By Bizibrains Okpeh
As Gro Harlem Brundtland succinctly puts it; “To many people, staying out of harm’s way is a matter of locking doors and windows and avoiding dangerous places. To others, escape is not possible. The threat of violence [or discrimination] is behind those doors – well hidden from public view.” This is the unfortunate situation of persons with disabilities (PWDs) in Nigeria, who are often easy targets of disability-based violence or discrimination.
More than 30 million Nigerians live with disabilities. These lots are usually objectified and subjected to all kinds of violence, discrimination, and disablement – arising from institutional, structural, and attitudinal barriers. Hence, all stakeholders welcomed the enactment of the Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities (Prohibition) Act, 2018, (the National Disability Act). Fashioned in the spirit of the United Nation’s Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), the National Disability Act seeks “to provide for the full integration of persons with disabilities into the society, establish the National Commission for People with Disabilities and vest in the Commission the responsibilities for their education, health care, social-economic, and civil rights; and for related matters.” It prohibits any form of discrimination against PWDs by any person, organisation, or institution and makes it a punishable offence to do otherwise.
Also, the Act provides for accessibility of PWDs to physical structures, transportation, healthcare, education, and employment, including the equal right to work and opportunities for gainful employment, and makes it a punishable offence to do otherwise. Thus, employers of labour in public organisations are required to have PWDs constitute at least 5% of their workforce and no building plan shall be approved unless it makes provisions for accessibility by PWDs. The Act also provides remedies for any breach of rights thereunder.
Inauguration of the National Commission for People with Disabilities (NCPWD)
As laudable and somewhat far-reaching as the provisions of the National Disability Act are, the Act may not translate into tangible positive impacts on the lives and livelihoods of PWDs if disability empowerment and accountability continue to lag. This algorithm is quite simple to draw because what you cannot account for you cannot care or cater for. Thus, the constitution of the Board and members of the NCPWD on 24 August 2020 by President Muhammadu Buhari became perhaps the most important action towards ensuring disability empowerment and accountability.
This is because of its very important role as the proverbial watchdog, not only to ensure disability data collection and profiling, the construction and maintenance of an equal balance in the competing social security needs, facilities, or amenities between PWDs and their counterparts without disabilities, in terms of access to physical structures, transportation, education, employment, and healthcare but also to help deconstruct or sniff out circumstances where outright denial or subtle mitigation of the rights to such amenities exist with a view to remediation per its mandate under the Act.
While the implementation of the National Disability Act may not be effectively analysed until after the five years transitory period and it is barely three years since the signing of the National Disability Act into law and one year since the constitution of the NCPWD, it suffices to say that disability accountability cannot wait forever.
Certificate of Identification for PWDs.
To paraphrase the words of Doma-Kutugi, empowerment and accountability are very important configurators in any disability programme. Hence, the need to account for PWDs cannot be overemphasised. Section 22 of the National Disability Act requires that persons with mental disabilities shall obtain a Permanent Certificate of Disability (PCD) from the NCPWD and where a doctor suspects a person of having a disability, the doctor shall, with the approval of the NCPWD, issue a Temporary Certificate of Disability (TCD), which shall last for 180 days, and shall be upgraded to a PDC where the disability endures beyond 180 days. Again, Sections 38 (f) and (l) of the Act respectively requires the NCPWD to regularly conduct enumeration exercises, collecting data (on special education) of PWDs, and issuing insignia of identification with PWDs.
With the data blind spot in the national disability diversity profile, it is difficult to engage in any meaningful, informed, and targeted social security and empowerment programmes for PWDs. It is, therefore, a welcome development that the NCPWD seeks to embark on a national programme to certify all PWDs. However, whether not having a PCD or TCD would be a ground for denial of any rights or benefit under the Act or not, what is most necessary and desirable, at this time, is a formidable and reliable system of disability data collection and profiling for accurate (or near-perfect) accountability and more productive empowerment or engagement of PWDs.
Again, disability accountability would also help to increase the employment profile of PWDs. Lack of data undermines disability employment planning. As of today, there is no reliable data to show the statistics of PWDs who are within or without the employment sphere. Hence, the requirement that public institutions should have at least 5% of PWDs constitute their workforce cannot be effectively monitored. Needless to say that most PWDs are yet out of gainful employment. Perhaps to help in this regard, which in law it is mandated to do, the NCPWD has said it will reserve up to 60 to 70 percent of employment for qualified PWDs in its planned zonal offices. This is in line with Section 38(d) of the Act which requires the NCPWD to make available not less than 5% of the workforce to qualified PWDs.
Furthermore, because of the status of states as important stakeholders in the national disability discourse, the NCPWD, alongside other NGOs, especially organisations of persons with disabilities, must scale up advocacy and awareness to ensure the domestication of the National Disability Act. This will improve disability empowerment/accountability. As of 17 March 2020, only 10 states (out of 36 states) were reported to have localised the Act (the Guardian News Online).
In the final analysis, by the take-off of the NCPWD, it is expected that the rights guaranteed by the letters of the National Disability Act would translate into actual benefits for PWDs. While there are glimpses of the implementation of the National Disability Act, unfortunately, it is not yet ututu (morning) for PWDs. Beyond words and intentions, the NCPWD must begin to take concrete steps towards disability empowerment and accountability as the juice of the National Disability Act would essentially flow from there.
Okpeh is a lawyer and a disability rights advocate, researcher, and analyst. Reach him at bizibrains@gmail.com. This article is sponsored by the inclusive Friends Association with support from the Ford Foundation.