HealthNigeriaPeopleSpecial ReportINTERVIEW: Social Distancing Brings More of Stigmatization and Emotional Trauma to Persons with Disabilities” – Rasak Adekoya

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Rasak Adekoya is a young visually impaired Nigeria. He is a Public Speaker, Brand Strategist, Assistive Technology Expert, and an Inclusive Leadership Coach.

He is an astute writer who has authored four books, also an Ashoka Change Maker Scholar and the founder of two social enterprises – African Volunteering Week and Brand your Waithood.

In this exclusive interview with The West African Pilot News reporter, Bada Yusuf, he discussed the stigmatisation and emotional trauma people living with disabilities are experiencing before, during, and after COVID-19.

WAP: According to UN Projection, in every ten Nigerians, one person is suffering from one disability or the other. What can you say about this projection…?

ADEKOYA: This is 2011 data. It is 2011 World Bank and WHO that stipulated that between 10 to 15 percent have that projection, to be people with disabilities in most developing countries including that of Nigeria. So that indicated, which is the 2011 report, is that between 10 to 15 percent of the people in Nigeria are people with disabilities.

Now doing follow up to your question, if you look at the population of Nigeria, we are over 200 million people. So, what many development practitioners have insisted is that we have up to 20 – 25 million persons with Disabilities in Nigeria and you see, the population keeps growing. For example, among the people of disabilities are visually impaired people, people with physical disability i.e. people who use wheelchairs or crutches, we have people with intellectual disability, there are people with hearing impairment or you call them the deaf, these are the major disability types. We have a psycho-socio disability as well.

One strong thing is, for example, visually impaired, according to the last survey with the London School of Tropical Medicine, in Nigeria alone, we have more than 4million people who are visually impaired and that is a survey carried out more than ten years ago, just imagine if that number wouldn’t have increased by now. The entire population of Botswana and Namibia added together, is not more than 4 point something million. That tells you the abundance of what we have.

Lagos alone according to Pundit and Data I have seen so far, because of the economic hub, close to 2 million people are people with disabilities are in Lagos. Many of them moved there because of the economic hub. These are just the reality, and we can only say, are we doing anything to reduce these numbers? I doubt if there are any serious actions to quash these numbers.

WAP:  One major challenge confronting people with disabilities’ society is stigmatisation and discrimination. How can you assess efforts put in place so far on this, both from government, private organizations, and individual members of our society? Especially in this COVID-19 period. 

ADEKOYA: On the issue of discrimination and stigmatisation of persons with disabilities. You see, these are attitudes, and attitude takes time to change. Of course, there are lots of approaches to changing people’s attitudes. You think about policy-wise; you think about, are there communications and awareness.

Let’s look at it from policy-wise, that has to do with, do we have laws that put an end to discrimination and stigmatization? I think in the past one decade, people with disabilities have seen a tremendous approach from different governments across the state level, trying to start something, ensuring their state legislatures to back-up or put end to discrimination and stigmatization.

Few among the states who started that are states like Plateau, Lagos in 2011 passed the Lagos State Special People Law and started the implementation in 2012. As a result of that, I think Taraba too has started something, Jigawa already has a law, Ondo state also an attempt to have one or two laws, Anambra to has a law, now, Kano also passed its laws in 2018, putting up some level of the legislature against discrimination and stigmatization.

After all the states have been doing this, at the national level, after about 18 years of struggle, President Buhari finally passed the national disability law which is called Prohibition Against Persons with Disability Act 2018 and he signed the law on Jan. 23, 2019. This for now, is the level in terms of the policy.

Are these policies being implemented across the states, only a few states have set up an agency to carry out the awareness, and to see how these laws could be enforced? Even at the national level, the President is yet to set up the National Disability Commission which is the agency as enshrined in that Act to put up a framework in terms of putting end to discrimination against persons with disability.

