In collaboration with the Inclusive Friends Association, the National Commission for Persons with Disabilities, NCPD, in Nigeria, has begun a voter registration awareness campaign among People With Disabilities, PWDs, in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.
People with disabilities have shown they matter in the political calculation of Nigeria, and they are not only asking for their voices to be heard but for their votes to count as well.
The Executive Secretary, National Commission for Persons with Disabilities said with the vast number of people living with disabilities in Nigeria, the commission will collaborate with the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to increase the number of registered people with disabilities to at least one million.
Mr. James Lalu, who made the address at a press conference on PWDs continuous voter registration exercise in Abuja, in collaboration with the Inclusive Friends Association and INEC, called on resident electoral commissioners in the country to provide people with disabilities easy access to registration centres.
“We are in the season of continuous voter registration, and the most critical key is to have our permanent voters’ card within the disabilities community.
“Our commitment at the National Commission for PWDs is to see that the number of persons with disabilities truly own their permanent voters’ card and scale up beyond ten million persons with disabilities. We will continue to do our best to support this process,” Lalu added.
Mr. Lalu said people with disabilities in Nigeria would play a decisive role in the entrenchment of the next set of political leaders. They should not be taken for granted.
He called on Resident Electoral Commissioners in the country to provide easy access to persons with disabilities to get registered.
He said they are scaling up the voters’ registration to enable persons with disabilities to participate fully in the electoral process to exercise their civic rights. He added that the Prohibition of discrimination against persons with disabilities act had raised the rights and dignity of persons with disabilities.
“We are sending this message to all our politicians, the presidential candidates, the governorship candidates down to other positions that the number of persons with disabilities this year and for the 2023general election deserves your attention,” Lalu said.
He reminded political parties that with a large population of people with disabilities in the 36 states of the federation, they should open their doors to persons with disabilities and that the commission will monitor the exercise to ensure that INEC keeps its words of inclusion in the continuous voter registration.
Mr. James Lalu is emphatic that “we will never waste our PVC to vote for any political party that does not provide the proper inclusion for persons with disabilities in their system.
“We are moving from an inconsequential constituency to a constituency of consequences.”
Executive director, Inclusive Friends Association, Grace Jerry, said the 4th quarter registration data of INEC showed that 3,357,188 registered online, 6,782,069 physical registrations, and 8,022,392 are male, 5,116,855 are female.
At the same time, 75 422 are persons with disabilities, and they hope to use this advocacy to raise the number to at least one million registrants.
Ms. Jerry said, “To increase persons with disabilities’ participation in the electoral process, the Inclusive Friends Association will mobilise eligible citizens with disabilities who are yet to register or transfer, apply for a renewal of damaged or defaced cards, or to make updates on the INEC register an opportunity to register.
“Through a community of PWDs in their comfort zones to experience the continuous voters’ registration exercise.”
To reach their target audience and make the impact required to increase the number of persons with disabilities with the message of participating in the continuous voters’ registration, Grace Jerry said Vote-Ability is the catchphrase.
They will use “the conventional and social media platforms to increase awareness and mobilize Persons With Disabilities to register before the end date through jingles, video skits, and graphics.
This platform will also inspire citizens towards active and sound political participation in the democratic process.”
She said data is available for INEC to use in deploying instructional materials to polling units for people with disabilities to find it easy to vote in the 2023 election.
Resident electoral commissioner for the federal capital territory, Abuja, Mr. Yahaya Bello, said the initiative to encourage persons with disabilities to register and vote is laudable. The INEC will do everything possible to ensure persons with disabilities are not disenfranchised.
Mr. Bello noted that INEC is committed to free, fair, credible, and inclusive, including persons with disabilities, general election in 2023. “The idea of guiding and facilitating the registration of persons with disabilities is highly commendable especially given the commission’s mandate to ensure everyone is allowed to take part in the electoral process.”
The continuous voters’ registration by INEC in Nigeria will end on July 31, 2023; the persons with disability continuous voters registration campaign tagged vote-ability- will target all clusters of persons with disabilities eligible to vote and yet to register in the ongoing exercise as focal beneficiaries.
The campaign is taking place in the Wuse, Kuje, Gudu, Bwari, Kaiamajiji, and Gwagwalada communities of Abuja.
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