The Albino Foundation has called on People Living With Disabilities (PLWDs) to join politics and seek elective positions as the 2023 general elections draw closer.
The Chief Executive Officer of the foundation, Mr Jake Epelle, made the call on Sunday in Abuja when he featured at the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Forum.
He said that the foundation had already put in place the framework and guidelines where people with disabilities status, including albinism, could participate in voting and be voted for in the political arena of the country.
He expressed happiness about the recent Area Councils election in the FCT where one PLWD contested for a slot in the Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC) election but lost, adding “that is the kind of encouragement I want to be seeing from this moment on.”
He said that even though he would remain apolitical and not mingle with any party even with the current political encouragement he was giving, he would remain a grassroots mobiliser.
He encouraged PLWDs to start small from the local level while getting involved in the political arena.
He said “Nigerian politics is played from the bottom to the top and not the other way round”, stressing that PLWDs must start from councillorship to that of local government chairman.
He said that “the way God built leadership, that is the way I have built. It is bottom to the top and not top to bottom, so, lets infiltrate the space and grew into the position that we want to grow.
“So, I am back into grassroots mobilisation of persons with disabilities; I am mentoring quite a number of them, I am going to also by His grace, push some of them as interns, so now we are working with people in authority to institutionalise inclusion of PLWDs in political parties.
“We are also working on creating the space with the committee on disability in the state assemblies; we are giving them desk officers that we are paying.”
Epelle commended the Minister of Defence, Maj.-Gen. Bashir Magashi, for standing strong with him when the meeting on framework and guidelines for political participation for PLWDs was going on, adding that the minister gave him necessary support in terms of security.(NAN)
