Physically Challenged Man Drags UBA to Court, accuses bank of Flouting Special People’s Law in Lagos: “alleging the bank of discrimination against persons with disability”

By Wale Abydeen
After three consecutive non appearances, the United Bank for Africa, UBA finally showed up before Justice Oluwatoyin Ipaye of the High Court of Lagos state in a suit alleging the bank of flouting provisions in the Special Peoples Law of Lagos state.

The suit, marked ID/ADR/1829 was instituted by a popular Lagos based disabled man, Emmanuel Oladipupo Bada who sustained injury while trying to use ATM at the Oba Akran Branch of the UBA in Ikeja, area of Lagos State. He is praying the court should mandate the bank to compensate and pay him damages for the injury alleging that he sustained the injury due to UBA negligence and disregard to extant laws.

Bada, a lawyer, pioneer member of the Governing Board, Office of Disability Affairs, Lagos State and an Assistant Director at the Ministry of Justice in Lagos State had dragged UBA to court alleging the bank of discrimination against persons with disability over its failure to provide usable vamp for the disabled persons in the bank’s premises.

In an encounter with SECURITY MONITOR Bada who appeals to UBA to show compassion and include his plea in the bank’s lists of Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR narrated that “sometimes late last year I was at UBA branch, along Oba Akran road, Ikeja. I wanted to use their ATM Machine and given the fact that I am physically challenged walking with the aid of crutches. In the process of trying to access the staircase leading to the Machine, I had a painful fall due to the slipperiness of the tiles laid on the staircase and I equally attempted looking for staircase railings to break the fall, but there was none available neither was any usable ramp put in place to make the Bank facility user friendly to Persons with Disabilities”.

Bada explained how painful it was and how he has been struggling to raise fund to treat the injury he sustained in the bank. He said that “This act is view as discrimination against PWDs contrary to the provisions of the Lagos State Special People’s Laws of 2011. Fallen down at the UBA further affected my legs causing further injury to my health”.

Bada added that when the accident happened, he immediately called the attention of the Bank’s Operations Manager to the incidence. He said he physically went back to the Bank accompanied by his wife. “The management team pretended to be showing concern and remorse to my plight and promise to get in touch with me but that was the last I heard from them. I was thereafter abandoned in the cold to lick my wounds which was occasioned by the discriminatory act of the Bank. The Security Officials of the Bank present on the day of the incident was called on the day of my revisit to the bank to lodge the complaint and he further corroborated my story while stating how the incidence happened but no caring gesture coming from UBA. This just goes to show the nonchalant attitudes of the Bank to the relevant laws of the State. It is unfair for such a corporate organization like the UBA to be treating the Citizens with impunity. It is my hope that I will get justice deserved and this Court matter is therefore set to address this vital issue of the law.

Justice Ipaye who had earlier expressed displeasure over UBA nonappearance in the previous sittings on 12the January, 2022 ordered the case for mediation and adjourned the case to March 6, 2022.

Counsel to UBA however declined comment when approached by our correspondent at the court premises.