After all the fanfares and media hypes, the Work Access Scheme stands stuck in the middle of nowhere, but its promoters keep up the show
Gideon Oladimeji
Two things happened when The Albino Foundation (TAF) cobbled up the Work Access Scheme (WAS) policy for Nigeria’s disability community over a year ago: the big honcho there, Jack Ekpelle, hogged the drafting; then he put on his blinkers. What lay ahead—funding throwing a wrench in the works—never occurred to him. The NCPWD that supervised the draft, too, did so on a wing and a prayer: it hoped money would drop down anyhow. The commission’s N20-million allocation to WAS in the 2025 budget probably found its way there as an annual ritual. And the NGO that facilitated the funding left the drafter and the supervising authority to their devices.
Yet the NCPWD’s February proclamation in Lagos, though the organisers called it a policy launch, thrummed with all kinds of gushes. Many of the attendees declared the birth of the policy they believed would cure all disbaility woes in Nigeria. Another talkshop, in the guise of training, followed in Nasarawa. But nine months down the line, the WAS implementation remains in the middle of nowhere.
Critics believe nothing worse could befall a one-upmanship like the TAF-led policy. The lack of buy-ins of the disability community and the commission’s governing board could have ticked off the policy as a dead duck.
Abandoning projects and policies is a trend in Nigeria. And it has a cost: over N14tr as of 2023, according to Works Minister David Umahi.
But, as in most things disability, the costs of non-starters like the WAS, its sister Digital Disability Certificate, and the 5-percent employment quota didn’t count in the estimate. That’s in spite of their recurrence in the last six years’ budgets.
The loss, though, remains.
Only 0.3 percent of the 18 million working-age PWDs in Nigeria have jobs, according to the World Bank’s 2022 estimate. Other estimates point to higher figures of PWDs battling exclusion and other barriers to work—in both the public and the private sectors. All that deprivation still goes on in the face of a work access policy that keeps drawing praises.
The WAS dysfunction stemmed from poor planning which manifested in the disregard for the disability law. Section ABC empowers only the NCPWD governing board to make policies for the commission to implement. For a long while now, the commission has no recognizable governing board. And TAF felt important enough to step in with the connivance of the NCPWD. That amounted to over-reach.
Community members, especially subject-matter experts, ER interviewed also revealed they didn’t know of any consultation the drafter made early in the policy cycle. And JONAPWD that participated couldn’t state exactly its contribution to the policy when ER contacted the national office.
The solo performance limited the views in the draft. This stands out in its duplication of the UK work access scheme without considering the implementation costs and the assistive technology (AT) market sizes. The policy also lacks local contents, according to Opeolu Akinola, an assistive technology expert and disability policy analyst in Lagos. Much of it relies on importation, especially of the assistive technologies, the core of any work access scheme. Shehu Adebayo, technical adviser to the NCPWD, didn’t respond to ER request for clarification on how the policy will manage the burden of its import-dependence.
Well, Adebayo’s client itself has never been forth-coming each time ER requests for an update on the scheme. The last time was mid-November, and the questions touched on financing the implementation.
Even if the commission confirms the release of its 2025 WAS allocation, it’s not enough to give the implementation a chance this year.
An online roll-out alone, according to a digital expert, demands a lot: hosting platforms, domain/cloud, size, interactivity/UX, population, management and maintenance, and all other bells and whistles. All these apply to a website and an app.
The UK scheme TAF monkeyed hosts its digital asset on the government’s information-rich platform www. gov. uk. That may be difficult to pull off in Nigeria. Most government websites exist as tokens of digital inclusion—none has fully complied with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.1AA). And nothing spares the WAS the scourge, especially now that finance is a problem.
The scheme also states in its framework the role digital disability certificates will play in authenticating qualified applicants. But for years, the NCPWD has been budgeting for the production of the digital cards—N140 million as of 2023—and has yet to issue one. Funding must also take the blame for this.
And no sign yet money will start rolling in sackfuls to the commission. Not this year anyway.
Those who observe corruption in Nigeria say it takes a year to neglect a project or policy; year or two later it becomes an abandoned cause. For WAS, the indicators are glaring.
