By Lilian U. Okoro
Stakeholders at AbilityX 2025 – Nigeria’s Premier Conference have called for inclusion of Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) in the workforce, saying that Nigerian PWDs were loyal and offered value to employers.
The conference, which was on the Future of Disability Inclusion Project Enable Africa, in collaboration with Jobberman Nigeria and other strategic partners in Lagos, had the theme: “The Future of Disability Inclusion in Nigeria”.
The stakeholders urged employers to move beyond charitable notions and strategically integrate the nation’s estimated million PWDs into the labour market.
Speaking, the Country Head of Programmes, Jobberman Nigeria, Mr Olamide Adeyeye, said that employers should break systemic barriers limiting employment of PWDs, calling for establishment of measurable, time-bound quotas for PWD employment.
“Today, we join Project Enable Africa and the global community in marking International Day For Persons With Disability.
“The first thing we’re doing is recognising that sometimes, the issue is not to fix the supply of labour or the supply of talent; the issue is to fix the demand.
“Over 35 million people in Nigeria are PWDs; this is the bulk of the population and you cannot afford to allow them be disenfranchised,” he said.
Adeyeye highlighted the unique loyalty and drive PWDs bring to the workplace.
“A major value that one would think about PWDs is the loyalty they bring on board.
“To support this demand-side change, Jobberman and its partners are actively engaging employers to challenge hiring biases and encourage infrastructural changes necessary for inclusion,” ,” he added.
The Executive Director of Project Enable Africa, Mr Olalekan Owonikoko, described the issue of disability inclusion as a global challenge because over one billion people globally were living with some forms of disability.
Owonikoko said it represented approximately 15 per cent of the world’s population, saying that in Nigeria alone, an estimated 35 PWDs faced significant barriers, including inaccessible infrastructure, social exclusion among others.
He said, “I think that disability inclusion is a journey, and every year, we strive to take conversation further.
“Our major goal for AbilityX is to take conversation around inclusion away from not just the community, because it’s not just within the community, there’re things happening outside the community that affect the community.
“Our goal is to bring people, professionals, stakeholders, participants from different sectors, so that we can spotlight disability inclusion, mainstream disability inclusion and we can break down disability inclusion into each of those sectors”.
The Founding Chairman of the Society for Professional Background Screeners, Nigeria, Dr Kola Olugbodi, noted that through AbilityX, the future of disabilty inclusion across Africa would be shaped.
According to him, through inclusive dialogue, innovation labs, research showcase and impact award, a space would be created where new ideas can flourish, partnership can grow and sustainable solutions can take place.
“As we engage, collaborate and innovate today, let us commit to building a continent where no one is left behind, and where disability inclusion becomes a driver of economic growth, social transformation and technological advancement”.
In his Keynote Address, Temi Dalley, the Group Executive, Human Capital and Corporate Service, Sterling Financial Holdings, said the greatest untapped market in Nigeria wasn’t oil, but inclusion.
Dalley said that organisations that adopted inclusion outperformed their peers, saying that they would attract the best talents, build resilience systems and create products that served everyone, not just the majority.
He noted that according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the global disability market represented $13 trillion in annual disposable income.
He said, “So, why do we still treat inclusion as a favour, when it is clearly an engine.
“We keep leaving millions on the table because we see disability as charity, not as strategy. That ends today.
“When we embed inclusion into the micro and macro spaces, our products, our policies, our culture; we don’t just change lives, we change the economy, we unlock innovation, we unlock markets, we unlock human potentials.
“Awareness without action is stagnation; we must move from dialogue to intentional design.
“It’s about embedding inclusion into the DNA of our organisations with stratagy, innovation and leadership,” Dalley said.(NAN)(www.nannews.ng)
Edited by Vivian Ihechu
