In the stride toward deepening the inclusion of Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) across political party structures in Nigeria, the Inclusive Friends Association (IFA) took advocacy to the National Chairman of the Inter-Party Advisory Council Nigeria – IPAC Engr. Yabaji Sani.
Grace Jerry (Executive Director, IFA) represented by Stephen Idoko (Program Officer, IFA) highlights to the Chairman, the existing inclusion gaps within party structures with a stressed embargo to include PWDs at every stratum to foster equal representation.
“With over 10 years of experience working with the communities of persons with disabilities, we empirically realized that their participation in politics has gone beyond voting and elections. It is time to begin to include PWDs as Stakeholders and leaders across party strata, championing party decisions and affairs. “
“We are concerned about the low appointments of PWDs as party Executives, committee members or heads, and even winning party tickets to contest and win elections. This calls for the need to declare a state of emergency on deepening the inclusion of PWD in all political parties.”
Responding to the call, Yabani reiterated his commitment to influencing the 18 existing political parties to redress their agenda and constitution in concordance to leave no one behind; noting the ongoing political activities ahead of the 2023 general elections.
The advocacy visit also availed the opportunity to present the chairman with a copy of the Manual-On-the-Use-of-Sign-Language-Interpreters to guide political parties in deploying sign language interpreters during their campaigns for effective communications with the deaf communities.