LASODA BOSS, JAMIU OGUNDAIRO: ‘I STILL GET PEOPLE GIVING ME N50, N100’; FROWNS AT PROFESSIONAL BEGGING • Restates ‘Lagos has opportunity for all’

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LASODA BOSS, JAMIU OGUNDAIRO: ‘I STILL GET PEOPLE GIVING ME N50, N100’; FROWNS AT PROFESSIONAL BEGGING • Restates ‘Lagos has opportunity for all’

By Oki Samson, Trek Africa Newspaper

General Manager, LASODA, Mr. Oluwadamilare Jamiu Ogundairo

 

 

 

The General Manager of Lagos State Office for Disability Affairs (LASODA), Mr. Oluwadamilare Jamiu Ogundairo has advised Lagosians whether living with disability or not to desist from begging as a means of livelihood. He insisted that this practice is promoting the wrong mindset that disability automatically makes one a beggar. He disclosed this in a brief chat with Trek Africa Newspaper.
Quoting Prophet Muhammed, Ogundairo shared: ‘A lot of people have taken into begging even those not with disability. I am a Muslim and the Prophet says that ‘whoever opens the door of begging, the Almighty Allah will open the door of poverty to him’ so if you choose to beg, your hand will be under and you can’t attain much by begging. There is always something that you can do. Lagos has opportunity for all.’

On the need to reduce stigmatization of persons with disability in our society, Mr. Ogundairo revealed that ‘Inclusion is a cultural thing. It is beyond using your church mind. Even as I am now, I still get people giving me N50, N100 thinking I am a beggar because we have been conditioned that anybody who has disability is a beggar. It will take a lot of reorientation.’

However, he agreed that it will not be an easy task to correct the societal misconception. ‘The World Bank estimated that 80% of those affected by chronic poverty are among persons with disability. So it will not help too much to start fighting the stereotype when you are not elevating persons with disability from poverty. This is not what you do by throwing money.’

‘You don’t throw money at poverty, you train people to create wealth. This is a model that has worked worldwide. This is one of the things that our agency has been doing in terms of vocational skills and empowerment. This is not only the work of LASODA. There is LSETF, Office of Civic Engagement and WAPA, addressing this issue’, he told Trek Africa Newspaper.

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