Persons Living With Disability In Plateau Call For Boycott Of PDP Candidates At The Polls

DisableThe Plateau State coordinator for Persons Living with Disability in Nigeria, Bulus Shanding, has directed members of the group not to cast their votes for any of the People’s Democratic Party’s candidates seeking political office in the country.

According to Mr. Shanding, members of the group have suffered untold hardship in the outgoing administration led by PDP both at the national and state levels.

The leader of the group said “we the physically-challenged constitute a large portion of the country’s population, 24 million of us but people want to keep us at the base of the ladder. We are the least Nigerians attended to in the community and we want this to change”.

Speaking after an interactive session of members on Monday in Jos, the Plateau State capital, Mr. Shanding urged persons living with disability in the state to instead vote the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Muhammadu Buhari and the Plateau state APC gubernatorial candidate, Simon Lalong, come March 28 and April, 2015 respectively.

He noted that the persons living with disability formed a political group “Disability Support Group”, to support the candidature of the APC both in the state and at the national level.

The interactive session had in attendance, National Director, Disability Mobilization of APC Samuel Ankeli, and his Plateau State counterpart, Bulus Shanding, with a large number of persons with disabilities.

Mr. Shanding said “with our brooms, we shall defy our disability to sweep out nepotism, discrimination, neglect and the abuse of our fundamental human rights”.

On his part, the national coordinator of Disability Support Group, Mr. Ankeli, said “the APC has a place for us, this is an indication that they will have an inclusive government and we are here to mobilize our people for the interest of the APC. We call on our members to vote all candidates of APC because we are sure they will carry us along in their activities”.

They also charged leadership of the APC to ensure that the much clamoured change is evident in the community of those living with disability by ensuring they are carried along in its activities.