Association for the Empowerment of Disabled Persons Sad Over The Ridiculing Of Ivor

President of the Association for the Empowerment of Disabled Persons, Isaac Nana Antwi, has expressed sadness over the ridiculing of the presidential candidate of the Convention People’s Party (CPP), Ivor Kobina Greenstreet, because of his disability.

Such behaviour, in the opinion of Nana Antwi, was a bad habit of some Ghanaians which needs to be stopped.

“I am really amazed by the way we treat this man as if he is not a normal human being. Where did he go wrong? Why are we blaming him for something that was beyond his control and why are we campaigning for him to step down as the presidential candidate of the CPP… simply because he is physically challenged,” he averred.

“…believe you me when given the mandate as president of this country, he can manage it accordingly irrespective of his predicament and as the saying goes, “disability is no excuse for inability,” he added.

Nana Antwi in an interview with Asempa FM over the weekend to commemorate ‘World Disability Day’ bemoaned the way and manner persons with disability were treated in the country like second rated human beings.

He therefore called for drastic measures to deal harshly with anyone who contemptuously laughs at the physically challenged because they were created in the likeness of God.

According to him, the Christian Council of Ghana for some time now had not put in any effort to combat this “grave injustice” done to disabled persons in the country, claiming it has instead centred its focus on matters of political interest which does not sit well with majority of Ghanaians, particularly the physically challenged.

The council, he noted, is a body with the duty of ensuring that there is fair treatment of all persons irrespective of their predicaments.

“They should fight for a common goal in the same manner they fight on issues relating to political conflicts and rather not make it seem as if politics is the only important issue to be discussed in this country,” he asserted.

He lamented how head pastors of the various churches in Ghana have no respect for physically challenged persons so much that they build churches with higher steps thereby making it difficult for any disabled person to access these churches and thus deny their rights to worship as guaranteed by law.

He said churches in Ghana are oblivious of the disability law and charged them to make physically challenged persons their number one priority.

Nana Antwi further bemoaned the unbecoming attitude of the media pertaining to issues relating to persons with disability in Ghana.

Nana Antwi however, commended the Chief Executive Officer of State Transport Company (STC), Nuamah Donkor, for purchasing about fifty (50) buses out of which ten (10) are disability-friendly but further tasked him on his next line of action to go in for buses that are all disability friendly and not limited to only few.