A non-governmental organisation, TAF Africa, formerly known as The Albino Foundation, has concluded a week-long engagement of persons with disabilities in Ekiti State to encourage them for full participation in the forthcoming June 20 governorship election.
Programme Manager of TAF Africa, Dr. Andrew Adaji, made this known in Ado Ekiti at the close of the engagement tagged_Able2Vote Community Outreach for Persons with Disabilities_.
Dr. Adaji stressed the need for inclusiveness to ensure that persons with disabilities were not sidelined in deciding who governs the state and in accessing other political positions in the forthcoming election.
He disclosed that 25 sign language interpreters would be trained and deployed to strategic polling units with significant numbers of persons with disabilities because TAF Africa has been working closely with Independent National Electoral Commission and receiving feedback regularly.
“After this programme, we will train sign language interpreters to assist persons with hearing impairment so they can vote correctly on election day. We would have recruited 50, but we are limited to 25 because of the constraints in the available numbers of personel. He said
Dr. Adaji commended stakeholders in the state for the peaceful pre-election activities, noting that this was the first time TAF Africa had observed such calm in the build-up to an election in Ekiti.
He called on the government to make all public facilities, including hospitals, schools, and banks, accessible to persons with disabilities so that they could be carried along and perform their daily activities without hindrance.
The programme manager also argued against the establishment of special schools for persons with disabilities, saying it promoted stigmatisation but suggesting that inclusive educational facilities could have special teachers or tutors to support students with disabilities while they learn alongside their peers
TAF Africa’s Senior Monitoring and Evaluation Officer, Mr. Terfa Qyokase, urged persons with disabilities not to limit themselves.
According to him Disability does not mean you should not go out to vote, and it does not mean you should go begging for alms. It is wrong to think someone committed an offence to become disabled.
He reminded participants that persons with disabilities have the right to vote, adding that over 900 persons with disabilities have registered in Ekiti State and urged others to validate their data ahead of the election.
Mr. Qyokase also called for the introduction of sign language in primary, secondary, and tertiary institutions curriculum. noting that more than 22 percent voting age of Nigeria’s population are persons with disabilities, a number large enough to influence election outcomes.
Some attendees, including Mrs. Oluwatoyin Ibitoye, described the programme as an eye-opener that had equipped persons with disabilities to participate fully in the coming election.
