Chevening scholar bags US award

A Nigerian lawyer, Daniel Onwe, has been honoured with the 2024 Global Accessibility Leadership Award in the United States.

The award was accorded to Onwe by the International Association of Accessibility Professionals for his contribution towards the promotion of accessible environment and public buildings in Nigeria.

A statement said the award was given to Onwe on Thursday, the last day of the association’s summit in Washington DC.

“Daniel has been very instrumental in the enactment of the Discrimination against Persons with Disabilities (Prohibition) Act 2018, as well as other disability rights legislation in different states of Nigeria. The legislation makes it mandatory for public buildings to be accessible to persons with disabilities,” the statement added.

In 2023, he was awarded the prestigious Chevening Scholarship, funded by the British Government via the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.

Onwe, who is physically challenged, has been instrumental in the advocacy of defending persons with disabilities within the legal profession and the justice administration systems.

He is a co-founder of the Association of Lawyers with Disabilities in Nigeria and was elected the pioneer president.

In his time as the president of ALDIN, the Nigerian Bar Association’s annual national conferences were accessible to persons with disabilities.

Onwe’s leadership also achieved “the installation of the ramp at the NBA National Secretariat under Mr. Paul Usoro as the NBA president; the inclusion of lawyers with disabilities in every committee of the NBA and conditional waiver of NBA Annual General Conference fees for lawyers with disabilities under the administration Yakubu Maykyau.”

IAAP is a division of the Global Initiative for Inclusive ICTs (G3ict), which is an advocacy initiative launched in 2006 by the United Nations Global Alliance.

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