The Kogi APC Disability Campaigns Network and a coalition of disabled politicians have inaugurated the Tinubu/Ododo Campaign team to drive 2027 re-election support for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Governor Ahmed Usman Ododo.
At the inaugural ceremony of the leadership of the PWDs campaign network in Lokoja, on Wednesday, Director-General of the Kogi APC Disability Campaign Network, Yakubu Abdulhakeem Nazir, said that beyond voting in elections, persons with disabilities (PWDs) in the state have mobilised PWDs and their families, friends and relations across political divides to elect President Tinubu and Governor Ododo.
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Nazir said the disability community in the state, as an active political group with significant electoral value, has shifted its political sloganeering from ‘political inclusion’ to ‘political participation’ to reflect renewed political commitment to political leadership and governance at all levels.
“As we formally inaugurate the Kogi APC Disability Campaign Network, I call upon every executive member, every stakeholder, and every member of this network to understand the enormous responsibility that lies before us. This network must not exist merely in name. It must become an active and effective political structure.
“Let us take the message of inclusion, unity, progress, and responsible political participation to every ward, every Local Government Area, and every senatorial district across Kogi State by organising, mobilising, educating, and encouraging the electorate to vote for APC in all elections,” Nazir said.
The Director General urged the APC leadership in the state to involve persons with disabilities in all campaign activities from the state level to the Senatorial Districts, from the Local Government Areas to the wards.
In his words, “If election is a game of number, we have a huge number of active politicians, party loyalists, voters, families, politically-inclined activists and political rights campaigners fully working with over one hundred thousands PWDs voters across the state in support of the electoral fortunes of the APC, which has brought ‘good fortune’ to PWDs and their families in Nigeria, particularly in Kogi state, with the array of political opportunities.
“Since the return of democracy in 1999, the All Progressives Congress has demonstrated a deliberate and practical commitment to the inclusion of persons with disabilities in governance and national development. It was under an APC-led Federal Government that the Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities (Prohibition) Act, 2018, was signed into law, providing a major legal framework for the protection, inclusion, dignity, and advancement of persons with disabilities in Nigeria.
“But our story does not end at the national level. Here in our dear Kogi State, the commitment to disability inclusion was further demonstrated under the administration of the former Governor, His Excellency Alhaji Yahaya Adoza Bello, CON, who replicated this commitment within the state and took steps towards establishing the Kogi State Office for Disability Affairs as an important institutional platform for advancing disability inclusion,” Nazir noted.
While appreciating the APC administrations in the state for giving political consideration to the community of persons with disabilities in Kogi State in the past decade, the Director-General expressed satisfaction with the level of political patronage extended to the PWDs in APC, adding that “much is given to us, and we must give much more to the Tinubu and Ododo administrations.
“It is under the APC-led administration in Kogi State that persons with disabilities began to receive greater recognition in the area of political inclusion and participation,” Nazir expatiated.
Speaking at the inauguration, Senior Special Assistant to governor Ahmed Usman Ododo on disability matters, Mukaila Sheidu said the Kogi State government is building a comprehensive database of persons with disabilities (PWDs) in the 21 local government areas of the state to enhance government intervention programmes for the members of the disability community in state just as the state government intends to improve economic planning for general wellbeing of the state.
Secretary of the campaign network, Ibrahim Daniel Arome, said the PWDs in Kogi State would give over one hundred thousand votes to Tinubu in the forthcoming presidential election.
