Eugene Juwah, executive vice chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), has reiterated their commitment of ensuring Nigerians living with disabilities have easy access to telecommunications services.
Juwah said despite their challenges, persons living with disabilities (PWDs) have the same rights with the rest of society.
Speaking at the Lagos Civil Society Disability Policy Partnership (LCSDPP) conference in
Lagos, Juwah said one in four Nigerians are living with a form of disability.
This he said is motivating the commission to draft policies and regulatory guidelines that specifically address ICT accessibility concerns of PWDs.
He said: “ICTs and accessibility for persons living with disabilities, concern the design and supply of ICT products and services, with particular regard to ensuring that they can be used by people with disabilities, for whom the technical features of ICTs can pose barriers to their usage.”
He stressed the need to offer Nigerians equal social and economic opportunities irrespective of disabilities by deploying the full spectrum of ICT.
“The commitment of the international community to promote the rights of PWDs is deeply
rooted in the goals of the United Nations (UN), and the evolution manifested itself in a number of UN initiatives that embraced the growing international concept of human rights for persons living with disabilities and equalisation of opportunities for them,” Juwah said.
The executive vice chairman said the NCC Act stressed the need for the commission to ensure accessibility for PWDs.
“In recognition of the requirements of the NCC Act regarding this group of people, and also in line with NCC’s consumer centric approach to regulation, the commission has taken a number of initiatives geared towards assisting persons with special needs and the elderly in the areas of telecoms service provisioning,” he said.
