By Cajetan Mmuta
Members of the Joint National Association of Persons With Disabilities (JONAPWDs) in Anambra state on Wednesday expressed satisfaction with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) over its assurances of getting special attention on election day in the state.
Chairman of the JONAPWD, Ugochukwu Okeke stated this at a validation exercise on the Drafted Abridged Version (Pidgin and Igbo) of Anambra Disability Rights Law (2018).
He said the electoral body had promised to bring the polling units outside facilities inaccessible to his members in order to ensure they exercise their franchise seamlessly.
He said, “We’ve taken the advocacy to several institutions and agencies, including INEC on how important access to facilities is to us. We’re happy they’re complying.”
According to him, “INEC has assured us that they have carried out accessibility audit on most of the polling units to ensure all are compliant. Those that are not, they promised to bring out the polling units to guarantee access to our members to cast their votes.”
“They also assured us that priority attention will be given to PWDs and the aged during elections. We also requested they should carve out a queue for us to cast our vote as fast as possible,” the group stated.
“We’re also planning to engage the Ministry of Education due to the number of schools being used for the exercise, such that when they are building schools, they’ll factor in PWDs.”
Ugochukwu also urged the members not to panic over the prevailing security situation in the state, Okeke said efforts were on to sensitize them on certain security measures so they could be properly guided.
“We’ve resolved among ourselves that our votes must surely count this time around. We’ve been encouraging our members to go out and vote. I don’t think we’re going to be discouraged by the prevailing situation.
“We know government is doing everything humanly possible to ensure the provision of adequate security on election day. We’re also sensitizing them on certain security measures so they can be guided.”
“One of such is that they need not panic on hearing any sound, but to apply certain basic steps, like alerting security officials,” he said.
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State Coordinator, Rule of Law and Anti-Corruption (RoLAC), Josephine Onah said her organization was not only assisting in translating the abridged version of the Disability Rights Law into pidgin and Igbo languages but training sign language interpreters on legal terminologies.
“We’re fortunate to have such a law in the state to avail us of the legal framework for certain things to be put in place for the disability community.”
“We’re here to increase awareness and sensitization of the law to ensure its simplification in pigeon and Igbo languages for better understanding and compliance.
“We have to continue to popularize the law until a time everyone will be on the same page with the content, ” she explained.
