‘Discrimination against persons with disability made me self-reliant’

What is your educational background?I obtained a Higher National Diploma in Accountancy from Kaduna Polytechnic in  2006.Why are you not working with your Accountancy certificate buy decided to be self-employed?It is the passion to change and make an impact in the society. I believe every individual owe himself and the society something. It is not […]

What is your educational background?
I obtained a Higher National Diploma in Accountancy from Kaduna Polytechnic in  2006.
Why are you not working with your Accountancy certificate buy decided to be self-employed?
It is the passion to change and make an impact in the society. I believe every individual owe himself and the society something. It is not a matter of what you have been able to gather financially but how much impact you have made in the lives of the people.
So what precisely are you doing presently?
I am presently the Executive Director of Women with Disability Self Reliance Centre, which I founded in 2005 and since then we have done a lot of programmes including empowering women with disability through micro support and we also gave them equipment. Last year, TY Danjuma Foundation through my organisation gave financial support of N50,000 each to women with disability. There is also another programme we run called Vision Trust Fund (VTF) where women get soft loan with very little interest. Presently we are setting up an inclusive peace club for both male and female, disabled and abled children and youth of vulnerable age. The Peace Club project is sponsored by a  British Council programme called Nigerian Stability and Reconciliation Programme (NSRP) and it is aimed at reducing violence against children and girls in the community as well as train them to become promoters of increased participation of women in the society, building women voice, giving them a chance because if the male children are taught to appreciate the female from an early age, they will grow to respect, protect and appreciate their female counterpart. We want to also build their self-esteem so that they can become confident and bold to say No to any form of violence. After the PC training, which is a three years programme, we are planning to set up training on malaria for women with disability so that they can become volunteers to carry out minor malaria test. This will go a long way to bridge the communication gap that is usually experienced in hospitals with persons with disability.
As a growing child, what was your ambition then?
My ambition when I was young and in fact until I grew up was to become an accountant but something happened along the line that changed my mind totally.  After my National Diploma, I was looking for an organisation to do my industrial attachment but then I discovered that there is a lot discrimination against persons with disability. My zeal and determination at that time was destroyed because I had the belief that anywhere I go with my certificate and good result, I can work. I had the passion to work in a bank but I was rejected in all the banks I went to seek for space for industrial attachment. There was a bank which I called the Manager after someone had helped me talk to him and he promised me that there was space for IT probably because he didn’t know I was a person with disability. When I went to the bank to see him, I called him on phone, he came out and I stood right in from of him but he pretended he didn’t see me. He kept asking, ‘where are you’ and eventually he said, ‘are you the one, I am sorry there is no space’. I felt very dejected and disappointment, and I thought that if I could feel this, what about other persons with disability? I looked into his eyes and I told him that there is no space for me in his bank but there is a space for me in Nigeria. Then I decided to go back for my Higher National Diploma (HND) and I took a strong decision that even after my HND, I will not work for anybody. While I was running my HND programme, I started pursuing my NGO registration and gradually started work.
What is your advice to other educated people with disability who have also been discriminated in one way or the other?
My advice to them is that being discriminated against should not bring them down. They should not allow themselves to be weighed down because they are being discriminated. Look at me today, I am still myself and I am impacting in the lives of the people and now, I am an employer of labour and graduates are even working under me. They need to know that no matter their disability, the abled people are not better than them, so they should learn to believe in themselves, so it is the way you look at yourself that matters. If you think your disability is the end of your life, that makes it end but if you take advantage of every opportunity as a stepping stone to forge ahead, you will succeed.
How many people are working under you now?
I am having over six paid staff in my employ.
But were you born physically challenged?
I was not born disabled. I was over a year old when I became disabled and ended up using crutches. My disability was as a result of polio. You know that time, our parents were not very much enlightened about polio and so they didn’t take it serious. Now, I am an agent campaigning against rejection of polio vaccine. It is very important, I go round to meet parents and tell them that if they don’t want their children to be like me, they should avail them for polio vaccine.
We still have a lot of communities that reject polio vaccine, what is your call to them?
My call to them is to take the vaccine very seriously. The major barrier to acceptability of polio vaccine in Nigeria is language. Assuming my parents at that time were communicated to in a language that they understood on the consequence of rejecting polio vaccine, I am sure, I wouldn’t have been in the condition I am today. Other countries in other parts of the world communicate to their people in a language they understand. Nigeria too should try to re-strategize knowing well that Nigerians are culturally oriented.
So what is your call to unemployed persons with disability who have taken to the street begging?
I encourage them to find something to do. Disability as I always said is not inability, so they should find ability in their disability and not relegate themselves to self-pity. They should engage in productive activities however little and they should not despise the days of little beginning.
What highest level do you intend to get with your organisation?
By the grace of God, my dream is that my organisation will be able to touch the lives of persons with disability across Nigeria and Africa. I have started touching the lives of persons with disability in Kaduna and in Kwara state, we are moving gradually.