Governor Obiano employs over 200 people living with disabilities ― Aide

No fewer than 200 people living with disabilities (PLWD) have so far been employed by Governor Willie Obiano of Anambra State over the past seven years.

The Special Adviser to Governor Willie Obiano of Anambra State on Disability Matters, Barrister Chukwuma Ezewuzie, disclosed this during a press briefing held in Abuja, to commemorate the Governor’s seventh year in office.

According to the documents made available to newsmen, the governor issued appointments letters into the State Civil Service, to 131 persons with disabilities in December 2020, not subject to vacancy for any persons living with disabilities.

Barrister Ezewuzie who lost his sight during a measles pandemic at the age of eight also applauded the governor for assenting to the Anambra State Disability Right law (ASDRL) and his quest towards ensuring implementation of the legislation as part of measures aimed at giving dignity of life to the physically challenged in the state.

“I am a Disability Commissioner in another country providing advice and suggestions on how to formulate policies and implement policies that will make life better for people with disabilities. In that country, we call it people with different abilities, we don’t call them people with disabilities because it’s always good to have the right kind of terminology to make a point.”

He also emphasized the need for all the 35 State Governors on the need to emulate Governor Willie Obiano by replicating various policies and programmes, saying “it all began when he came to New York to address Nigerians about the need to come home and make their contributions to the development of their fatherland.

“And after the wonderful address, we sat down and talked about the plight of people with disabilities, unemployment, challenges in different areas, what can we do? And the Governor Willie Obiano said, come home and let’s do something about it,” he recalled.

While noting that 90 per cent of people with disabilities are unemployed according to statistics, Barrister Ezewuzie observed that the 10 per cent of the people with disabilities population “struggle not just in their place of work, even to do anything to make other people know that they actually count.

“So what do we do about it? We tell them to go to school, then acquire education because education is access to better things in life. But why does the person with a disability go to school and come home and remain unemployed, such that they go back to the street to beg for a living, they go to market, places of worship to beg for a living? The problem is when people see them in society, the first thing they think is, they are beggars, despite the level of education.”

While urging Nigerians to desist from stigmatising people with disabilities, he argued that Governor Obiano who understands the plight of people with disabilities resolved to offer automatic employment to “every person with disability who goes to school and acquire one form of education and graduate, should come and have access to automatic employment not subject to vacancy. They got the certificate, they got the education, give them jobs.”

Barrister Ezewuzie also commended the Wife of the Anambra State for the provision of over 2,000 artificial limps, construction of homes for indigent women as well as rehabilitation of persons with mental challenges.

He maintained that with the growing population of people living with disabilities as a result of various form of accidents, estimated at about 800,000, no politicians can win any election without putting into consideration the disability community.

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