Nigeria gained independence from British colonial rule in 1960, following approximately 98 years of colonization that fundamentally restructured Nigerian society, culture, and education (Oyěwùmí, 2005). During this period, Nigerian people were systematically dispossessed of their indigenous knowledge systems and compelled to internalize the perceived superiority of Western epistemologies. The education system established under colonial administration was built upon this foundation of cultural erasure, constructing learning environments that demanded the forfeiture of indigenous identities as a condition for access (Oyěwùmí, 2005).

Nigeria is home to more than 400 languages and 300 ethnic groups, most of which were constituent parts of larger pre-colonial kingdoms and empires before the country's amalgamation in 1914 (Ogunyemi & Bada, 2020; Chukwu & Okoji, 2024). The forced amalgamation of the Southern Protectorate, Northern Protectorate, and Lagos Colony created a complex interplay of identities, as communities navigated the tension between preserving indigenous cultures and engaging with imposed Western educational systems (Abejide, 2022; Rao, 2025). These systems systematically prioritized colonial languages and values, marginalizing local traditions and creating conditions under which cultural wholeness was incompatible with formal educational attainment.

A persistent consequence of colonially influenced education is the production of curricula that remain disconnected from students' cultural, linguistic, and historical realities (Fafunwa, 2018). This disconnect diminishes students' capacity to engage authentically with their heritage, contributes to the loss of cultural identity, and reduces motivation for formal learning. Moreover, the continued privileging of Western epistemological frameworks over indigenous knowledge systems limits the potential for culturally relevant innovation and community-centered problem-solving among Nigerian learners, contributing to socio-economic disparities and limited access to education.

Socioeconomic inequality constitutes another critical dimension of Nigeria's intersectional educational landscape. Nigerians experience markedly divergent economic realities that determine access to resources, services, and opportunities (Justine et al., 2012). The structural disparity between economically advantaged and disadvantaged households perpetuates intergenerational cycles of poverty, as wealthier families can leverage superior resources to maintain their socioeconomic status. In comparison, poorer families face systemic barriers to upward mobility (Justine et al., 2012).

Historically, Nigerians, both during and after the colonial period, have placed high cultural value on education as a pathway out of poverty (Asaju & Adagba, 2014). Families frequently made significant financial sacrifices to secure educational opportunities for their children, recognizing Western education as the primary route to improved life circumstances. Nevertheless, socioeconomic inequalities have profoundly shaped health outcomes and educational access: wealthier individuals have better access to healthcare, nutrition, and living conditions, while disadvantaged groups face higher mortality and ill health, which further constrain educational participation and long-term opportunities (Nwankwo et al., 2025). For students with disabilities from low-income households, these compounding disadvantages are particularly acute, as access to specialized educational resources, assistive technology, and trained teachers remains severely limited.

In precolonial Nigeria, gender relations were not uniformly organized around the hierarchical structures that characterize Western patriarchal traditions. Oyěwùmí (2005), in her seminal work The Invention of Women, contends that precolonial Yoruba society did not structure social responsibility or opportunity along gendered lines as colonial governance did. This relative gender equity is evidenced by the historical prominence of powerful women across Nigerian communities, including Queen Amina of Zaria (Omotade & Oluwafemi, 2023), Princess Moremi of Ile-Ife (Omoyele & Morsiani, 2025), Queen Idia of the Benin Kingdom (Emokpae, 2025), and the organized resistance of the Aba Women's Movement in eastern Nigeria.

The introduction of colonial education systems disrupted this precolonial gender equity by restricting formal learning primarily to men, thereby generating gendered disparities in educational access, leadership, and decision-making (Oyěwùmí, 2005). Although protests emerged against this exclusion, when women were eventually admitted to formal education, curricula concentrated on domestic skills designed to prepare them for service within the household rather than civic or intellectual life (Ukpokolo, 2023). These colonial-era gender hierarchies have deepened in the postcolonial period, resulting in persistent inequalities in educational standards, expectations, and conditions for girls and women (Abubakar et al., 2025; Madu & Obi, 2021). The abduction of the Chibok girls in 2014 provides a stark contemporary illustration of the extreme vulnerabilities that girls face in accessing education in Nigeria (Dayil & Vickers, 2020).

