Disabled people shut down National Assembly over unemployment, discrimination

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The main entrance to the Nigerian National Assembly was Tuesday shutdown, following mass action by the People Living With Disabilities (PWDs). The PWDs who stormed the National Assembly in their numbers on Tuesday, were protesting what they described as “marginalization in the area of employment and enlistment into the Nigerian Civil and Public Service”. Advancing under the aegis of Association of Physically Challenged Applicants (APCA), the group accused the Nigerian government of shortchanging the disabled people during recruitments. “We want to be engaged in the services of this nation, like every other normal persons. We want to also receive normal salaries like others in the society. “We are all graduates in our association, we are dying everyday of hunger, we are tired of living like this. Let the government give us job or we die here”, God’stime Onyegbulam, leader of the group told our reporter. He said the protesters were not ready to go home until the lawmakers assured them of favourable considerations in job placement and recruitment.
He said the group had been to the National Assembly last year where a member of the House of Representatives gave assurance that the ,”marginalization” would be addressed. “We have been here since 11am and we are not leaving here until we get assurance from the leadership of National Assembly that they can fight for us. We can stay here till after one week, we came with our beddings and food items”, Onyegbulam added. While calling on the National Assembly to make laws that would create jobs for the teeming youths of Nigeria, and by extension, the over 1000 members of the group, Onyegbulam also urged President Muhammadu Buhari to kindly assent to Peace Corps Bill and also develop policies that could help generate jobs for the masses. Since the main entrance to the National Assembly has been shutdown by the protesters, lawmakers, including their leaders were being forced to take a local route through the backyard, to be able to access their offices, while visitors were turned back from the entrance.