The National Commission for Persons With Disabilities, NCPWD, has organized a workshop to press for a review of the 1999 constitution. The body wants amendments made to the law in order to ensure more inclusiveness and disability friendliness.
The workshop held on Monday 2nd August at Goshen guest house, Auta Nassarawa. It had in attendance respected members of the Disability community, top academics, with some representatives of various Organisations of Persons with Disabilities, OPDs.
Speaking at the event, guest speakers, Dr Danlami Bashiru and Dr Adebayo Shittu opined that there is the need for adequate representations of PWDs in some leadership positions.
They argued that the right of PWDs to be fully integrated into day to day governance cannot be overemphasized, and to achieve this, Dr Danlami Bashiru was of the opinion that 15 percent seats at the National Assembly should be reserved for PWDs and that the process should be either through nominees, geopolitical zones, or through a censensus arrangement.
On his part, the Executive Secretary NCPWD, James David Lalu commended the participants for their sacrifices in leaving their schedules to be a part of this important gathering.
He assured that implementation of their contributions and recommendations at this meeting is a hundred percent possible. Lalu went on to encourage participants to dig deeper and come up with best recommendations that would be beneficial to the Disability community.
Going further, he disclosed that a bill to compel every political appointee to have, at least, a PWD as an aide is in the House of representative, adding that the establishment of the National Disability Trust Fund is underway.