Shadrach Ekeremor has a dream for 2025. He wants to be the first Chairman or Director of a government agency that caters to the special needs of disabled members of society. He feels he is well equipped for such an assignment, to redress the neglect and discrimination suffered by people of his kind.
Shadrach read Political Science and Administrative Studies at the University of Port Harcourt for all of four years, graduating in 2011. At the moment, he holds a job with the local government council, but the pay is barely able to sustain his wife and five children.
Shadrach holds reasonable opinions about every development in the public space, and his expectations of a better, more egalitarian Bayelsa State are not in doubt. His response to issues of the moment remain as pertinent as may be expected of any discerning citizen.
His reaction to the relocation of motor parks in Yenagoa, for instance, was immediate. He could not understand why Governor Douye Diri took such a drastic decision without considering the plight of disabled members of society. “If I want to go to Amassoma now, I have to go all the way to Igbogene first. That’s additional stress for me. Tombia Roundabout was a more central point for travelers”, he said.
Shadrach’s greatest concern right now is that the Disability Bill is still pending before the Bayelsa State House of Assembly. Thankfully, there was a public hearing on it late last year. He can’t wait for it to be passed into law and, even more importantly, for every detail to be implemented to the letter.
As far as he can tell, such a law would enable government to set up a commission that would cater to the interest of the disabled in society, an agency that rallies sufficient support, musters empathy, and attends to the welfare of those living with physical challenges of kind or the other.
“Such a body is overdue in Bayelsa, so that government can harness the full potential of people with disabilities, while providing institutional support for us to survive the current hardship in Nigeria”, he said.
The point of his argument cannot be missed.
