Godsgift Onyedinefu
Nigeria has received several knocks both locally and internationally for the crawling progress on creating equal opportunity for women, whether in governance, business or any matter. Save for the protests of more than 200 women organisation, the National Assembly would have again left bills that would improve the lot of women in the trash.
The House of Representatives had rejected five gender related bills. Following wide protests and condemnation, it rescinded its decision on three gender-related constitution alteration bills.
The bill seeks to amend section 26 (2a) of the 1999 constitution by opening citizenship registration to male and female. This means that if the bill is passed, foreigners married to Nigerian women can apply for Nigerian citizenship.
The other bill seeks to alter Sections 31 and 318(1) (the Interpretation Section) of the 1999 Constitution to allow a woman to become an indigene of her husband’s state after at least six years of marriage
Furthermore, Section 223 of the 1999 Constitution to provide 35 per cent affirmative action to ensure women occupy at least 35 per cent in political party and appointive positions at the federal and state levels.
Hassan Fulata (APC, Jigawa moved a motion to rescind the House’s decision. The Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila, noted that the move by the House is against the established tradition of constitution amendment. He, however, said the lower chamber in its wisdom decided to revisit the bills for the good of the country.
Before this breakthrough, the National Assembly had thrashed several bills. This is not the first time the National Assembly will throw out such bills that encourage Gender equality. In 2010, a female lawmaker from Akwa-Ibom state, Helen Esuene introduced a bill titled ‘The Gender Equal Opportunities, Abuse and Administration Bill, the bill was thrown out.
Esuene did not relent and in 2012, she re-introduced the ‘Gender Equal Opportunities Abuse and Administration Bill’ Unfortunately, the bill was again thrown out.
In 2012, a bill titled ‘the Affirmative Action (Equal Opportunity for Women) Bill’, which was sponsored by member, house of representatives Uzoma Nkem-Abonta from Abia state. Coming from a man, one would have assumed that the bill would have been considered. Unfortunately, it was thrown out.
The Abia state lawmaker also did not relent, he introduced another ‘ Gender and Equal Opportunity Bill’, in 2014 and it was like others, thrown out.
In the months before the 2015 elections which led to the emergence of Muhammadu Buhari as the President of Nigeria, another bill titled the “Women Empowerment and Gender Equality Act, was introduced alongside the Electoral Act (Amendment) Bill, 2015 to ensure that all Political Parties are Gender-Sensitive and to eliminate all forms of discrimination in all political parties. It was thrown out.
Another bill, the Women Participation in Election Support Bill was introduced in 2018 but met a dead end.
The latest is the five bills as earlier outlined which the National Assembly recently rejected. With the House of representatives rescinding its decision, it is hoped that the bills will be voted on by the House in the next phase of the constitution alteration exercise.