The goal of entrenching inclusive governance to spread the benefits of democracy to more citizens, continues to pose huge challenges in the Niger Delta and country. Yet, the condition of Persons with Disabilities, PWDs present an even bleaker reality. In this Special Report by our Correspondent Patience Saduwa who spent weeks visiting several cities, communities and speaking with PWDs, government officials and others, we explore their realities and ways to ensure a better place for these citizens.
Crouched on two stumps that pass for his ‘feet’, Abu Ehi rested his back against a lamppost, his small eyes scanning his environment as if searching for someone. A young boy selling ‘pure water’ passed by and after buying one, he gulped it down quickly and smacked his lips, as if he had just eaten an expensive gourmet meal at a fancy restaurant.
“This is the first thing I’m putting in my stomach today,” he explained. It was nearly noon by then and while many were preparing to have their lunch, he had not even eaten breakfast. When asked why, he pointed at himself. “See me now…I dey beg before I eat and I never make much money since I come here today,” he stated in pidgin English.
Abu was not born a cripple; he could walk until the age of about four when he fell ill. “My parents told me I had polio when I was very young. They tried all kinds of treatment but nothing worked. That’s how I ended up like this,” he disclosed, pointing to the two stumps attached to his torso, all that remained of his legs.
As a person with disability or PWD, and begging for a living, he lives on the goodwill and kindness of others who give him money to fend for himself. As he told National Point, his ‘earnings’ are unpredictable as it depends on the generosity of passersby at the busy Effurun Roundabout in Effurun near Warri, Delta State where he was stationed that morning. “Some days I can make enough money to eat for two days or more. Other days, the money I get can barely buy me a plate of food,” he said.
Besides his money worries, the 36 year old indigene of Edo State, also faces harassment from government officials who carry out regular raids on street beggars in Warri and environs.
“They don’t allow us to rest,” he lamented adding: “They say they don’t want us on the streets, that we constitute a nuisance. Some days, they will come and pack us away and go and dump us somewhere far away. But what alternative do they have for us? Many of us including myself will like to work but, nobody will give us work because of our condition. So, the only option we have is to beg or we starve to death.”
Echoing his sentiments was 48 year old Saturday Itive, a visually impaired PWD. Sitting on a low stool near the entrance of a busy motor park in Ughelli, Ughelli North Local Government Area of Delta State, a long walking stick by his side, he gazed up with blank, unseeing eyes when this Correspondent greeted him.
A former construction worker, Itive took to begging for a living after an incident at work that affected his eyesight. Recalling the incident, he said: “I was on site one day when something like dust entered my eye; I used cold water to wash my eye and I was ok. Then the following day, I started having headaches and pain in my right eye. I went to a chemist who gave me some drugs and eye drops,” he disclosed. His problems began from there because some days later, he could no longer see from his right eye and sometime later, he got totally blind. “Everything happened so fast. Within a short time, I became a blind man. This happened about eight years ago. I’ve lost so much as a result of this condition- my job, no money, even my wife left me,” he stated sadly. Asked why his wife dumped him, he said with a shrug: “Maybe she was tired of living with a blind man with no job and money. What pained me most was that she left with my two daughters. Only the last born, a boy is with me.
Life has been tough since she left. I’ve to take care of my boy’s needs and with no job, it’s not easy. That’s why you see me begging here. That’s how we survive.”
While statistics vary, estimates put the number of Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) in Nigeria between 25 -29 million. According to World Health Organisation (WHO), in 2018, about 29 million of the 195 million people who comprise Nigeria’s population were living with a disability. Data from the 2018 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey reveal that an estimated seven percent of household members above the age of five have some level of difficulty in at least one functional domain such as seeing, hearing, communication, cognition, walking or self care and one percent either have a lot of difficulty or cannot function at all, in at least one domain.
For a vast majority of these PWDs, the only means of survival is through charity or begging on the streets, as can be seen in Abu and Itive’s cases. Most lack access to basic services and attitudinal barriers present a serious impediments to their socioeconomic inclusion. Poverty rate and financial insecurity among them is relatively higher in this group than able bodied persons. To society, they are seen as charity cases and often treated badly.
