Stakeholders at the 2025 Niger Disability Inclusion Summit have called on the Niger State Government to urgently implement disability-friendly policies and prioritise inclusive infrastructure development, especially as it undertakes several infrastructure projects across the state.
Speaking at the summit themed “Advancing Disability Inclusive Development in Niger State” and organised by Succeeding Against All Odds (SAAO), participants stressed that accessibility must become a key part of public planning, not an afterthought.
Founder of SAAO, Dr Valda Itunu Martins, said the state cannot claim to be a smart city while its infrastructure remains inaccessible to persons with disabilities.
“A smart city is not defined by technology or roads but by inclusion. Every road, classroom, hospital, and government building must be designed to allow persons with disabilities to live and work with dignity.”
Martins urged policymakers to move from “sympathy to strategy” by implementing inclusive policies and designs that reflect the diversity of all citizens describing the summit as a turning point to transform Niger State into a model of accessibility.
Delivering the keynote address, UN Ambassador for Peace, Ambassador Umar Faruk Sulaiman Mashegu, said exclusion of persons with disabilities is a denial of human rights and a setback to sustainable development.
“The time for token gestures has passed. The urgency is clear: inclusion delayed is development denied.”
He recommended the establishment of a Disability-Inclusive Infrastructure Task Force, review of building codes, and training of architects and engineers on universal design while caling for public transport, digital platforms, and schools to be made accessible to all.
On his part, Suleiman Doko Muhammad, in a paper titled “Inclusion in Infrastructural Development,” emphasized that accessibility is not charity but justice pointing that when infrastructure excludes, it becomes an architecture of inequality.
Muhammad called for the creation of a Niger State Disability Rights Commission, mandatory accessibility audits for all public projects, and full inclusion of persons with disabilities in planning and monitoring processes adding that that inclusive design benefits everyone, from wheelchair users to elderly citizens and mothers with strollers, and the state need to adopt an inclusive infrastructure framework where no project is approved unless it meets accessibility standards.
During the panel session that had the Niger state Chairperson of the International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA), Barrister Bola Jibogun, a Lecturer in the Departement of Urban and Regional Planning at FUT Minna, Mr Samuel Medeyese, the National Public Relations Officer of the National association of the Blind, Mr Abdulrahman Awal and an advocate for disability inclusion, Barrister Kassim Agbonika, the panelists highlight the challenges faced by people with disability across the state and how it needs to be addressed.
The FIDA Chairperson expressed the readiness to work with people with disabilities whose rights are being trampled upon calling for increased advocacy and sensitization to push up the implementation of the discrimination against persons with disability prohibition act 2018 in the state.
The summit, held at LinaTv Hall, Minna, brought together government officials, development partners, disability advocates, civil society organizations, associations of people with disabilities and the media.
