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Living With Disability By: Leadership Editors on December 3, 2013 - 3:32am http://leadership.ng/news/031213/living-disability Today is the International Day of Persons Living with Disability; December 3 every year has been set aside by the United Nations for remembering these important citizens. The theme for this year’s celebration is “Break Barriers and Open Doors: To Realise an Inclusive Society for All”. Around the world, persons with disabilities face physical, social, economic, and attitudinal barriers that exclude them from participating fully and effectively as equal members of society. This situation has ensured disability remained largely invisible in the mainstream development agenda and its processes. Nigeria is a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights for Persons with Disabilities. Article 25 of the 2006 Convention compels state actors to ensure that there is a commission to protect the rights of persons with disabilities in their countries. For the fifth time last year, an attempt to secure passage of a bill for Nigerians living with disabilities failed. It was refused assent by the president after both chambers of the National Assembly had passed it. Yet, it is estimated that there are over 19 million people living with one form of disability or the other. Many more are being pushed into this special group by a variety of actions – man-made, divine and medical. Peaceful demonstrations, picketing, and bills in the National Assembly have done very little to change their fortunes and improve their welfare. They are seen as mendicants and social misfits who are often treated as objects of pity. They remain the poorest of the poor, considered inept, unfit and incapable of holding public offices, even when many of them have the requisite skills, qualifications and moral fibre to be in high offices. Stigmatisation, discrimination and stereotypes have coalesced to keep them at the periphery of the social system. These are issues that should engage policymakers across the world. To realise equality and participation for persons with disabilities, between now and 2015, there is a need for concerted global efforts to promote accessibility, remove all types of barriers for people living with disabilities to realise their full and equal participation in society, and to shape the future of development for all mankind, irrespective of unique features. This concern was expressed by the United Nations secretary-general, Ban Ki-Moon. “Unfortunately, most persons with disabilities have never participated in management or related planning and decision-making processes. They suffer disproportionately high levels of disaster-related mortality and injuries,” he stated. An avalanche of natural and man-made disasters has bedevilled Nigeria’s socio-political milieu recently. Almost all public institutions and general facilities are not planned to suit the disabled. Hospitals, school buildings and government agencies are built without ramps for the lame and the paralysed. Special schools lack basic amenities like the Braille and hearing aids. The lepers and amputees cannot vote in elections because of their peculiar features. The mass media make no provision for sign language and feedback mechanism from this group that make up a large part of the country’s population and 15 per cent of mankind. This is unacceptable. Stay up to date, follow us on Twitter: @LeadershipNGA