Less than one per cent of the 35 million persons living with disabilities in Nigeria have gainful employment as professionals.
The Co-Founder of Ability Impact Centre, Olusola Adeyefa, who disclosed this on Channels Television’s Sunrise, attributed the low level to poor access to quality education, which he said is expensive.
‘Realistically, if you look at that percentage in terms of data, we have less than one per cent of even that 35 million that are really professional, and the reason is not far-fetched.
‘Access to education is tough. Good education is expensive. I attended Obafemi Awolowo University. I had architectural and attitudinal barriers’, Adeyefa, who sustained an injury in a road accident on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway when he was 18, said.
‘Getting employment, the nepotism is still there. I will say that the (number of) privileged persons with disabilities is still very small.
‘What we do when we now become supposed privileged persons with disabilities is to now fight the cause of other people to ensure that we show them how to and also pave the way for them to come in’, he added.
Adeyefa explained that the 2024 State of Disability Inclusion Report showed that some states that have adopted the disability rights law have agencies that enforce the law.
He, however, said that some of them were less functional and needed to be strengthened and funded adequately.
