Hon. Ginger Onwusibe
The Joint National Association of Persons With Disabilities (JONAPWD) in Abia State has kicked against the decision of a lawmaker at the Abia State House of Assembly to overrule the nomination of its members to chair a committee.
Hon. Ginger Onwusibe, representing Isiala Ngwa North Local Government in the Abia State House of Assembly was alleged to have cancelled the nomination of one Onyema Okechukwu, a Person with Disability (PWD) to chair Orie-Oha Amapu Ntigha Marketers Committee.
Narrating the development to INN, Chairman of JONAPWD in Abia, Stanley Onyebuchi said Okechukwu was nominated by the Isialangwa North Local Government Chairman, Hon. Nwaogwugwu to chair the committee.
He said after the Committee had been annouced on radio and a date fixed for the inauguration, Onwusibe cancelled the nomination on the grounds that a person with disability does not have the capacity to chair the committee.
Onyebuchi said JONAPWD considers Onwusibe’s decision as a flagrant act of discrimination to not only Okechukwu, but the entire PWDs in Abia and Nigeria at large.
He said he had made efforts to reach the lawmaker to confirm the development, but all efforts to reach him proved abortive as he did not respond to the calls and text messages sent to his phone.
“When I got the information, I put a call across to Hon. Ginger Onwusibe and he didn’t pick my call and I sent text message to him, he never responded.
“I proceeded to ask the State Publicity Secretary to write this story on our JONAPWD Whatsapp platform and let all members send him message to let him know that what he’s doing is not good as a law maker. He is not supposed to discriminate against persons with disabilities,” the JONAPWD chief said.
He added that Hon. Onwusibe should be fully aware about the existence of an act in this country that prevents persons with disabilities from every form of discrimination.
But Onyebuchi lamented that rather than softpedal, the lawmaker called members of JONAPWD who sent messages to him to threaten them to desist from doing so.
He said He said JONAPWD also learnt about a meeting held at the instance of the lawmaker where serious pressure was being mounted at the Local Government Chairman to rescind Okechukwu’s nomination.
“Persons with disabilities are being discriminated on almost on a daily basis but the problem is that we don’t have resources to take actions.The only thing we do is to go on protest which sometimes doesn’t yield much result.
“But now that we have the Disability Act, there is a section of that act that gave us the right to sue any man that discriminates against us. But our challenge is the resources to pursue it,” he said.
He added that efforts are ongoing to reach out to members of JONAPWD who are lawyers to assist in rendering legal services, saying that they intend to use this situation as a deterrent to others intending to discriminate against it’s members.
“We are also using reputable medium like INN to call on our brothers and sisters in the legal profession to be assisting some of us in rendering legal services.
“I think by the time we use one or two persons as an example, others will learn from it,” he said.