The 9th Assembly made no case in addressing issues affecting women through the constitution using the window provided by the amendment to promote women’s rights in relation to indigeneship and citizenship, as well as political participation and inclusion.
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The five gender bills include Bill on Citizenship which seeks to amend Section 26 to grant citizenship to foreign husbands of Nigerian women as is currently guaranteed in section 26(2)(a) for foreign wives of Nigerian men; The indigeneship Bill, which among other issues, addresses Section 31 and 318(1) to allow women to claim their husbands’ state of origin after at least five years of marriage and the Affirmative Action Bill which seeks to specifically amend Section 223 to ensure women occupy at least 35 per cent in political party administration and appointive positions.
Others are the Bill on Ministerial or Commissioner Nomination, which among others seeks to amend Sections 147 and 192 so that at least 35 per cent of the nominees are women; and Reserved Seat Bill, is to among others, amend Sections 48, 49 and 91 to create additional 37, 74, and 108 seats for women at the Senate, House of Representatives, and the State Assemblies, respectively.
Just as the 2022, 2023, and 2024 protests held in the month of March, the ‘#OccupyNationalAssembly’ marked three peaceful protests embarked by women groups and a coalition of advocates of gender inclusion and parity, at the complex of the National Assembly against the shutting down of the bills by lawmakers, the hope of scaling through in 2025 and the 10th Assembly becomes a huge concern.
Highlighting efforts by the Occupy National Assembly campaign on the proposed pieces of legislation, former Country Director ActionAid Nigeria, Ene Obi, observed that the media played a key role in promoting the campaign. “One thing we need to note is that in many conversations with members of the National Assembly, they asked what we did before the bills were presented. Now we are going to make another presentation of the bills, we need to do more and we need to embark on a lot of sensitisation.”
Founding Director of Women’s Advocates Research and Documentation Centre, (WARDC), Dr. Abiola Akiyode-Afolabi, insisted that the struggle is far from over. “Women’s leadership and political participation are crucial for advancing gender equality and inclusive governance. That is why WARDC is moving to galvanise public support at national and state levels for reintroduction and passage of five genders bills.”
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She said there is a fight for the reintroduction of the bills at the 10th NASS through a massive online media campaign. The campaign sought to raise one million signatures nationwide for reconsideration of the bills by the 10th NASS. “Its three years after, yet we can only say the struggle continues, the gender bills still remains our priority, we will not relent until we achieve a gender equal society.”
Executive Director at BAOBAB for Women’s Rights, Bunmi Dipo-Salami expressed disappointment, saying, it is not a women-only struggle, as that is what it is made to look like now. There are so many other men, groups and individuals that really want Nigeria to be different. Gender equality is smart economics and so women must be included. We see evidence of places where we have gender equality, where women are strategically positioned in the country, where women are leading, and we see the prosperity of those nations. We keep pushing to make sure that we get what we really need, not just for women but for the nation as a whole.”
For Development Analyst and Communication expert, Dr. Plangnan Dayil, women groups and gender advocates are not taking the back bench in their pursuit to get the bills reintroduced in the Assembly. She however noted that to achieve this will require a lot of work and not tokenism.
“We’re no longer in that era of tokenism and that’s why you see that women groups are still pushing for the bills to become a reality so that we can have an instrument, something to hold on to and begin to negotiate with states.
“I hope that we have to revisit our strategies. It’s very important and revisit these HeForShe’s that are for us, we need to understand the kind of value they adding to the discussion. We need to create structures in the different places we are to make sure that one woman at a time, we might not see the benefit now because over time we’ve been trained to maybe be dependent on the men. There is a silent kind of kickback and pushback on women’s leadership and I’m sure they’re beginning to normalise trying to push women back, but if we begin to populate the lower levels and sub-national levels with women leadership, there will be pressure and no option than to recognise the women.
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