Last week was a monumental moment for every Deaf person in Nigeria and around the world. It was the International Week of the Deaf people and sign languages. Year after year, in the third week of December—starting from Monday, Deaf people in Nigeria come together to celebrate the core of our culture—the sign language, and we affirm our commitment to become a stronger, more evolving community, a Deaf community that loves more, that knows more, that learns more, and a Deaf community that participates more—in the economic and political doings and actions of our dear nation.
With parties and fanfares, and with pomp and ballyhoos, we celebrate our uniqueness as Deaf people—a people with a common culture and language, a people with common challenges and aspirations. Yet, we are a Deaf people with mutual, universal aspirations—dreams to engage in discourse and activities that change the course of our destinies.
but there are still more ways to go, particularly for the members of the Nigerian Deaf community.
The Nigerian Deaf community is by far the largest in Africa. This is due to the staggering population, geographical, material size, and the dynamism of the general population despite protracted economic hardships, including safeguarding and institutional challenges for Nigeria Deaf people. But the gap widens—between where we are and where we ought to be as a Deaf community. Despite our fine brains and our uniqueness, we (Nigerian Deaf community) remain a minority– with significant safety and governance challenges, ranging from high unemployment, poor information/knowledge acquisition, molestation, and emotional/sexual abuse of the Deaf child, and social and physical and psychosocial harassment.
Apart from the many disability-friendly policies and programs that have been put into place by this administration, including several civil organizations in the country, we, yet, firmly believe that we have unprecedented roles to play in instituting a more equal, more inclusive operating environment for all Deaf persons in Nigeria who aspire for a life of dignity regardless of their status or station.
With slight changes in our priorities, we can give voice to the voiceless, sight to the blindfolded, and a pathway to a better life for all. We are determined to institute more initiatives that provide access for the disabled: Quality, affordable education for all, conducive learning and operating environment, more inclusive and transparent policies.
NNAD and the Future of Nigerian Deaf Community
As the umbrella body and an amalgam of all the Deaf Associations in Nigeria, NNAD has a tremendous amount of role to play in the all-around development of Nigerian Deaf people- the advance of the Nigerian Deaf population which accounts for over nine million (per the estimate of NNAD herself). NNAD must develop safeguarding and governance principles and policies and implement an organizational strengthening to make it a point of “leader body” in times of crisis. NNAD must formulate clear policies on preventing sexual/emotional, and physical exploitation, abuse, and harassment of the Deaf child. It must develop these safeguarding and governance policies strictly under local and international best practices.
This can be achieved by evidence-based, practice-informed procedures. Research is essential for understanding important social phenomena including, for example, the impacts of social unrests, stigmatization, sexual and emotional harassment against the Deaf child might be, including what well-kept measures and safeguard issues and crisis management arrangements may be—to deal effectively and efficiently with such occurrences.
Civil Societies and Deaf Community repositioning
The positive impacts of civil society around the world are obvious: civil organizations have been some of the greatest forces of good in the bettering and transformation of lives, in challenging the status quo.
Coming together and collaborating as voices of reason is also an effective tool that we might employ, as a Community of Deaf people to make a long-term impact in the life of all Deaf persons in Nigeria. The efforts and machinery of civil organizations are the right strategies for addressing social problems such as physical and sexual abuse that have continued to undermine our humanity as Deaf people in Nigeria. Do we, as a shocking illustration not marvel at how lack of access to reproductive health practices by Deaf women can affect Deaf married women’s inability to conceive?
Yet, the inability of Deaf people to know and understand their rights as a minority is even more consequential.
Civic organizations and human services agencies, including the governments at all levels, have significant roles to play in increasing the resources and opportunities of the Deaf Community–by bringing about equal opportunity, full participation in the community, self-sufficient living, and economic independence for the deaf. Policymakers, including the government and legislative decision-makers, have unprecedented roles to play in the trajectory of the disabled with just a slight change in their priorities. But we must get them to play them.
With an extraordinary, concerted collaboration of various bodies, including the private sector, civil organizations, human services agencies, and influential stakeholders and individuals, we can incorporate a combination of analytical, three-dimensional skillsets to formulate a comprehensive policy proposal for the active consideration of policymakers.
Sign language for the Deaf and society. Sign language should cease to be the “language of the Deaf” only. Sign language should be the language of everybody. The Deaf community must make efforts to make its community and the hearing world realize why it is a national security matter that sign language be made a national language.
Making sign language a national language and universal not only makes for economic and political participation by all Deaf people but also fosters social cohesion. Sign language can be a powerful social tool that connects us all regardless of our differences or the multiplicity of our culture and ethnicity in Nigeria.
Education for the Deaf. The education of Deaf learners in Nigeria has usually been in jeopardy-in a bad shape. Deaf students continue to record very bad academic performances compared to their hearing counterparts, researchers consistently argue. We have an education system that has no respect and consideration for Deaf culture, including, importantly, the uniqueness of the Deaf learner. We have an educational system that is under-funded, understaffed, and underequipped for the training of Deaf children whose only means of acquiring information is with the visual apparatuses, the eyes. We need a real, innovative solution formulated for the most effective way to educate the Deaf in Nigeria.
We have so much to be done in our efforts to make the Deaf world better than we found it. There are enormous Deaf people in Nigeria with immense talents and potentials. We are certainly extraordinary people. However, the realization of individual potentials- as Deaf- would only remain a dream unless we make tough decisions, unless we see and acknowledge the issues that confront us, and are willing to embrace peace, that then leads us to band together to solve the problems that undermine our capacity for upward mobility in a competitive world that is predominantly designed to accommodate the non-disabled only.
Happy International Week of the Deaf and Sign Languages!