Governor of Imo State Hope Uzodimma has reminded People Living with Disabilities that they are part of the administration and there is no room for any form of discrimination.
The governor gave the assurance while interfacing with the leadership of the Imo State chapter of People Living with Disability, at Government House, Owerri.
Uzodimma stressed that he does not support discrimination against anybody, “merely because of their challenges,” noting that “those who are not challenged today may be challenged tomorrow.”
“No one knows who will lead the state and country tomorrow,” the governor said, and urged them not to feel they have any shortcomings as “what is needed for performance is mental strength and ideas.”
The governor said, ‘’ideas rule the world.”
Governor Uzodimma promised to look critically into their request of employment waiver and assured that they would be “given equal opportunities.”
He said the state government would work on their demand to accommodate them in the areas they will be best fitted and not necessarily their demand for quota “because waiver and quota will bring a type of stigma on you.”
The governor also promised to take care of their request for subvention through empowerment of members on skills development so that “they will be self-employed, self-sustained and become employers of labour themselves.”
He told their leaders and the Imo State chairman of People Living with Disabilities, Chief Stanley Nwachukwu who is aspiring to contest the election of the National President of People Living With Disabilities, that he has always supported him and will support again, noting that if “he succeeds it, will be a boost to our party, the APC both at the state and national level.”
Earlier, the commissioner for women affairs and vulnerable groups, Lady Nkechinyere Ugwu, told the Governor that “People Living with Disabilities have been very supportive, reliable and trusted allies” of her Ministry and the 3R administration from the beginning.
In his address, the chairman of Joint National Association of Persons with Disabilities (JONAPWD), Imo State Chapter, Chief Nwachukwu, acknowledged the “immeasurable acts of good deeds of Governor Uzodimma, weaved around the 3R mantra of Rehabilitation, Reconstruction and Recovery,” noting that “Imo people have heaved a sign of relieved since the Governor came on board in Imo State.”