“Society doesn’t treat us well. We are often seen as a nuisance and a burden,” said Ogo Friday Okoh at his base in Abavo, Ika South Local Government Area, Delta State. To him, attitudes towards PWDs need to change for them to have a sense of belonging. “We want to be carried along by society in whatever thing they are doing; we want to mingle and to have a sense of belonging,” he declared. Okoh who is the Chairman, Joint National Association of Persons with Disabilities, JONAPWD, (Delta State Chapter), got crippled due to polio as a child. Arguing that PWDs have the same intellectual capacity with non PWDs, the graduate of Political Science, Delta State University, said: “When I was in school and we were going to class, the able bodied students used to walk faster than me as I used to move slowly like a snail. But when we do exams and results come out, I perform better than many of them. My condition does not affect my brain or intelligence. So, people should stop looking down on us and treating us like second class citizens in our own country.”
To Okoh, the challenges facing PWDs in the country were just too numerous, stating that the authorities had a lot of work to do, to make their situation better. Some of these, he stated include discrimination in employment and political representation, lack of social amenities, poor societal attitude and acceptance, high poverty rate, isolation and abandonment and many others. “Some of our members have acquired skills such as tailoring, hairdressing, barbing and others but lack funding to start their business,” he noted. “We encourage them to learn these skills because we don’t want them to be idle or be out there on the streets begging. I made a promise that during my tenure, I don’t want to see anyone begging on the streets. We want them to be self sufficient, to be able to achieve their goals in life. So we want government to help us with empowerment so our members can be financially independent instead of depending on charity,” he said.
Amaechi Etumudon, 30 is one of such PWDs. The Abavo resident had trained in hairdressing three years ago and after graduating, had hoped to set up her own hairstyling business. “My dream is to have my own shop but I don’t have money. We need empowerment so tell the government to help us. We want to work too or do business like able bodied people but we lack finance. We need help.” At three years old, Etumudon fell ill and suffered from paralysis of the spinal cord after the illness. “Moving around is a challenge too because of my condition. I need a wheelchair but, I can’t afford one”, she said.
The mobility challenge
Indeed, findings indicate that for many PWDs especially those with celebral palsy, spinal cord disabilities, and the visually impaired, mobility is a serious challenge due to certain factors. Top on the list is the deficiency in disability friendly adapted infrastructure and services in the country to meet the needs of PWDs. According to UNESCO, adapted infrastructure refers to any built environment related to education facilities that are accessible to all users, including those with different types of disability to be able to gain access to use and exit from them. For many establishments both public and private in Nigeria, adapted infrastructure is lacking. Many buildings and public spaces do not consider the needs of PWDs in the provision of amenities. These include disabled parking in public spaces, disability friendly ramps, steps, lifts, doors, corridors and toilets as well as signs.
Added to that is the lack of inclusive infrastructure and transportation systems in the country for PWDs. This makes accessibility in transit- that is the ease of use of and availability of transportation services for individuals with disabilities extremely difficult. For instance, many roads, sidewalks and public transportation stations are not designed to accommodate the needs of disabled persons.
For Mission Ogheneseruemi Arivwode, a Kokori, Ethiope East Local Government Area, Delta State based PWD, the mobility challenge was a major issue for most PWDs especially the physically and visually challenged. “It’s a huge problem for us,”he admitted, adding: “I came all the way from Kokori and I know the stress I went through to get here.”
Sitting on a bench on the verandah of a bungalow within the premises of the transit home for Persons with Disabilities situated along NTA Road in Asaba, the Delta State capital, Mission presented a quiet mien that belied the many obstacles he had faced in life due to his condition. As the Chairman, Ethiope East Local Government Chapter of JONAPWD, he was fully acquainted with the problems of his group and the efforts being made to resolve them.
