By DIANA OMUEZA

Center for Citizens with Disabilities (CCD) has called on the President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Olumide Akpata, to make a lawyer with disability the chairman of its newly inaugurated Lawyers with Disabilities Forum (LWDF).

The Executive Director of CCD, Mr David Anyaele, said this in a chat with newsmen in Abuja.

According to him, let a lawyer with disability be made to lead the forum because he who wears the shoe knows where it pinches.

“It is with excitement that I received the news of the inauguration of lawyers with disabilities forum of the Nigeria Bar Association today.

“I appreciate the efforts of the lawyers with disabilities in Nigeria to ensure that they secure a platform in NBA as peculiar group.

“I want to congratulate NBA and lawyers with disabilities in Nigeria in particular for this important milestone,” he said.

According to him, lawyers with disabilities and NBA members as a whole can now aspire to engendering diversity and inclusion in the affairs of the Bar.

“However, information within my disposal suggests that the chair of the forum is a person without disability.

“If that is correct, it gives an impression that the whole purpose is based on charity, not necessarily because the NBA leadership believes in the ability of lawyers with disabilities to pilot their affairs in the association.

“The NBA leadership should identify a lawyer with disabilities to lead the forum as lawyers with disabilities are capable of managing their fairs, knowing fully well that he who wears the shoe knows where it pinches,” he said.

He expressed dissatisfaction with the selection of a lawyer without disability to chair the forum as against the high number of capable lawyers with disabilities

Anyaele noted that access and participation of persons with disabilities in legal education remained slim due to institutional, attitudinal and environmental barriers.

He, however, said that with the forum, a mechanism had been created to lead the lawyers and legal education in Nigeria with an inclusive justice system.

Anyaele also said that the LWD forum now provided a special avenue to enhance issues around access to justice system and persons with disabilities.

He congratulated the entire NBA, lawyers with disabilities across board and called for a replication of the forum across the NBA branches nationwide.

On his part, Mr Daniel Onwe, the President of Association of Lawyers with Disabilities in Nigeria (ALDIN) in a separate news conference lauded the NBA for inaugurating the LWDF.

Onwe said that the forum was a long awaited one and its inauguration was an historic step and a milestone in the Nigerian legal profession.

“The Olumide Akpata-led NBA, in response to ALDIN’s strategic and constructive advocacy for a level playing field for persons with disabilities in the NBA has constitutionally established the NBA Lawyers with Disabilities Forum.

“This is the very first of its kind in the history of the NBA, and the first among the bar associations across the continent of Africa.

“NBA President is indeed fulfilling his campaign promise of making the bar work for all and we pray that the forum will work in synergy,” he said.

Onwe said that while the forum would be dedicated to making the NBA space enabling for persons with disabilities, ALDIN would be focused on providing the much-needed legal solution to the plights of PWDs in the larger society.

He called on all lawyers with disability to get involved in the affairs of the NBA, especially at the branch level and also for the NBA branch to replicate the disability forum.

He thanked the Disabilities Right Funds (DRF) for its support and called for more support to further enhance the living condition and practice of lawyers with disability across board.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the Nigerian Bar Association under the leadership of its President, Barr Olumide Akpata, inaugurated the LWDF with Mrs Asia Ahmad-El-Rufai as Chairman of the forum.

The forum is to champion the course of lawyers with disabilities in the NBA, as well as advocate, educate, promote awareness and gather lawyers with disabilities data nationwide. (NAN)