Strategic Partnership Meeting: ICPC & Disability Rights Pioneers
Date: 13th August 2025
Venue: ICPC Headquarters, Abuja
Speech by
Job Napoleon Agbor ACFE,
Convener, Pioneers Ad Hoc Consortium of Nigeria’s Disability Civil Rights Movement
& Policy Change Advocate
Mr. Chairman
Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, Our Leader and Mother Lady Omotunde Ellen Thompson, Distinguished Commissioners, our Untiring Disability Advocates, Gentlemen of the Press, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Good afternoon.
It is both an honour and a necessity that brings us here today.
Permit me to begin not with statistics or policy but with a story.
Some months ago, in a small community in southern Nigeria, a wheelchair user named Nkiru waited patiently for an assistive device promised under a federal disability empowerment scheme. She had heard on the radio that funds had been released.
Nkiru waited.
And waited.
What arrived instead was silence.
The device never came.
But what did arrive—repeatedly—were stories. Stories of contracts awarded to ghost companies. Stories of inflated budgets, ghost beneficiaries, and trips abroad that bore no relevance to her reality.
Nkiru is not alone.
Her story echoes across the disability community—from Borno to Bayelsa. And it is the echo of corruption, elite capture, and institutional neglect. It is what has brought us, the Pioneers Ad Hoc Consortium of Nigeria’s Disability Civil Rights Movement, to your door.
I also recall the story of Musa, a first responder who, for years, ran toward danger when others ran away because of the nature of his job. He rescued victims from floods, pulled survivors from collapsed buildings, and worked in conflict zones.
But Musa never received psychosocial counselling. No one asked how the trauma of each rescue was shaping his mind.
When Musa retired, he did not return to peace—he returned with post-traumatic stress disorder. His spirit dimmed, and he became unpredictable, eventually posing a risk to his village.
His tragedy was not inevitable. It was the result of a system that promised support but never delivered—a system where the funds and policies meant to protect people like Musa never reached them. These two lives—Nkiru’s and Musa’s—show us that corruption is not abstract. It has names, faces, and consequences.
We appreciate the chairman for standing firm in steering the ICPC with forthrightness and a deep sense of patriotism. We use this medium to say thank you to some of your resilient and dogged staff who have been standing with us for over ten years and still counting in combating fraud in our disability community, especially the case of Alhaji Iliasu Olarewaju Abdul-Rauf, the National Coordinator, Federal Civil Service Staff with Disabilities Multipurpose Cooperative Society, whose case has been going on from the era of president Ebere Goodluck Jonathan till date over alleged involvement in N1.7 billion fraud.
We use this occasion to also appreciate donor agencies and nations for their goodwill and support for Nigeria, including persons with disabilities. Still, unfortunately, their funds are being diverted knowingly, consciously, and deliberately in a syndicated fraud way, sponsoring infighting for supremacy and impunity in the disability community in Nigeria and, by extension, exacerbating the ongoing insecurity, terrorism, kidnapping, irreconcilable community disputes, food shortage, and toxic and traumatic deathly environment. As long as there is unrest, killing, and suffering, the sponsors of insecurity are happy and eating fat.
I stand before you today, not merely as an advocate, but as the convener of the Pioneers of Nigeria’s National and International Disability Civil Rights Movement and Policy Change/Reform Advocates—an ad hoc consortium of Organisations of Persons with Disabilities (OPDs) in Nigeria.
I stand as a custodian of a vision that began decades ago, led by Lady Omotunde Ellen Thompson, the Life-Chairperson, Joint National Association of Persons with disabilities (JONAPWD-National), Chief Eric Ndubueze Ufom – the President/CEO of Equal Rights for Persons with Disabilities International, Inc (ERPWDI-USA), Equal Rights for Persons with Disabilities Initiative (ERPWDI-Nigeria), (ERPWDI-USA). Brigadier General Dr. Lonsdale Oladeji Adeoye, the Foundation for the Support of Military Veterans of Nigeria, and many others who look at working for and with persons with disability as a holy sacrifice that should be held with utmost commitment, as we will all be accountable to God and humanity. God don’t joke with the vulnerable repeatedly told in the Bible and the Koran.