In Lagos, we have the Lagos State Office for Disability Affairs (LASODA) which is meant to put an end to discrimination and stigmatization but are they been implementing? The highest I could hear they have done is possibly doing a little around awareness. States like Plateau already have an agency, they called it the Rehabilitation Board, Jigawa also has something close to that, Anambra has set up a kind of agency as well to implement the law.

Now, let’s come to the real society itself. You see, society will change as a result of two things: first, is the laws being in place and second the awareness, and possibly once they see one or two people are used to test the law, as a litmus paper to test the validity of the law. We have not tested that law in a court of jurisdiction as far as I am concerned, either the state’s laws or the federal law.

One clear thing is, some parts of society are changing. In some parts of the society, Lagos, Abuja, where we have the elites, gradually are changing. At least we could put it on the fact that it is as a result of large organizations of people with disabilities, and many partners who have started creating awareness. Many organizations of persons with disabilities have put a lot of awareness, campaigning, rallies, and all sorts of things to make sure that people get to know about persons with disabilities and put an end to this mindset.

A lot of people still say disability is contagious. A lot call it a communicable disease. A lot still sees it as a hindrance to success. A lot still see persons with disabilities as people who are incapacitated. All these mindsets and stereotypes are bigger problems while the persons with disabilities are not getting the chance to thrive, to live, and to feel a sense of inclusion of belonging in their society. That’s just a reality.

The private sector, maybe one percent of the private sector are now beginning to see that disability is something that they need to think about. Few private sectors, for example, are already committing to becoming a disability inclusive employer. I know for example Unilever had committed even in Nigeria here, that five percent of their workforce will be people with disabilities between now and 2025. Few, I mean few, if you do a sampling, maybe you can see one percent of them who are becoming to change the narrative, thinking around disability inclusion within the context of diversity and inclusion in the workplace.

WAP:  One of the criticisms of organizations fronting disability rights campaigns, workshops, and leadership training is that their activities are not coherent i.e. not consistent, what can you say about that? 

ADEKOYA:  Bada, I think there is a need for us to put clarity on some of the incoherent and inconsistency to organizations of persons with disabilities. We called them OPD or DPO, i.e. Disabled People Organizations, either way, works, OPD is American while DPO is British style.

Now, you should understand the fact that in the past years, we do not have a joint body that is functioning. Let me explain that to you, we have, for example, in the Nigerian context, we have the Nigerian Association of the Blind who strongly believe the issues of persons who are visually impaired, partially sighted, or blind should be first. We have the Nigerian Association of the Deaf who strongly believe they should put the issue of the deaf first and because they do have issues with communication, which is their biggest barrier. We have those who are National Association Physically Challenged, who strongly believe the society is not accessible, they can’t go anywhere, the society discriminates.

So, everybody starts pushing from different angles and that leads to the incoherent in the voice. Not until late 2008, 2009, and more in early 2010 when we now see the national body saying look, we have to come together. For example, in Nigeria, we have Association of Persons with Disability but not functioning and thriving in the past as the way it came about in the past five years. Globally as well, for example in Africa, we now have the African Disability Federation. Globally, we now have the International Disability Alliance which is like the UN for the whole disability across the world.

It is now that has changed and they now started saying, what are the barriers we face? Our barriers are similar, if you look at it, we have physical barriers that have to do with the environment not accessible. For example, those who are in the wheelchair, those who are blind. We have communication barriers, for example those who are deaf, blind. We have institutional barriers that affect everybody. No policy to help put end to discrimination, no policy in the government, and the private sector.

Also, we have attitudinal barriers which are things around stigmatization and discrimination. At least, this does not know whether you are blind, you are on wheelchairs, etc. People discriminate because they see you as a person with a disability.

So, all these became a uniform voice and a way to bring everybody together, so the narrative is changing. However, in Nigeria context, even anywhere in the world, it is a natural thing where we have different bodies coming together to form a network, you will naturally have friction as a result of leadership tussles but in terms of the messaging, in terms of the advocacy, I think that has changed within the past ten years.

