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• Advocates change of strategy, says all hope not lost
From Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
The President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, has expressed sadness that members of the National Assembly voted against all the five gender bills that sought to promote more opportunities for women in political parties, governance and the society at large.
He however, said all hope was not lost, while advocating for a different strategy to be adopted and that more lawmakers should be engaged to push for the passage of the bills in the 10th Assembly
The five bills the lawmakers rejected in March 2022 include: a bill to create additional seats for women to increase women’s representation in the National Assembly, which will lead to a significant increase in the number of women in the parliament, which currently stands at five percent.
The second is a bill to enable Nigerian women transfer citizenship to foreign husbands, a right that every Nigerian man married to a foreign spouse enjoys; while the third is a bill to ensure affirmative action of at least 35% in political party administration and appointive positions across federal and state levels.
The fourth and fifth are a bill to provide a minimum of 20% of ministerial or commissioner nominees for women and the fifth a bill to allow a woman to become an indigene of her husband’s state after five years of marriage.
The Minister of Women Affairs, Pauline Tallen, has described their action as shameless.
Asked how he felt that the gender bills were thrown out, Lawan said: “First of all, when the five bills that concern woman were not voted for by the National Assembly, I think, naturally, there are things that we assume could happen. But they didn’t happen the way we wanted them. But remember that even bills that concerned the National Assembly were killed.”
