‘Stand up for persons with disabilities’
By Magnus Eze
People with disabilities say planners of Abuja, the nation’s capital did not have them in mind; and wondered how such modern city was designed and developed to be unfriendly to disability.
They allege exposure to all manner of barriers including lack of access to accessible or convenient transportation for people who are not able to drive because of vision or cognitive impairments, as well as lack of safe accessible roads, bridges and other social infrastructure.
According to them, virtually all the highways and public buildings in the FCT were designed without considering access to Nigerians living with disability.
However, a Non-governmental Organisation, Disability Rights Advocacy Centre (DRAC), has taken it upon itself to provide a voice for people with disabilities in Nigeria, beginning with the FCT.
At a stakeholders’ roundtable it organised in Abuja, Thursday, on Disability Inclusion and Violence against Women and Girls with Disability, DRAC’s Executive Director, Dr. Irene Patrick-Ogbogu noted that such public buildings as the Federal Secretariat Complex, Social Secretariat of FCTA, several hospitals and government offices lacked facilities for persons with disabilities.
Only lately, the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) started erecting pedestrian bridges with ramps.
Regardless, DRAC picked hole in such intervention, describing them as substantially makeshift.
She added that it was not just enough providing ramps on the sidewalk, without making provision for how persons with disabilities could enjoy the facilities.
Patrick-Ogbogu said: “When you look at our roads, pedestrian bridges and all that, you can tell that there is no thought for persons with disabilities. How can someone in a wheelchair cross the road from one side of the expressway to the other in a safe way; it is really almost impossible. Now you can see that in some places they have kept ramps by the sidewalk but once someone gets onto that ramp and onto the sidewalk, how about crossing over to the other side? A person in a wheelchair cannot climb up the pedestrian bridge so how do they get to the other side? It’s still exposing them to danger. So that is what I meant by our roads and bridges not being disability friendly.
“It is the same thing when you look at public buildings; the same song we have been singing for so many years. Most of our public buildings are not wheelchair friendly, look at the Federal Secretariat for instance; there is no wheelchair access in the entire complex, so it is a challenge for us in the FCT.”
Our findings showed that the same case applied to hotels within the territory as many of them lacked facilities accessible to people with different forms of disabilities.
According to DRAC ED, “many hotels do not have ramps for wheelchair, where they do have ramps, you see that the ramps were not planned properly; they just put them as makeshift because they are too steep and dangerous. So, we also have hotels which do not take consideration of deaf people who patronise them because if you are a deaf person and you are in a hotel room and someone knocks at your door or there is an emergency evacuation and people are knocking at your door, you won’t hear.”
She, however, said Denis Hotel in Wuse 2, Abuja actually stood out “as one of the most community friendly hotels” in the FCT, with ramps wherever necessary, which make the bathrooms, toilets and rooms accessible.
Daily Sun further gathered that the hotel has designated rooms for the deaf with special facilities that could alert a deaf guest when there is a visitor or in the event of emergency.
The disability rights activist said the nation’s building code was in conformity with universal design and called for its proper enforcement. 
“If only the responsible government bodies will ensure that when people are getting permits for building that they are actually adhering to those building codes; then we won’t be having all those problems,” she stated.
Violating women, girls with disabilities
With the sponsorship of CBM, an international Christian development organization, committed to improving the quality of life of people with disabilities in the poorest communities of the world, DRAC is currently driving a project to reduce violence against women and girls with disabilities in the FCT.
A recent baseline survey by the organisation showed that women with disabilities (WWD) experience physical violence such as slapping, beating, arm twisting, stabbing, choking, kicking, and the like, at the hands of intimate partners mostly.
The survey said WWD were much more likely than other women to experience physical abuse, sexual abuse, rape, violation of privacy, forced isolation, deprivation of liberty and so on.
It further said that most WWD perpetually hide their experiences of violence due to fear of blame, increased stigma and verbal abuse when such cases are reported as well as the multiple barriers they face in accessing Sexual and Reproductive Health, psychosocial and criminal justice services.
According to the findings, these barriers subject them to living a life of low self-esteem characterized by severe psychological problems.
She explained that the focus of the project is reaching out to religious leaders, traditional leaders and other stakeholders who have influence in the society.
Patrick-Ogbogu said “Women with disabilities will tell you that the first person they want to report to when they have been violated or abused are their religious leaders. So one of the things this project is doing is to target religious leaders and traditional leaders as well as women and girls with disabilities including the men with disabilities to educate them on the insidious nature of violence against women with disabilities as it is happening in the FCT and seek ways for them to understand that it is a serious issue and to being able to identify and report it when it happens.”
DRAC is also seeking the buy in of both government agencies and civil society organizations.
Speaking on their involvement in the project, Country Rep of CBM International, Dr. Toyin Aderemi said the group was further motivated to sponsor the project in the FCT and Lagos state because Gender Based Violence interventions by mainstream women groups were usually silent on the experience of WWD.
Nonetheless, a senior official of the Social Development Secretariat of FCTA, who would not want to be named, admitted that even the Social Development Secretariat which should cater for persons with disabilities in the FCT was not accessible to them, as it is located on the 3rd floor.
By and large, stakeholders called for multi-sectoral approach in tackling the issue, as Joy Theyra, the Programme Executive of Women’s Rights Advancement and Protection Alternative (WRAPA) said quick passage of the disability bill by the National Assembly held the key to the solution.