“I come to Asaba often to hold meetings and seek ways to help our members as their Chairman representing Ethiope East. Whenever I come, I stay at this place. It’s owned by the government under the Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development,” he disclosed. “It will be nice if the government can provide buses for us to make mobility easier for us,” he added, stressing that government should put more effort in supporting PWDs. “Most times, we don’t feel that we are part of society. We feel alienated,neglected and discriminated against.”
One issue that he found especially painful was the discrimination faced by PWDs in the distribution of certain items provided by the government for his group. “Recently, the government released some food items like rice as part of the fuel subsidy removal programme. 25% of the bags of rice were supposed to be given to PWDs and widows but we were shortchanged in the sharing. At the end of the day, only two bags were given per ward. We are many in a ward so, most will end up getting a cup each,”he noted sadly.
Born to an ex-soldier who fought with the Nigerian army during the Biafran war, the Chairman revealed the circumstances surrounding his birth. He said his father and pregnant mother were returning to Kwara State immediately after the war ended when he was born along the way. “That’s why my father named me Mission, indicating that he was returning from a mission (the war),” he said with a wry smile.
A world of silence and darkness
If mobility is tough for the PWDs with spinal cord and cerebral palsy issues, for the visually impaired, it’s a herculean task. David Igheghe from Abavo, Ika Local Government Area of Delta lost his sight at thirty years old. He’s 50 now and having lived for the past twenty years as a visually impaired person has not been a walk in the park for him. As he stated: “I was told I had cataract. I first treated it with native medicine, then went for operation later. But nothing helped. People like us go through a lot in the society. I can’t move around easily on my own. I’ve to get someone to escort me anywhere I want to go. I’m also cheated in my business. I have wheelbarrows that people come and hire. Sometimes, my customers don’t pay me the correct amount of money they owe me. Other times, they will claim the wheel barrow was bad, that it needs fixing which is not the case; they will collect money from me for repairs and do nothing. They even steal some of my wheel barrows and other goods I hire out. Out of twelve wheelbarrows, only a few left. Just because I can’t see, I go through all this.” He further lamented the discrimination he faces regularly from people, who mock him about his condition. “They used to insult me, telling me why am I here, that I should leave because I’m blind. It happens when I attend meetings with able bodied persons. They would chase me away,“ Igheghe disclosed.
In Faith Esegbuyota’s world, silence is her regular companion. Born with a hearing and speech disability in Aladja town in Udu Local Government Area of Delta State, the lady in her early forties, told National Point how she has struggled for most of her life to fit in into a society where any form of disability is seen as a ‘curse’. Speaking through sign language which was interpreted by her cousin whom she lives with, she stated: “I was born like this. My parents told me that when I was very young, I could not talk, though other children that were my age mates were already talking and hearing well. They took me to the hospital and that was when they were told about my condition.”
Growing up was tough, she confessed because she got harassed and mocked a lot especially by other children due to her condition. “In school they used to laugh at me, called me names like ‘odi’ (deaf person in Urhobo language). Though I could not hear what they said, I knew they were mocking me,” she stated. Things got a bit better for her when she began attending a special school for the hearing impaired. This was the Alderstown School for the Deaf situated in Warri, Delta State.
Recalling her time at the school, she said: “For the first time, I felt a sense of belonging because I met other children who were like me. I learned sign language there and it made communication easier for me.”
Situated on Skinn Road in the Mciver Area of Warri, the Alderstown School for the Deaf founded in 1954 is one of the oldest special needs school in Nigeria. On the day of the National Point’s visit to the school, the premises wore a forlorn look, with no sign of the pupils in sight. On meeting the Head Teacher, a dark plump lady, she was not too keen on an interview either with her or the pupils.”I’ve done too many interviews and nothing came out of them. At this stage, I’m tired; I don’t want to do more interviews,” she said shortly.
Great policies, poor implementation
In a bid to stop discrimination against PWDs, the Federal Government of Nigeria in 2019, enacted a law aimed at removing certain barriers against them. The law signed by former President Muhammadu Buhari, included a requirement for all educational institutions in the country to be adequately accessible to persons with disabilities.
