By Ummi Ismaeel,
Minna
Niger state chapter of Persons Living with Disabilities have protested against alleged shortchanging of their members in the ongoing Nigerian government’s Special Public Workers Scheme (SPWS) in Minna, the Niger State capital.
The scheme is expected to empower 774, 000 Nigerians from across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja. One thousand each from the 774 local government areas and twenty-five thousand persons are expected to benefit from Niger State.
Instead of expected five percent for members as directed by the federal government, the disabled persons said that they were not happy that only 0.4 percent was allocated to them by the relevant government agencies, which, to them, is unacceptable.
Chairman of the Joint National Association of Persons with Disabilities in Niger State, Isah Abdullahi, who led other members in protest against alleged short-changing to the NUJ state secretariat in Minna, insisted that anything less that five percent would be unacceptable to them.
“The association had forwarded names of 50 members from each of the 25 local government areas of Niger State to the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) – 1, 225 in all but surprisingly they are giving us only 100 slots. This is unacceptable to us,” Isa Abdullahi said.
Abdullahi, who expressed disappointment about the developments, said a list of shortlisted persons released shows that only two local government areas had considered persons with disability, giving them only 100 slots as against 1, 225 names sent to the NDE.
Out of the 25, 000 slots given to the state, Abdullahi said, “only 100 persons have been captured and over the years persons with disabilities were abandoned by successive governments across all three tiers are not being carried along in government policies and programmes.”
“We are vulnerable persons. In fact, if there is anybody that should benefit more from any empowerment policy of government, it should be persons with disability because we are more vulnerable to poverty and disaster,” he said.
While pleading for the intervention of President Muhammadu Buhari to come to the aid of persons with disability to correct the anomalies, Abdullahi said Niger state currently has over 300, 000 persons living with disabilities as at the last census.
While appealing to relevant agencies to consider first persons with disability in key government policies and programmes due to their vulnerability, Abdullahi pointed out pathetically that, “Out of about 300, 000 persons with disability in the state, 20 percent of them live and feed from the streets as beggars”.