By Precious Oham
Persons with Disabilities, PWDs, have called on the Ekiti State Government to increase the budgetary provisions for issues relating to their welfare.
They also advocated provision of necessary facilities that could enhance their accessibility of public places and services.
The organization, under the aegis of Disability Not A Barrier Initiative, DINABI, made the call, on Friday, in Ado-Ekiti, at a one-day Validation Meeting on Accessibility Audit Report of Public Facilities and Services in Ekiti State with funding support from Disability Rights Fund (DRF).
According to the Executive Director, DINABI, Olajide Funsho, PWDs, who account a total of 15 per cent of Ekiti residents find it difficult to access public facilities and services due to non availability of the required facilities such as ramp or rail.
He noted that most public institutions, such as schools, hospitals, sports centres as well as banks were constructed without putting the disability persons into consideration.
While advocating for increased budget for PWDs in Ekiti State, he believes that the government of Biodun Oyebanji will provide dividends of democracy to Ekiti people.
His words: “The World Bank report states that 15 per cent of the entire world are People with Disabilities which means that almost about 29.7million Nigerians are having one form of disability or the other which also means that we are having 15 per cent of the entire population of Ekiti State having one form of disability or the other.
“What we are asking for is the provision of handrails, ramps and other accessible materials in our facilities. We are also advocating for increased budget for PWDs in Ekiti State.
“We are also advocating for disabilities specific budget lines in the budget of 2023 and sign languages interpreters should be employed in our hospitals so that they will be able to access the services in the healthcare and TV’s.
“The schools should be made accessible so that everybody in the state will be able to to go to these schools without any stress. We believe that the new administration will look into some of these things and be able to give us dividends of democracy as he has promised and we believe he is going to do that because he is a very good man.”
In his goodwill message, the PRS Director of SUBEB, Dr. Tope Ajisafe, reaffirmed the commitment of SUBEB on the welfare of PWDS noting that it has been their action plan for buildings to be accessible to PWDs.
There was also goodwill messages from Dr. Ibrahim Abayomi from the Department of Public Health, Ministry of Health and Human Affairs and representatives from GAD, JONAPWD, EKSODA etc.
Highlights of the event was a presentation of the Draft Report on Accessibility Audit of Public Facilities and Services in Ekiti State and group work by participants.