According to Section 21 of the law, owners of educational institutions in Nigeria must ensure that all schools are accessible to disabled persons with the required facilities for their efficient education.
The section provides that: “all public schools, whether primary, secondary or tertiary shall be run to be inclusive and accessible to persons with disabilities. Accordingly, every school shall have at least trained personnel to cater for the educational development of persons with disabilities.
“Braille, sign language and other skills for communicating with persons with disabilities shall form part of the curriculum for primary, secondary and tertiary institutions,” the section said.
“Nigeria has one of the best policies for PWDs in the world; we copied it directly from the United States of America and the United Kingdom. Implementation is the problem,” posited Daniel Mgbakor, Head Teacher of the Achievers School for Special Needs, Warri, Delta State. He noted that in the Nigerian Constitution, five percent was reserved for employment for PWDs but this was not often carried out. “There’s discrimination against PWDs everywhere- in employment, in the environment, transport, structural and others. Government is not doing much about the situation of PWDs in the country. They don’t even help special needs schools like this one,” he said.
The school was founded by Nigerwives, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), with membership open to foreign women married or have been married to a Nigerian citizen and permanently resident in Nigeria. The organisation aims to assist in social projects of benefits to the Nigerian community in the states where they reside. In July, 2005, the Warri branch of the association decided to embark on ‘Project Achieve’- building of a centre for challenged children as a charity project.
Stepping into the school and seeing the brightly painted walls, colourful children’s toys and playthings, the place gives the vibe of a regular children’s school. A look at the classrooms where an assortment of pupils are seated, taking lessons, indicate though, that these are not your regular elementary school children.
Made up of children with disabilities or special needs for instance Down’s Syndrome, Cerebral palsy, autism and others, their education, due to their condition was somewhat different from the norm. As Mgbakor, who has been teaching at the school for ten years, noted: “It’s not easy at all, it can be frustrating. For instance, you can teach a child something today and by tomorrow, he would have forgotten about it. Especially those that have chronic learning disabilities, it can be really stressful for us teachers. Some with autism who have short attention span can become restless during lessons and throw tantrums when you want full attention from them. They can also become violent at times but we try our best to change things.” Special needs children”, he noted also require special diet because of their condition. “An autistic child should not eat everything especially sugary things. They should avoid biscuits, chocolate and other sugary snacks. Vegetable oil should be avoided as well- best oil for them is palm oil. These foods make them overactive. Best diet for them is diabetic diet.”
To him, there were certain qualities needed to become a special educator. “You must be tolerant, patient, accommodating,” stated the graduate of Rehabilitation Sciences and Psychoanalysis from the University of Jos. “Besides, you must not have interest in money if you must succeed and go far in this field. As a special educator, you must work extra hard to ensure there’s a noticeable change in the special needs child. My motivation on this job is the interest and passion, seeing I’m giving hope to people who society believe are hopeless and neglected; that’s what gives me satisfaction”,he added.
The Anambra State born educationist is particularly displeased at the society’s treatment of PWDs. As he said; “Due to societal, religious and cultural attitudes towards persons with special needs, it makes raising them a great burden, as something negative. Do you know some people even refer to them as demons? I’ve seen a lot while here. I’m not here just as a teacher and speech therapist but a counsellor as well. I handle issues. Could you believe some pastors even advise parents to kill their special needs children?
I handled a case recently where the pastor told the parents that their child was the cause of the poverty in the family! So, I’ve seen a lot here.”
Beating the odds
For Beauty Oba, an Okrika born PWD who moves around in a wheelchair, there was nothing People With Disabilities cannot do if they put their mind to it. As she said in an interview: “We are just physically challenged, not mentally challenged. Disability is not a liability.” A businesswoman who often travels far from her home in Okrika, Rivers State for business, she stated that while mobility was a challenge, she does not allow it to prevent her from going about her business. “I travel from my home to Aba to buy goods.I go alone and travelling to and fro is not a problem for me,” she stated.
