more attention can be given to it,’’ he said.
Prof. Douglas Anele, University of Lagos, said that there was need for INEC to prune the number of parties before 2023 to avoid bulky ballot papers difficulty for visually impaired persons to see. NAN