Nigeria's ethnic and cultural diversity has given rise to heterogeneous historical understandings of disability. While empirical research on precolonial disability history across all Nigerian ethnic groups remains limited (Oluwadele et al., 2023), extant scholarship reveals both stigmatizing and affirming perspectives. Some communities held views that associated disability with spiritual punishment or misfortune (Imade, 2017), while others, including aspects of Yoruba cosmology, understood physical difference as an expression of divine creativity. According to Adegbindin (2018), Yoruba deities were believed to create human beings in varied forms to express their conception of normalcy, framing physical difference as inherent to the human condition rather than as a deficit. Such cultural frameworks fostered greater social integration of persons with disabilities.

Colonial incursion introduced religious frameworks and educational philosophies that added new layers of stigma to preexisting understandings of disability. Colonial education systems prioritized the development of non-disabled workers capable of English literacy and manual labor, effectively excluding persons with disabilities from formal educational participation (Senu-Oke, 2011). Colonial religious doctrine, in turn, positioned disability either as an occasion for charitable almsgiving or as evidence of divine punishment for sin (Imade, 2017). These constructions have proven remarkably durable: the pursuit of miraculous healing as a substitute for educational inclusion remains a significant cultural phenomenon in contemporary Nigeria, perpetuating exclusion and limiting equity for persons with disabilities (Nwabuisi, 2021).

Disability justice, as conceptualized by Patty Berne, Mia Mingus, and Stacey Milbern of Sins Invalid (2015), constitutes a movement that centers the lives and leadership of people whose disabilities intersect with multiple forms of oppression, including poverty, houselessness, and educational exclusion. In contrast to earlier disability rights paradigms that often foregrounded legal access within existing social structures, disability justice demands the dismantling of ableism alongside racism, sexism, and other interlocking systems of domination. The framework's first principle is explicitly intersectional, recognizing that disability cannot be understood in isolation from other forms of identity-based oppression.

Applied to the Nigerian context, disability justice demands an educational response that does not merely accommodate disability as an isolated condition but actively addresses the compounding effects of ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, and colonial history on the educational experiences of students with disabilities. As Slifka (2024) observes, disability intersects with gender, ethnicity, and social class to produce distinct and layered forms of discrimination and stigma, a dynamic powerfully documented in Nigerian contexts by Anokwuru (2023).

Nigeria's legal and policy frameworks reflect a formal commitment to inclusive education for students with disabilities, yet significant implementation gaps persist. Nigeria is among the 92 countries that ratified the 1994 Salamanca Statement on Inclusive Education, affirming the right of all students, including those with disabilities, to education within inclusive settings. The 1997 National Policy on Education and the 2015 National Policy on Special Education further elaborated this commitment, with the latter establishing a principle of zero rejection to ensure that all students with disabilities have the right to free and appropriate education (Obi & Ashi, 2016). The 2018 Discrimination Prohibition Act extended these protections, prohibiting discrimination against persons with disabilities and mandating equal rights and opportunities.

Despite this legislative architecture, the lived reality for students with disabilities in Nigeria remains deeply inequitable. According to UNICEF (2024), Nigeria has approximately 18 million out-of-school children, with 25% of this group consisting of children with disabilities. Nigeria holds the distinction of having the largest population of out-of-school children in the world. This reality persists despite the legal mandate for free and compulsory education from primary through secondary levels. Nigeria's 2026 national budget allocated only 6.1% of total expenditure to education, a figure broadly consistent with a long-standing pattern of underfunding. Contributing factors include poverty, social stigma, inadequate school infrastructure, child labor, internal insecurity, and deeply entrenched cultural and religious norms (Oyekan et al., 2023).