WAP:   Talking about inclusion in work environments, access to education is one of the major criteria in Nigeria, do persons with disabilities have access to education as others? For instance, does our education system make provision for sign language interpreters from primary to tertiary education? 

ADEKOYA:   Inclusive education is the right word, let me just say for this question. In the past, what we have is more of special needs education. Where if you are visually impaired, they separate you from others and ask you to school in a separate place. Later, I mean you can have a special primary school. You can go ahead to have a special secondary school, but will you have a special university? Will you have a special workspace? And this led to the question of inclusive education where it is believed that all children with disabilities and without a disability should come together and learn in the same school environment.

Now, as I mentioned about policy, I think 2016 or 2017, the government at the national level was able to dim fit to have a national inclusive education policy. At the state level, states like Lagos, Kwara, and few other states if I can recollect offhand, I think Kaduna and Anambra have something around inclusive education policy but I have to be fair, implementation is still a mirage for now.

What we are practicing and we call inclusive education policy in the country is called integrated education. It is an integration; it is not yet inclusive education. This is still a challenge, many people don’t have, particularly about the deaf, a sign language interpreter in many schools. I think about from few schools like Kwara, UNIJOS, UNILAG made some bit of attempt to support people with disability, I think the University of Ilorin made a big attempt to help the deaf in terms of sign language interpreters, UNILAG and UNIJOS seem to be the hub for the visually impaired as well as NSUKKA, UI is already cropping up. Few schools are trying but I can’t lie to you, there is still a big gap.

At our primary level, that is even the biggest problem and that is why you see many persons with disabilities, particularly the blind and the deaf find a way to go to the special primary school first where they get more of the attention and gradually, some of them decide to go to secondary schools that accept them. Public wise, we have some of the Federal Government Colleges accepting persons with disability to learn. The same thing happens to the deaf, the physical most time struggled to just use the school environment and a lot dropped out.

In fact, one of the things we talk about is that, for example, accessibility of schools has left a lot of students with disabilities dropping out. According to the last statistics of out of school children, it is said that about 30 to 35% of out of school children in Nigeria are children with disability. Now, just take a deep look at what is happening in the northeastern part of Nigeria, where Boko Haram is terrorizing the whole place, a lot of children with disability have dropped out and many might not go back to school. That is one of the reasons why you read, according to the document that less than five to ten percent of Nigerians with disabilities have possessed any level of education.

Because of this, there is a strong correlation between poverty and disability. Some people have acquired disability because of the poverty status of their parents while some people have decided not to move out of that disability, I mean thriving in society because of a parent not being able to afford education for the children they have. You have to understand that educating a child with a disability is quite more expensive than the regular because there is no provision from the government across the board, be it at the primary, secondary and tertiary, or be it at the state, federal or local government. So, it is a challenge and this is one of the reasons why they will tell you that more than 90% of persons with disabilities are the poor, that is just the truth.

WAP:   With the advent of COVID-19, what is the major challenge confronting persons with disability in Nigeria in this lockdown? 

ADEKOYA:    Of course, persons with disabilities are among the most and the most vulnerable groups in the country. I have talked about poverty earlier in this conversation and I have tried to identify how poverty relates to disability, either in terms of preventing it or as a result of poverty from the background affecting them not being able to acquire education or start something.

Now let’s look at it in terms of COVID-19. Before now, there is a statistic that said over 90% of persons with disabilities who are in the working-class groups or working-class age, let me use that word are unemployed. So, many people with disabilities are either unemployed or they are not working. For those people who are trying to strive as entrepreneurs among them, I mean they are the lower cadre of entrepreneurship, they have not skilled up and what that means is that they only live based on the earning or the profit they make daily, not on the basis of what they’ve saved.

As a result of lockdown, some of them have even eaten up their capital, let alone starting the business back. Some of them have not been able to go to places where they do their work, some are quite vulnerable completely, that is from the earning angle and as a result of that many are facing it tough recently.