I stand to promote their vision that persons with disabilities in Nigeria would no longer be treated as objects of charity and pity but as citizens with inalienable rights, equal under the law, and essential to nation-building.
For decades, we have been on a journey to fight for the truth that persons with disabilities are not objects of charity and pity but citizens with equal rights and essential roles in nation-building.
Our nonviolence direct advocacy and negotiations helped draft and secure the Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities (Prohibition) Act, 2018—signed into law on 23 January 2019. We pushed for the creation of the National Commission for Persons with Disabilities (NCPWD) in 2020. We fought for disability-inclusive SDGs and Nigeria’s signing and ratification of the UN CRPD in 2007 and 2010.
When the National Commission for Persons with Disabilities was established in 2020, it was meant to be a beacon of hope. As they envisage a Nigeria where the commission can help curb insecurity by fully deradicalising and properly rehabilitating the Almajiris, internally displaced persons, wounded veterans, and first responders in the military and paramilitary, including the ICPC staff. The Almajiris are childhood victims of physical and emotional abuse, transboundary air pollution, and stress, which went unchecked and untreated because of no psychosocial treatment given to them, resulting in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a kind of mental disorder, so they are part of us and are a formidable source of recruitment into banditry, terrorism, kidnapping, and other social vices. The effect of that on our nation is another day’s speech.
“On May 6, 2020, during a Presidential Task Force COVID-19 briefing, former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Barr. Boss Mustapha (SAN) warned, “If we do not deal with the issues relating to the Almajiris, we are building an army that would overwhelm us as a people and as a nation in the future.”
Wounded veterans, first responders and Heroes and villains of Nigeria’s democracy, who fought against military juntas, belong to us because they are all victims of a long-term effect known as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), a kind of mental health condition triggered by terrifying events like fighting terrorism, banditry, and other societal ills, even arrest, and long-term imprisonment.
“My husband suffered from PTSD for many years”. This is a statement made by Former First Lady, Aisha Buhari, while a guest of honour at the ground-breaking ceremony for the Armed Forces Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Centre (AFPTSDC) initiated by the Mrs Lucky Irabor-led Defence and Police Officers’ Wives Association (DEPOWA).
Judging from the above statement made by Nigeria’s former First Lady, it is not a hasty generation to say that all Ex-military heads of state who ruled Nigeria through coup d’état, their wives, and even those currently serving security officers who have fought wars, engaged in peacekeeping missions, prevention and investigating heinous crimes as first responders are all victims of PTSD. They belong to us; they are people with disability.
(Emphasis added to highlight the decades-long security threat that our leaders saw and used to advocate for the National Disability Act of 2018).
Unfortunately, we have witnessed, with deep concern, how corruption, mismanagement, and lack of accountability have turned that hope into frustration for millions of Nigerians with disabilities, including those who are yet to accept that they are persons with disabilities.
In 2020, the very first take-off grant of ₦270 million vanished into questionable expenses. Subsequent annual national budget allocations meant for rehabilitation, empowerment, accessibility, and education have been riddled with irregularities. The bad precedent inculcated by the pioneering Executive Secretary, since it was left unchecked, has lingered and is gathering momentum in the present administration that started on the 6th of August 2024. The cost is not just financial — it is measured in dreams deferred, in young talents denied the tools to thrive, in communities left in perpetual exclusion.
ICPC’s mandate is clear: to prevent and prosecute corruption wherever it exists. Our movement’s mandate is equally clear: To ensure that disability rights are fully implemented, transparently managed, and never reduced to mere slogans. Together, we can safeguard both the integrity of the law and the dignity of the people it was meant to serve under the renewed Hope Agenda of the present administration of His Excellency Sen Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu GCFR.
