Tinubu signs the AU charter on PWD rights.

In order to advance the rights of people with disabilities (PWDs) in Nigeria, President Bola Tinubu has signed the document ratifying the protocol to the AU charter

The 30th regular session of the AU assembly, which convened in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on January 29, 2018, adopted the instrument.

PWDs are guaranteed, among other things, the rights to equality, nondiscrimination, and equal status before the law according to the charter.

The development was disclosed by Tinubu in a statement released on Thursday by the presidential spokeswoman, Ajuri Ngelale.

The press release said, “I, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, do hereby formally declare that the Federal Republic of Nigeria accepts the aforementioned protocol and undertakes to faithfully perform and carry out the terms therein contained.”

In testimony whereof, on this 19th day of October, in the year Two Thousand and Twenty-Three, at Abuja, I, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, have put my hand and the Federal Republic of Nigeria’s seal on this instrument of ratification.

PWD associations have been protesting their exclusion from political positions in Nigeria as well as from perks related to the economy and humanitarian sector in recent weeks.

The federal government started a palliative distribution program to lessen the impact of eliminating the gasoline subsidy, but the National Commission for Persons with Disabilities (NCPWD) claimed that PWDs were not included in it.

The PWD group bemoaned in August that they were left off of the president’s choice of ministers.