The Lagos State Office for Disability Affairs ran its last administration for three years without a governing board—a pre-requisite the law that founded the office states clearly.
But Gov. Babajide Sanwo-Olu and the supervising Ministry of Youth and Social Development Commissioner Segun Dawodu refuse to address the long-running impunity.
So the state’s disability community has decided to take the last resort, with its Joint National Association of Persons With Disabilities, along with its cluster heads, leading the charge.
JONAPWD Chairman Adebukola Adebayo said the community petitioned the governor many times to constitute the board so that LASODA and its officials can account for their stewardship. But nothing has changed.
“We would like to emphasise that failure to address our concerns within the next 14 days would be tantamount to the neglect of over 2.5 million PWDs in the state,” Adebayo said in his address during a press conference at the International Press Centre, Lagos, on Thursday. “And we would be forced to embark on protests till something happens.”
This seems a fight that has taken the community a long time to pick—because, they claim, Sanwo-Olu is “pumping money” into LASODA, and they want to avoid being characterized as saboteurs.
“Let it be on record that the state disability community is not castigating the governor or detracting from his investment in LASODA and the community,” said Lukman Salami, chairman of the National Association for the Blind, Lagos chapter.
“We just want to prompt him to look into what he has been investing in the people living with disabilities in the state. LASODA programmes have impacted the PWDs,” the lawyer said during the conference.
Equality Reporters exclusively investigated and published one of the PWDs’ complaints: illegal procurement. And a lot of malpractices went on for years unchallenged by the state’s Public Procurement Agency, the Parastatal Monitoring Agency, and even the supervising ministry.
Salami said all these and many more happened because there is no governing board to oversee the office.
LASODA, currently under the leadership of its General Manager Dare Dairo, has been a free-standing agency.
Sections 2 to 5 of the Lagos State Special People’s Law provide for the board’s composition, tenure, proceeding, and responsibilities, which include “the administration of the office [LASODA]”.
But the core responsibility lies with the governor—and the commissioner.
“The Chairman and other members of the Board shall be appointed by the Governor on the recommendation of the Commissioner,” Section 2, subsection 3, states.
Since the last board was dissolved in 2019, Sanwo-Olu has refused to constitute another. ER requested for comment to know whether the commissioner recommended, but the governor did not appoint. The ministry didn’t respond as of the time of publishing the story.
How much the governor’s refusal has robbed the state PWDs can be estimated based on the provisions of the special people’s law.
According to subsections 2(d) and 2(e), a representative of the PWDs, and another of NGOs focusing disabilities, must be among the members of the board.
Their presence could have necessitated needs assessment before procurement, and accountability.
However, LASODA, Salami said, has been coming up with empowerment, exhibition, and other events that are of no impacts, all at the expense of policy issues like inclusive education, employment, accessibility, and health.
And rather than work with the disability clusters in the state, LASODA chooses to keep them at bay, thwarting “our objectives,” added Adewale Adeyanju, JONAPWD public relations officer.
But LASODA has not always been ungoverned since it took off July 2012, a year after the Lagos disability law took effect.
“Since then it has had two governing boards: one during Gov. Babatunde Fashola’s tenure, and one during Gov. Akinwumi Ambode’s,” Salami told ER.
On the board then were Victor Oteri, representing the community, and the general manager, Awolenge, who is also a person with disability.
According to Salami, Ambode dissolved the board, and constituted another chaired by a PWD and medical doctor, Waheed Oki, who runs a private hospital in Badagry.
“That board was populated with people with disabilities, and larger than Fashola’s. Our JONAPWD P chairman Adebayo, the current SCIAN Acting National President Abdulwahab Matepo, and Beyioku Alase (Mama Deaf) were also on the board.”
As LASODA remains ungoverned till the eve of a second administration that may carry on with its impunity, tension between the disability community and the governor can’t help escalating.
