Dr Samuel Ankeli, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Disability Matters, says the over 3,500 public infrastructure constructed in Abuja, are not friendly to the People Living with Disability (PLWD).
Ankeli said this at a sensitisation workshop on the importance of Basic Registry and Information System in Nigeria (BRISIN) for Data governance, disability and social welfare on Thursday in Abuja.
The aide attributed the exclusion of PLWD to accessing the facilities to lack of proper data for planning and execution of those projects.
“We don’t know how many people living with disability; most time, we guess and rely on foreign organisations to give us figures about our people.
“This has made life difficult not only for people living with disability but for people in governance,’’ he said.
He, however, called on governments at all tiers to plan for PLWD whenever they are constructing any project.
The aide said the objective of the workshop was to project a system that would make the country to generate its own data for effective planning and development.
“You will agree with me that we cannot plan without data, we need to distance from a system of development without planning.
“The present situation is what we are looking at, when we plan blindly without data.
“If you go to Ministry of Women Affairs and ask about the figures of PLWD in IDPs they will not know; if you also go to the NEMA the same thing.
“We have to get to a level where we press a button and get the data we want for any purpose.’’
According to him, President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration is inclusive and there is no inclusive government without data governance.
In his presentation on Data Governance, Dr Anthony Uwa, National Coordinator, BRISIN, said data generation was key to data governance and that it covered every aspect of the economy.
BRISIN is an integrated system for the collection, storage and distribution of information to support the management of the economy.
The project was initiated under the President Olusegun Obasanjo administration while the Goodluck Jonathan administration inaugurated a Technical Committee for its implementation.
BRISIN is targeted at tapping into all aspects of the nation’s economy and bringing about developmental and economic growth in the country through the use of data collection of people and information.
Data received will be used to plan for the management of the nation’s resources.
Uwa, also Managing Director of Dermo Impex Limited, told the stakeholders that BRISIN would build five focal data points in the country that would grantee data governance.
He listed the points as demographic data, social data which include disability, security data and economic data as well as labour and employment data.
“These integrated data form the base for national data governance businesses benefit from data governance because it ensures data is consistent and trustworthy.
“This is critical as more organisations rely on data to make businesses decisions, optimise operations, create new products and services and improve profitability,’’ the official said. (NAN)