Lagos, Oct 8: Dozens of Nigerians with various forms of disability on Saturday staged a protest march to draw attention to what organisers called their discrimination and denial of rights in society.

About 60 disabled people, some in wheelchairs, took part in the march in upbeat Lagos' Ikoyi district, organised by the Disabled Persons' Rights Initiative (DIPRI), a non-governmental organisation.

"The level of discrimination, isolation and rejection of disabled people in Nigeria is very obvious and palpable. Because of this isolation, they cannot be integrated into the main society," DIPRI director Adaeze Ikedianya, said.

The failure by Nigeria to implement the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which it ratified in September last year, made it difficult to seek redress whenever the rights of disabled people are violated, she said.

DIPRI said that access to physical environment and transportation was being denied disabled people in the country, Africa's most populous nation.

Unlike in some countries, such as South Africa, Nigeria has no official special provisions for disabled people.

"Currently, there is no general obligation for public authorities or the private sector to meet accessibility requirements when building new or renovating existing infrastructure," a leading woman activist, Joe Okei-Odumakin, told participants at a symposium organised after the march.

The UN convention "requires us to make sure that disabled people can, on an equal basis with others, progressively become more able to move in and around their homes, communities...," said Okei-Odumakin, president of Campaign for Democracy, a rights coalition.

Source: http://www.news24.com