It is sad that in our disability community, if you stand firm for truth and insist on due process, you will automatically be sidelined, excluded from activities, and completely disrespected, irrespective of your position and hard-earned sacrifice. That is why we are few, but we are not giving up, as our leaders are steering a new speed train, hence we are here, starting with our collaboration with the ICPC.
Disability matters are issues that touch humanity and are so very close to God’s heart. It will be an abomination if our matters are politicised. If done, a lot of people are affected, and the vicious cycle will continue. This is what our country is struggling to correct.
To break the cartel in the disability community and liberate our teeming poor and helpless 40 million population of persons with disabilities who are dying in our villages is why we came to submit a petition that, if sincerely and truthfully embarked upon, will bring hope to the vulnerable under the shelter of the Renewed Hope Agenda. We also came seeking for constructive partnership with the ICPC where we can;
- Promote grassroots, community-based civic education on anti-corruption and disability rights through an inclusive and accessible village movement.
- Strengthen whistleblower engagement and investigative reporting on disability-related abuses.
- Co-host inclusive and accessible roundtables, seminars, and policy dialogues on disability inclusion and integrity.
- Design and implement disability-inclusive and accessible trauma-informed support programs for ICPC staff and other first responders living with untreated occupational Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
- Collaborate in identifying and dismantling elite networks recycling themselves in positions of power within the disability ecosystem.
- Restore public and donor confidence in Nigeria’s disability governance systems. While conducting an annual forensic audit on all donor activities in Nigeria for PWDs to evaluate their level of spread to the grass roots across the 774 LGAs; where those poor and helpless PWDs in actual needs are and not just concentrate in the FCT alone, hence the mass movement of PWDs in Abuja thinking that it is only when they are in Abuja that they can be seen and attended to while those in our suburbs, including towns and villages are dying in their numbers a typical example was during covid-19.
Collectively, with ICPC, we can make a difference.
Mr Chairman, this is not just about protecting the disability community. It is about protecting Nigeria’s conscience.
When funds meant for the most vulnerable are misused, it is a direct assault on the moral fabric of our nation. It undermines the Renewed Hope Agenda. It erodes public trust. And it weakens our Global Disability Summit’s Amman-Berlin Declaration commitments under the UN CRPD, the African Charter, the Sustainable Development Goals and the Pact for the Future.
We have come to this Commission to respectfully make three clear requests:
- A full-scale investigation into the management of funds allocated to the National Commission for Persons with Disabilities since its inception in 2020.
- Institution of preventive monitoring mechanisms for future disability-related allocations to ensure transparency, accountability, and compliance with both national law and international obligations.
- A standing collaboration between ICPC and our movement for periodic audits, whistleblower protection, and anti-corruption sensitization targeted at disability institutions.
Mr Chairman, Sir, we are not here to trade accusations — we are here to build solutions. We believe that when the anti-corruption mandate of the ICPC meets the civil rights mandate of our movement, Nigeria can witness a new era in the governance of disability affairs. Therefore, we respectfully request the designation of a two-member ICPC team to work side by side with our team — collaborating, exchanging ideas, and shaping the Annual Launch of the Disability/Women-Inclusive Summit on Monitoring and Combating Corruption, which we envision holding on December 9th, in alignment with the United Nations International Anti-Corruption Day.
We are not asking for favours.
We are demanding rights.
And together, we can make Nigeria a place where no ability is left behind, and no fund is left unaccounted for.
Thank you.
Job Napoleon Agbor, ACFE, ACCA, in view, B.Sc., Acct, M.Sc., Acct, MBA Fin Mgt, PhD Accounting in view: Forensic Accounting and Sustainability Reporting.
Convener: Pioneer of Nigeria’s National & International Disability Civil Rights Movement & Policy Changer Advocates
Editor and publisher: Voice of the Voiceless for PWDsAcademic Staff, University of Calabar
https://voiceofthevoicelesspwd.org.ng/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Final-SPEECH-WIPxxx.pdf