The Joint National Association of Persons with Disabilities (JONAPWD) yesterday commended the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and Governor Samuel Ortom for providing an enabling environment for over 3, 680 of their members to exercise their franchise in the ongoing electoral process.
Chairman of the association in the state, Mr. Bem Ashe, who gave the commendation at a news conference in Makurdi, the state capital said the association has about 7, 265 registered members but with a voting strength of 3,680 that cut across six clusters.
Mr. Ashe identified the clusters to include: people with visual impairment, the deaf, people with albinism, the physically challenged, leprosy survivors and spinal cord injury.
He lamented that previous administrations in the country had discriminated against members of the association on election matters but expressed gratitude to the INEC for the provision of materials like the Braille Ballot Guide (BBG), Poster EC 30E to enable them exercise their civic rights.
“Here in Benue State, we paid a courtesy visit to Governor Ortom and presented an award to him as “The Best Disability Governor in the country”; because when he assumed office he called us and said what are your problems? Wetold him and those problems we didn’t tell him, he provided them to us among them were the appointment of three of our members as Special Assistants to the governor on disability”.
“So we really commended Governor Ortom and indeed the INEC for providing an enabling environment for us to fully participate in the electoral process”.
Earlier, the INEC Disability Desk Officer, Mrs. Margaret Abakume, stressed the need for the physically challenged to be accorded equal rights and encouraged to exercise their civic responsibilities.
Mrs. Abakume, in a paper entitled: “Disability Votes Matters: Leaving No One Behind, disclosed that the commission has fully included persons with disabilities to vote in the 2023 general elections.
She named some of the materials provided for persons with disabilities to vote today to include braille ballot guide for the visually impaired persons, magnified glasses for persons with Albinism, Poster EC -30 to guide the hearing impaired for the voting process among others to aid persons with Disabilities during elections.
The INEC officer explained that the disabilities rights are derived from the international charter of which Nigeria is a signatory to including the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights; the African Charter and Peoples Rights and the United Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
