Disability Care and Employment Prospects for Persons with Disabilities: A Nigerian Contextual Analysis through the Lens of Old Testament Scholarship

Abstract

Purpose: The intersection of disability care and employment prospects for persons with disabilities (PWDs) in Nigeria constitutes a domain of urgent scholarly and policy concern, particularly given the nation's complex socio-cultural, legislative, and economic landscape. This article examines the persistent gap between Nigeria's disability employment legislation and the lived occupational realities of PWDs, and asks whether Old Testament hermeneutics can supply a normative ethical foundation capable of reshaping both religious attitudes and policy practice toward disability inclusion.

Methodology: The article adopts an exegetical and contextual-theological methodology, undertaking close readings of the Holiness Code of Leviticus 19:14 and 21:17–23, the narrative of Mephibosheth in 2 Samuel 9, the wisdom literature of Job, and the prophetic traditions of Second Isaiah. These texts are read in sustained “critical dialogue” with the empirical and policy literature on Nigerian disability employment, including the Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities (Prohibition) Act of 2018 (DAPPA), national survey data, and the sociological literature on disability stigma, rather than treated as a separate, self-contained theological excursus.

Findings: The analysis demonstrates that, whilst the DAPPA represents a watershed legislative development, its implementation has been demonstrably inadequate, with less than one per cent of PWDs employed in the formal sector. Traditional religio-cultural beliefs that attribute disability to divine punishment, ancestral violation, or spiritual transgression continue to perpetuate stigmatisation and exclusion, although these beliefs are not monolithic and vary considerably across Nigeria's regions and ethnic groups. The article finds that the Old Testament's normative ethical centre, properly distinguished from its cultic and time-bound legislative provisions, supplies a coherent covenantal warrant, grounded in justice (mishpat) and loving-kindness (hesed) rather than charity, for transformative disability inclusion.

Recommendations: The article argues that a critically informed re-reading of Old Testament texts offers African Christian communities, policymakers, and scholars a compelling ethical basis for transformative care and occupational inclusion. Recommendations are advanced for legislative enforcement, the development of publicly funded (rather than privatised, family-based) care infrastructure, gender-sensitive disability employment policy, and community-based re-evangelisation of disability theology in the Nigerian context.