TheCable

Betta Edu, minister of humanitarian affairs and poverty alleviation, says President Bola Tinubu has directed that 10 percent of her ministry’s interventions should go to Persons living With Disabilities (PWDs) across the country.

NAN reports that Edu disclosed this while inaugurating various empowerment programmes sponsored by the National Commission for Persons with Disabilities (NCPWD) in Abuja.

She said the president instructed that the disability community should be given priority in all intervention programmes of government.

“Mr. President has instructed that the ministry of humanitarian affairs and poverty alleviation should dedicate 10 percent of all humanitarian and poverty alleviation interventions to persons with disabilities across the country,” she said.

“Today is the launch of the empowerment of people living with disabilities.

“Remember that we are doing conditional cash transfers for 15 million households and out of this figure, 10 percent is reserved for the disability community.

“So, we are happy and very proud of the disability commission for pushing on all fronts to ensure that the Renewed Hope Agenda is actually achieved.”

Edu added that the federal government was also providing Point Of Sale (POS) machines to PWDs as a means of empowerment.

“We are providing POS machines to persons with disability across all the senatorial districts in Nigeria so that they can be the last mile distributors of these funds to people living in villages and hard to reach areas,” she said.

“We have also provided not just the POS machines, but the N100,000 capital for them.

“We also gave N130,000 as award of scholarship to physically challenged students in tertiary institutions.

“Beyond this, we have also been able to bring officials of the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) here to carry out proper registration of their businesses, where N20 million has so far been released for that purpose to enable them get to the grassroots.

“Rather than begging, they will be running businesses that will empower them, their society and everyone around them.

“We are having several other interventions like giving out grants to associations that deal with disabilities.”

In his remarks, James Lalu, executive secretary of the commission, said the gesture was aimed at empowering the disability community in Nigeria to become self-reliant.

Lalu commended the Tinubu-led administration for supporting the efforts of the commission in alleviating the plight of persons with disabilities and urged the minister to sustain the tempo.

He also urged relevant authorities to expedite action toward ensuring social inclusion of persons with disabilities in the scheme of things.

Bashiru Dauda, chairman of the house of representatives committee on disabilities, said the national assembly would continue to provide enabling laws for the social inclusion of persons with disabilities across the country.

“Disability issues is all about inclusion and we in the house have approved the use of sign language because we are saddled with the responsibility of advocating the rights of PWDs,” he said.

“We have already enacted a law that mandate institutions and organisations to allocate five percent employment opportunities to persons with disabilities.”

Ruth Ofomo, a representative of Bank of Industry (BOI), said the bank has provided a micro credit of N10 million to small scale businesses.

Ofomo said the loan should be accessed without any form of discrimination and urged members of the disability community to come forward to access the loans in order to boost their businesses.

Abba Isa, senior special assistant to the president on disability matters, said there are about 31 million persons with disabilities in Nigeria.

Isa expressed the need for stakeholders to support efforts toward ensuring their inclusion and participation in governance and other social interventions.

The event featured presentation of scholarship awards to some students living with disabilities.

The beneficiaries were given POS start-up funds and kits.

A cheque of N5 million was given to the Joint Association of Persons With Disabilities in Nigeria (JAPWD), with N2 million handed to the Association of Persons with Albinism (APA).