Compounding these structural barriers, the World Bank (2020) and the International Disability Alliance estimate that approximately 14% of Nigerians, some 25 million people, are rendered additionally vulnerable by poverty and food insecurity. According to Nigeria's 2018 Demographic and Health Survey, 7% of household members aged five and older live with at least one disability across the domains of seeing, hearing, communication, cognition, mobility, and self-care. Haruna (2017, p. 102) captured the pervasive nature of this stigma, observing that in Nigeria, once a person with a disability is stigmatized, they experience a profound transformation of identity accompanied by discrimination across economic, social, and educational dimensions. Cultural and religious beliefs that attribute disability to supernatural causes, witchcraft, or sin continue to drive discrimination, in some extreme cases justifying practices of ritual exploitation or forced begging (Etieyibo & Omiegbe, 2016; Omiegbe, 2023).

These realities reveal that policy pronouncements, however well-intentioned, are insufficient without corresponding investments in teacher preparation, community engagement, and culturally responsive pedagogical frameworks. It is precisely this gap that the ADIMA framework was designed to address, and which the present paper seeks to reconceptualize in light of contemporary intersectionality and disability justice scholarship.

Dr. Emmanuel Adima was a Professor of Special Education at the University of Ibadan and a pioneering advocate for disability rights and educational equity in Nigeria (Adima, 1992). His scholarly and activist work focused on securing equitable access to education and social resources for individuals with intellectual disabilities (previously referred to as mental retardation, which was stigmatizing) (AAIDD Ad Hoc Committee on Terminology and Classification, 2010). Dr. Adima designed the ADIMA framework as a practical, pedagogical tool for teacher preparation programs, aiming to equip special educators with culturally grounded strategies for inclusive instruction.

Dr. Adima's advocacy extended beyond the classroom. He urged Nigerian society to create inclusive and accessible environments for persons with disabilities across healthcare, education, employment, and community life. Crucially, his work engaged intersectional concerns before the term itself had gained currency in African educational scholarship: he drew attention to gendered disparities in the treatment of girls and boys with disabilities, highlighted the roles of cultural and religious beliefs in perpetuating exclusion, and called for community-level transformation alongside institutional reform.

As a student of Dr Emmanuel Adima at the University of Ibadan from 1987 to 1991, I learned from him in the field of mental retardation (now referred to as intellectual disabilities). He persistently advocated for equitable access for individuals with intellectual disabilities in our community and encouraged us to visit segregated schools in Ibadan, where, at that time, most students with disabilities were placed or kept at home. During these visits, he led discussions on disparities in treatment between girls and boys with disabilities, emphasizing that gender should not determine access or opportunity. He highlighted how cultural, religious, and societal beliefs contributed to these challenges.

Sharing my learning journey under Dr Adima, while reflecting on his advocacy for disability justice in Nigeria, brings to the fore his activism for why people with disabilities need to be accrued respect and accessibility to education. To contextualize his activism, the authors bring to the fore the practices of education for people with disabilities in Nigeria.

As illustrated in the anecdote from one of Dr. Adima's former students, a co-author in this paper, he maintained that gender should never restrict access or opportunity for students with disabilities. His work, in hindsight, embodied early intersectional disability justice advocacy. This conceptual paper reconceptualizes the original ADIMA framework to equip today's educators with the tools needed to implement inclusive, culturally responsive practices.

The ADIMA framework derives its name from an acronym based on Dr. Adima's surname, with each letter designating a core pedagogical strategy for special educators: A—Adapted Curricula; D—Demonstration-Based Learning; I—Instructional Materials; MA—Mental Age. These components directly address the distinct learning needs of students with intellectual disabilities in the Nigerian educational context. Oyefeso (2013) subsequently examined the effects of the ADIMA method on the academic performance of students with mild intellectual disabilities in Ibadan, providing empirical support for the framework's instructional efficacy. With its effectiveness established, the ADIMA framework now calls for a reconceptualization that integrates intersectional and technology‑driven approaches to teacher preparation for inclusive education.