National Assembly
The Association of Women in
Parliament (WIP) Committee of the National Assembly today called for
inclusion of more women in elective and appointive positions in the country.
The statement was made in a
communique after its one-day retreat for female legislators in Lagos, to mark
International Women’s Day (IWD), tittled“ EachforEqual”
The group through its coordinator, Taiwo Oluga
who frowned at the decline in the number of women in appointive positions in
the country, however, commended the leadership of the Senate for deliberate
inclusion of all female senators in the Constitution Review Committee and urged
the House of Representatives to do the same.
She said, the step would ensure that critical
issues of concern to women were brought to the attention of the committee in
both chambers.
“Out of 469 members of the National
Assembly, there are only 21 women; and women represent only 4.43 per cent of
991 legislators in the state Houses of Assembly.
“This act of political exclusion is
no longer acceptable, Nigerian female legislators therefore, called on their
colleagues in the National Assembly and state Houses of Assembly to take
drastic action.
“In the spirit of this year’s International
Women’s Day (IWD), EachforEqual campaign, we need to take intentional
steps in the ongoing constitution review and electoral reform process to
promote women inclusion in governance and politics through gender-specific
provisions.
“WIP notes that the language of
Nigerian laws is gender-biased and insensitive to women,” Oluga said.
She said the constitution, for
instance, had gender insensitive words mentioned about 66 times and the
Electoral Act also had gender insensitive words mentioned about 68 times.
She called on the National Assembly
Constitution Review Committee to review the drafting style by deleting the
descriptive pronoun ‘He’ as presented in the constitution and replacing it with
‘He or She.
“Changing the descriptive pronoun to
he or she will promote an inclusive constitution that acknowledges women,” she
said.
Usman Abdullahi, Deputy Chairman
House Committee, Women in Parliament, National Assembly, said that political
parties remained the only vehicle to contest elections in the country.
He said that the WIP was concerned
about the lack of internal party democracy and political will to ensure women’s
political inclusion and representation.
“We call on our colleagues to use
the ongoing reforms of the Electoral Act and the Constitution to ensure
that political parties adopt a quota system in their manifesto with women and
men alternating (50:50) on its candidates’ list.
“For all elective positions, there
should be an intermix of both genders, particularly positions requiring running
mates.
“For example, where a man contests
for the governorship, a woman shall be the deputy and where a woman contests, a
man shall be the deputy.
“Only parties who are intentional
about women’s participation will receive women’s votes in the 2023 elections, ”
Abdullahi said.
It was gathered that female
legislators from across the country converged in Lagos at the retreat to review
critical national issues, particularly as they affected women and children in
commemoration of 2020 IWD.
The retreat was an opportunity to
enhance the technical capacity of female legislators and design agenda for
improved political inclusion of women in politics and governance.