Let’s look at it from the health angle, COVID-19 itself. Persons with disabilities are vulnerable to it, I have to tell you this and I will give you many examples of why I said persons with disabilities are vulnerable to it. For example, we have been told that the virus can stay as long as 12 hours on a metal, you look at someone who is in a wheelchair, which is a person who has a physical disability. Such a person, if anyone, maybe anyone assisting him or her by holding or grabbing her wheelchair when she is outside and the person perhaps has anything like COVID-19, then such a person has a tendency to pick it up from there.

Look at the visually impaired persons, whereby, he or she goes around on the road, he has a tendency of asking someone to support him to cross the road or maybe the person wants to walk on the staircase. Of course, the visually impaired will likely touch the reels and these rare metals. As a result of touching the rails, asking someone to hold his or her hand to cross the road, then you will see that level of exposure. A person who is visually impaired might be using his or her white cane as a result of COVID-19, which is also a metal.

Now let’s look at a deaf person, someone is of hearing impairment. You see, a lot of sign that the deaf use is a combination of their hands, some gestures and sometimes they even touch their mouth to indicate the gestures, I think a sign like love and some other signs involve touching the mouth, touch ears and as a result of that, that is one means of transmitting.

Now, owing to all these, that means persons with disabilities are vulnerable to being contracting COVID-19. Again, because we have to talk about social distancing and the likes. The challenges are numerous in that regard, for example, before now there has been discrimination, the society is just trying to change and you are now talking about social distancing.

The implication is, for example, if you see someone who is visually impaired, no one would even want to help him or her to cross the road because of social distancing, if you see someone who is on a wheelchair and the person needs to use public transport, nobody would be willing to come to his or her aide because of social distancing. All these bring more of stigmatization and emotional trauma to persons with disabilities.

Now, let me talk about education, you see, a lot of schools are going for online platforms, trying to change the means of education, particularly for secondary schools. Many of them, particularly the government, never considered how accessible those platforms are to children with disabilities who are in schools. So, they are left out and keep in mind that many are struggling to go to schools and things like this would likely increase their likelihood not to partake and be left out of the whole process even though it is a temporary process or is not going to be permanent but they are not gaining or benefitting from the current situation.

On Government palliatives. Now the government is doing a lot around palliative, across the country, I know more around Lagos and some other states. I can confidently say it, in many states, at least let me say half of the 36 states and Abuja making 37, I doubt if more than 25 of these states are not doing anything in terms of their palliatives to cover persons with disabilities and if they’ve done, it has not been deliberate, it is just coincidental.

For states like Lagos for example, it wasn’t their initial plan but after the association of persons with disabilities engage with them, I think to a large extent, they gave them a very small number, they were able to cover about three thousand households. Now remember I said that close to an approximate of two million persons with disabilities are in Lagos, so, just imagine three thousand households out of two million, it is like a truck in an ocean.

The same thing happened in Abuja, it is a bit working, they are moving as well. The Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, they are trying to do things across the state. For example, in Abuja, they have started something but also it is not quite visible or commiserate with the number of persons with disabilities. So, a lot is not getting but at least they are doing it, we must say. After lots of pressure and lots of demand.

In the private sector, of course, it is recently that the issue of disability inclusion is coming to the forefront in the private sector. Many of them see disability more from the charity model, not actually from the social right model and the charity model means just give them arms, just give them things. I doubt if I have heard much from them recently.

There are still a lot of civil societies who are considering people with disabilities in their palliative distribution. These are the few I know but a lot of persons with disabilities are suffering currently, their businesses are down, some cannot even feed their family because of this situation and I cannot even imagine what life would be for them after COVID-19 or pending the time COVID-19 will end.

The government still needs to do more. More than that, a lot of private sectors are doing things, they need to target association or persons with disability in the states, where they are working, rather than just giving it to government alone and asking the government to donate, they can also work with associations of persons with disabilities in their state to see how those things will get to the people in the community, and members of persons with disabilities in such communities.

 

 

Bada Yusuf Amoo (Correspondent)

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