Get Guardian on Google• Senate Leader assures of timely passage of bill on plan
• Seeks comprehensive framework to tackle women, children challenges
The National Assembly is considering a 16-year affirmative action plan that would create 74 additional seats for women in the Senate and the House of Representatives, as well as three reserved seats in every state Assembly.
The proposal, if approved, would give each state and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) one additional female representative in both chambers of the National Assembly, while expanding women’s representation at the state level without removing existing lawmakers.
The Senate Leader, Opeyemi Bamidele, disclosed the plan yesterday during the 2026 Law Week of the International Federation of Women Lawyers, Ekiti State chapter, describing it as a constitutional reform aimed at correcting women’s persistent under-representation in politics.
The proposal, however, provides for 37 additional seats in the Senate and 37 in the House of Representatives. Each of the 36 states and the FCT would receive one seat in each chamber specifically reserved for women.
At the state level, each House of Assembly would have three additional seats reserved exclusively for women.
Bamidele, who is Vice Chairman of the National Assembly Committee on the Review of the 1999 Constitution, said the special-seat arrangement would remain in force for 16 years, covering four electoral cycles, before a comprehensive review.
The plan is part of a proposed constitutional amendment seeking to introduce special seats for women in the National and State Houses of Assembly.
Bamidele said the initiative followed extensive consultations and consensus-building, adding that lawmakers had begun engaging state assemblies to secure the constitutionally required approval.
He expressed confidence that the proposal would obtain the support of at least two-thirds of state assemblies, a crucial step towards its adoption.
The Senate Leader said that the measure should be viewed as a democratic reform rather than a partisan project, maintaining that a political system that sidelines women from decision-making cannot adequately represent the population.
He also acknowledged the advocacy of First Lady, Oluremi Tinubu and other stakeholders who have pushed for greater female participation in governance.
Meanwhile, Bamidele said that the challenges facing women and children demand a decisive shift from fragmented interventions to a coordinated system of prevention, protection, enforcement and accountability.
The senator representing Ekiti Central District, in his lecture themed: “Justice in a Changing World: Responding to New Challenges Affecting Women and Children,” delivered at the 2026 Law Week Programme of the International Federation of Women Lawyers, noted that Nigeria already possesses important constitutional guarantees and statutory frameworks, but their impact depends on effective implementation, adequate financing, institutional capacity and sustained political commitment.
In his remarks, the Chief Judge of Ekiti State, Justice Lekan Ogunmoye, expressed concern about the weaponisation of the digital space, noting that technology has accelerated human progress, but it has also produced insidious forms of harm, like cyberbullying, online sexual exploitation, digital harassment and the non-consensual sharing of intimate images, which disproportionately target young women and children.
Also, the Vice-Chancellor of Afe Babalola University Ado-Ekiti (ABUAD), Prof. Smaranda Olarinde, said that an ideal society is one in which a woman can pursue education, work and leadership without fear, a child can grow and learn in safety, technology enlarges opportunity rather than enabling exploitation, and one in which the poor and vulnerable can approach the law with confidence rather than apprehension.
