As part of activities to mark Autism Awareness Month, the FCT Minister, Malam Muhammad Musa Bello has pledged his support to improve the well-being of persons with autism and other neurological disorders to enable them live normal lives.
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The Minister disclosed this during a courtesy visit to Brain Bloom Centre, Apo, dedicated to the care of children with special needs and at the forefront of creating awareness for autism.
Autism is a lifelong, non progressive neurological disorder, typically appearing before a child’s third year.
Experts say that it is neither a psychiatric illness nor a spiritual condition as erroneously speculated by many.
Speaking after a tour at the Centre, he corroborated the Center’s founder and Managing Director, Mrs. Rahanatu Yusuf on the need for the creation of awareness about the disorder.
“We feel highly delighted to have come here and I share with what you are doing because autism is a reality actually. It’s probably just recently that we know autism as a name. Sometimes, you get to know it rather early and sometimes, you don’t know about it till it’s very late. I encourage you not to lose hope. Let us just keep on pushing.
“I will continue to give you publicity, and from time to time, I encourage you to do some activities. You don’t need to make it only an annual event during the autism month. If there is any need for support, you can contact my office and we will see what we can do”, he said.
Highlighting the necessity for awareness on the disorder, Malam Bello said: “I am very happy that you created a forum where parents of the autistic students can come and share ideas because we realize in life that anything that happens has happened before. So, sometimes, if you share ideas, you will be able to achieve the aim of finding solutions to any challenge.
“I assure you that the FCT Administration will give you all the needed support. You can be rest assured that I am going to be a very passionate advocate of what you do”.
On the need for an inclusive environment, the Minister revealed that the FCT Administration was working on making public buildings to conform with the Disability Act recently signed by the Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, so as to cater for persons with disabilities and other special needs.
According to him, the planned installation of lifts at the rail stations would provide easy access and movement to persons with disabilities in the facilities.
While also calling on the centre to carry out more activities aside from the annual autism awareness month, the minister stressed that, “I can assure you that I am going to be a very passionate advocate of what you do and I will continue to give you publicity.”
The Managing Director of Brain Bloom Centre, Hajiya Rahanatu Yusuf, while welcoming the minister to the centre, called for synergy between government and citizens in protecting the rights of neuro-divergent persons.
She noted that though Nigeria has a disability act, government agencies still need to do a lot to enforce them.
Yusuf said that the Minister’s visit was part of the Autism-friendly events and educational activities billed to take place all month, aiming to increase understanding and acceptance of people with autism, foster worldwide support and inspire a kinder, more inclusive world.
Speaking to the Voice of Nigeria on the sideline of the event the MD Yusuf said, “Now more than ever, we need to come together to support each other, and remember our most vulnerable populations. We want to make autism awareness more center stage and topic of conversation which is why we are bringing this to the attention of the Honourable Minister who has the capacity to make impactful policies to achieve this herculean feat.”
Meanwhile, parents at the meeting decried the limited number of centres for diagnosing neurological disorder cases in Nigeria, warning that wrong diagnosis could further compounded the challenges faced by autistic children.
They say despite the rise in cases of invisible disabilities like autism, down syndrome, etc, Nigeria currently has less than three functional diagnostic centers for detecting and confirming children on the spectrum.
One of the parents, Fatima Zarau, also raised alarm that the children’s rights to proper health care services are being denied them with exorbitant cost of medications especially that are hardly covered by the National Health Insurance Scheme.
Zarau therefore called on the government at all levels to offer some form of soft landing for parents of special needs children to ease their burden.
“We as parents of special needs children have a lot of demands. Government should meet us halfway because most of the interventions our children need are very expensive. They say enroll for NHIS, but NHIS doesn’t cover the things children need. For instance drugs are not covered by NHIS, therapies are not covered, schools are not covered, so how does NHIS work for us? it’s not in our favour,” she laments.
For Usman Ahmed Modibbo, another parent, it was equally challenging for his family as they faced facts they didn’t want to accept when their son was hyperactive and couldn’t speak a word at three. “But we have seen progress and the best decision we’ve ever made is coming to this Centre”, he said.
One of the Centre’s teachers, a verbal behaviour therapist, Mr. Manji Danjuma, explained that verbal behaviour therapy was the most suitable method adopted in teaching the children since conventional learning methods were unsuitable for them.
Danjuma stressed that the therapy was an approach that applied behaviour analysis and theories of behaviorists in teaching children with autism in communication and language. Simply, verbal behaviour therapy is a Montessori teaching method involving use of images and sounds that represent those images.
For Danjuma, he finds fulfillment in the progress made by the children as they move from not being able, to being able to express themselves better.
Autism awareness month holds from the 1st to 30th of April every year.
