The Face of Disability in Nigeria: A Disability Survey in Kogi and Niger States
The Leprosy Mission Nigeria conducted a disability survey in Kogi and Niger States of Nigeria in 2005, investigating the demographic characteristics of people with disabilities, including gender, age, religion, marital, educational, occupational, employment and economic status, understanding of disability and health-seeking behaviour.
Information was gathered from a convenience sample of participants, across 30 randomly selected towns and villages in the two states. Twelve trained bilingual research assistants were used, to translate the English language questionnaire verbally into the local language of each participant.
From the 1093 respondents studied, the most common disabilities involved vision (37%), mobility (32%) or hearing (15%). A third of these were less than 21 years of age and had no occupation, and 72% were Muslim. Over half of them had no education, 20% had primary, 8% secondary, 2% tertiary and 18% had Islamic education. Common occupations were begging (16%), studying (14%), farming (11%) and trading (8%).The majority were unemployed (61%) due to their disability. Over 70% were not able to access disability specific health services and 37% had an assistive device. Services accessed included health - mainstream (90%), traditional (61%) and counselling (58%); and other - rehabilitation (30%), assistive device provision (24%), welfare (22%), special education (15%), vocational training (10%) and economic empowerment (4%).
These results are comparable with findings in other studies. Disability affects a person’s ability to participate in education, work, family life and religion, influences health-seeking behaviour and contributes to poverty.
Keywords
Authors
How to Cite
Download Citation
License
Copyright © 2011 The Author(s)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License By-NC-ND 4.0 that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access ).
Similar Articles
- Heavenna Babu, Senthil N.S. Kumar, Christy Abraham, Lekha J, Healthcare-seeking Behaviour among Working Women with Disability in Karnataka, India , Disability, CBR & Inclusive Development: Vol. 32 No. 1 (2021): Spring
- Nathan Grills, Lawrence Singh, Hira Pant, Jubin Varghese, GVS Murthy, Monsurul Hoq, Manjula Marella, Access to Services and Barriers faced by People with Disabilities: A Quantitative Survey , Disability, CBR & Inclusive Development: Vol. 28 No. 2 (2017): Summer 2017
- Nafisa Lira Huq, Tanya Jane Edmonds, Sally Baker, Lucy Busjia, Alexandra Devine, Kathy Fotis, Manjula Marella, Nicolas Goujon, Jill Keeffe, The Rapid Assessment of Disability – Informing the Development of an Instrument to Measure the Effectiveness of Disability Inclusive Development Through a Qualitative Study in Bangladesh , Disability, CBR & Inclusive Development: Vol. 24 No. 3 (2013): Autumn
- Deborah A. Strong, William J. Brown, Promoting Prosocial Beliefs and Behavior Toward People with Disabilities in Nepal through a Children’s Entertainment-Education Program , Disability, CBR & Inclusive Development: Vol. 22 No. 2 (2011): Autumn
- Stuart Wark, Kathleen Bleechmore, Twenty-five years of Community Living: Changes in Support Staff Perceptions , Disability, CBR & Inclusive Development: Vol. 26 No. 1 (2015): Spring 2015
- Karthikeyan Govindasamy, Suresh Dhondge, Ambarish Dutta, Tina Mendis, Access to Social Organisations, Utilisation of Civil Facilities and Participation in Empowerment Groups by People with Disabilities in Amravati district, Maharashtra , Disability, CBR & Inclusive Development: Vol. 30 No. 1 (2019): Spring 2019
- Marcus Hodge, Amable Bolinas, Erlynn Jaucian, Rebecca Boneo, Allan Schapira, Mary Mediatrix V. Villanueva, Cross-sectional Survey to Assess Prevalence of Disability and Access to Services in Albay Province, The Philippines , Disability, CBR & Inclusive Development: Vol. 28 No. 3 (2017): Autumn 2017
- Tiun Ling Ta, Khoo Suet Leng, Challenges Faced by Malaysians with Disabilities in the World of Employment , Disability, CBR & Inclusive Development: Vol. 24 No. 1 (2013): Spring
- Bjorn Ekman, Johan Borg, A.H.M. Noman Khan, Nazmul Bari, Moin Tanbir, Maria Emmelin, Disability, Sociodemographics, and Discrimination: A Descriptive Analysis of Household Survey Data from Bangladesh , Disability, CBR & Inclusive Development: Vol. 31 No. 3 (2020): Autumn
- Senthilkumaran Piramanayagam, Partho Pratim Seal, Employers' Attitudes and Hiring Intentions towards Persons with Disabilities in Hotels , Disability, CBR & Inclusive Development: Vol. 31 No. 4 (2020): Winter
You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.