By Amos Tauna
National President, Beyond The Boarder Of Disability Initiative Nigeria, Rilwanu Abdullahi, has said that disabled persons in Nigeria are the worse hit by climate change.
He explained that no one cares about the daily challenges they face in the communities in terms of adapting to critical weather condition in the country.
Speaking at a sensitization lecture, “The role of persons with disabilities in the daily fight against climate change in Nigeria”, he explained it was meant to enlighten persons with disabilities, as there is no association, group or organization that is championing the cause of disabilities especially the global aspect of climate that is affecting all sectors of humanity.
He says majority of Nigerian handicaps are blind, some deaf, leprous, while others use wheelchairs, canes, crutches and some use wheel barrows as means of transport, stressing that only the rich once among them make use of Tri-cycle machine to ease their movement.
According to him, the devastated nature of the environment and other climatic factors always force them to enter into trouble when its rain, during Harmattan, bad weather and natural disaster.
“Nobody cares to know how we move into our local communities as a result of bad road when there is flood, natural disaster with our roller skate, and as for the blind they uses their local sticks to locate their road and go back home.
“We are the worst hit with climate change in Nigeria and there is nobody to tell us what to do, that is why we organise this sensitization workshop for our people.
“Nigeria has a population of over 15 million of persons with disabilities and the number keep on increasing as a result of daily accident, ethno-religious crisis, farmers and herdsmen clashes, and the continuous attack on communities by gunmen that is forcing a large number of people into migration.
“Extreme bouts of heat, rising sea levels and an increase in natural disasters are just some of the challenges we are facing in Nigeria. There is no any organization that duly volunteer to be sensitizing us on ways to adapt to the critical situation we found ourserves as a result of human factors that create the problems for us.”
Rilwanu added, “It may interest you to know why this team decided to engage this people on these issues of climate change. It is simply because it affects us all in the area of movement and health wise just as it affects any other individuals worldwide.
According to Rilwanu, the attitudes of human beings in dumping waste in the gutter was causing a lot of disaster as many could not be able to move from one place to another.
“To be frank, we are the most affected to all artificial and natural disasters caused by human beings, and as you can see, we are people that cannot move like the rest of human beings,” he noted.
Rilwanu explained that most of the Nigerian roads are not friendly to persons with disability, adding that there was the urgent need for government to find means to help the handicapped in other to overcome the challenges they are going through.
