Edgar Edeki Osasumi, a 300 level University of Jos student has condemned the Federal Government’s data collection process launched by National Commission for Persons with Disabilities, NCPWD to collate core information of 50,000 Persons with Disabilities to help in distributing COVID-19 intervention benefits.
Edeki voiced his opinion on the exercise in a recently released statement. He expressed frustration at the exclusion of some sectors of Persons with Disabilities who do not have bank accounts, bank verification numbers, (BVN) and other means of identification. Edgar lamented that these people are set to be excluded from the intervention fund.
The UniJos undergraduate listed reasons why using data collection to roll out intervention fund for PWDs is unfair and should be eliminated.
He argued that: “When the FG approved the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development on the 1st of April, 2020 for disbursement of the sum of #20,000 each, to the poorest and most vulnerable households within Nigeria , did they require the data collection for the process? According to him, Persons with Disabilities should also be seen as one of society’s most vulnerable.
He further queries: “If data collection is required for Persons with Disabilities, then what about those who don’t have bank accounts? How do we know if people without bank accounts are more than those who have?
“Then there are those PWDs who have bank accounts but no NIN or PVC for one reason or another. Is BVN alone not enough? The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has said applicants with Bank Verification Number, BVN-generated NIN (National Identification Number), must get it verified in order to access NIMC mobile app for seamless NIN-SIM integration. The whole thing should be more flexible for PWDs, please. The way it currently is, it is just unfair.”
We should also ask the question: ‘Is the program based on age? I guess it isn’t because a PWD is anyone who has a disability – and this includes children living with disabilities. How are children with disabilities going to participate in the ongoing exercise, he queried.
Edgar urged the Executive Secretary, National Commission for Persons with Disabilities, Mr. James David Lalu, to make the process more flexible for PWDS.
According to him, requiring data collection should be eliminated to allow access for those who lack some of the requirements.
Edgar went on to advice that should the idea of data collection be insisted on, then people who don’t have bank accounts should not be left behind, because according to him, most of these people have been praying and crying for intervention like this one.
2 comments
I concur with this post, there are some of us that don’t have the complete requirements and we have some children with disabilities. Is should be aloud to use the details of any of our relatives who have the complete requirements and the parents of those children should their own details in placement of their children.
If they really want to carry every disabled person along.