While enjoining the government and others to create an enabling environment so PWDs can thrive, she said: “There’s nothing wrong with us, so society should stop treating us badly. We can do the same things the able bodied can do and sometimes better. We need empowerment so we can work or do business to earn a living. We don’t want to be treated like beggars, we want to live our lives in dignity.”
Looking after the affairs of the PWDs in Delta State is the Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development. At the State Secretariat in the capital, Asaba, the Commissioner in charge of the ministry Barr. (Mrs) Pat Ajudua was on her way out for a programme and could not attend to us. But she directed us to the Director, Rehabilitation in the ministry for clarifications on some issues raised by the PWDs in the state.
“Government has done a lot for the PWDs but as you know, you cannot satisfy human beings,” said Odie Michael, Director, Rehabilitation, Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development. Enumerating some of the programmes the state government has embarked upon, he said: “We have trained some of them in skills acquisition such as welding, tailoring, shoemaking and others and we even gave them starter packs. So for them to say we haven’t done anything for them is not correct.”
Speaking further on the ministry’s role in the affairs of the PWDs in the state, the Public Relations Officer of the ministry, Kanayo Azinge noted: “We deal with indigenes of Delta State who belong to these associations. Whenever we have anything to disburse to them, we send to the various heads or chairmen of the associations who know their members and the things are shared to them. During the last regime for instance, we did training and gave starter packs and cash for some of them to rent their stores for their business. It’s an on-going thing- last month for instance, some women were empowered and some PWDs benefited. Also, on an annual basis, the ministry takes a number of visually impaired PWDs to Lagos to a school (Farmcraft School for the Blind) for training. On their return, they would have learnt a trade and the ministry empowers them.”
Odie debunked the claim by the PWDs that they were not properly represented at governmental levels to promote their interests. “Since the last regime, we have had a ten man steering committee made up exclusively of PWDs. Their work is to channel their issues to the state government. It’s like a voice for the PWDs. They are paid monthly and represent the different clusters of their group.”
Asked about the committee, Ogoh noted that while it was a good development for the PWDs, more representation was needed. “We are the ones wearing the shoe, so we know where it pinches, ” he noted, adding: “.We want more representation; government should place us who are PWDs in key places to represent us, so we can manage our affairs ourselves. We know our needs and challenges more than others. We have capable people among us who can manage or affairs. It doesn’t make sense putting someone who is not a PWDs in charge of an agency to look after us.”
Reacting to that, Odie stated:” These people complain a lot. Human wants are insatiable. Even if you give them millions, they will still complain. Government on its own part is trying for them; its just man is an amalgam of issues, you can’t separate problems from man. Those complaining are not well informed. Another thing is there’s no spirit of unity amongst them. From the clusters, they even have issues such as rivalries between them. We on our part are trying to unite them; any place without unity will not have progress.”
He further disclosed that a law to protect the rights of PWDs in Delta State would be passed soon. “What is available now is from the Federal Government. Delta State wants to domesticate the law,” Odie noted.
To Arivwode, the PWDs were not asking for too much. Said he:“All we want is to be carried along, to be empowered, provided with amenities such as wheelchairs, buses and other items to make mobility easier for us, some social welfare packages like monthly stipends from the state, better representation at the high levels.”
“We want to live decent lives. That’s why I tell my members to have something doing because I don’t want any of them to take to begging to survive. I want them to have self-esteem, not to feel its over for them,” declared Ogoh.
To philanthropist and supporter of PWDs in Kokori Inland, Ethiope East Local Government Area, Joe Erharhaghen more should be done for the PWDs because of their situation. “They are not well catered for. That’s why some of us help them in whatever way we can,” he said. “They need to be treated like human beings and made to feel that they are an integral part of society,” he added. On empowerment for PWDs, he had this to say: “It doesn’t have to be white collar jobs. They can be trained in skills so they can be self sufficient. Also, religious, cultural and negative attitude towards PWDs must change. They should be better treated by society. They are just like able bodied people- their disability does not affect their brain or ability.”
