Yemisi Izuora
The Centre for Citizens with Disabilities, CCD, has sought partnership with Local Government Areas, LGA’s in Lagos state to increase awareness and implementation of the Lagos state Special Persons Law.
The call was made by David Anyaele, executive director of CCD, during the public presentation of report of the Organisations research and assessment of level of compliance of public institutions in the state to the provisions of the law for the 20 local government areas and 37 local council development areas, at the weekend, in Lagos.
Anyaele, expressed disappointment that the level of implementation of the law at the local government level is so appalling such that people living with disabilities, PWDs, in most of the local government areas suffer different degree of neglect and marginalization.
According to key findings of the report which was supported by Ford Foundation, indicated that policy actors are actually aware of the law but do not have thorough knowledge of its provisions while a substantial number of people living with disabilities are not aware of the law in the first instance.
The report further revealed the law is weakly enforced and compliance with the provisions is generally poor, as buildings of government ministries, departments and agencies, MDA’s are fairly accessible and vital infrastructures missing and existing facilities such as specialized parking spaces are not available for use by PWDs.
Also, other public buildings in the state and spaces beyond MDA’s were poorly designed and inaccessible, thus falling short of the provisions of the law.
The report also uncovered that mechanism to handle the welfare of PWDs varied from one MDA to another as welfare of the PWDs is attributed to existence of subsidized or free health services, free education and employment of PWDs.
Anyaele, reminded the local government chairmen that the need of the disabled people are as important as the needs of the physically able people, and for this reason, planning and designing for the majority should equally take into account the requirements of the PWDs.
He informed them that one of the complaints of the PWDs is the challenge of inaccessibility they experience as a result of architectural barriers, pointing that it has been discovered that most communities do not have disability friendly amenities that will allow for functional independence and full social integration of PWDs in the society.