The underrepresentation of women and other disadvantaged groups in politics have formed the basis of several public discourse around elections and political participation. The number of women in both appointive and elective positions at different levels of government are marginal at best, with the 2019 general elections seeing a decline in that number. Speaking at a conference hosted by a socio-cultural group for women, the Senate Minority Leader, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe stated that Nigeria will get to a point where there will be no woman in the Senate if nothing is done to close the gender gap in politics. This statement echoes a plausible reality in the light of current circumstances. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a bid to address the gender gap in political\nrepresentation, a Bill to alter the 1999 Nigerian Constitution to create\nadditional Special Seats for women in the Federal and State Legislative Houses\nhas been introduced in the House of Representatives. The Bill is sponsored by\nDeputy Chief Whip of the House, Hon. Nkeiruka Onyejeocha, the Speaker of the\nHouse, Rt. Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila and 85 other members. It aims to create additional separate seats to be contested and\nfilled by only women in the National and State Houses of Assembly as a\ntemporary measure to promote women\u2019s political representation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Bill proposes to amend\nsection 48 of the Constitution, by creating one additional seat in the Senate\nfor each State of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) to be\noccupied by a woman. If the amendment goes through, each State would be expected\nto return four Senators while the FCT will return two Senators. This would\namount to a total of 37 additional female Senators. The Bill also proposes to\namend section 49 of the Constitution to\ncreate two additional seats in the House of Representatives from each State of\nthe Federation and the FCT to be occupied by only women. The implication is\nthat each State and the FCT will have two women added to their already existing\nnumber of Representatives, amounting to a total of 74 additional Women\nRepresentatives. Furthermore, the Bill proposes to amend section 91 of the Constitution to add three seats to\nthe number of existing seats in every State House of Assembly, to be occupied\nby women only. The three additional women-only seats are to be in accordance with\nthe three Senatorial districts already delineated for each State.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to the Bill, the creation of special seats however shall\nnot prevent a woman from contesting for other regular seats in the various\nconstituencies that make up the Senate, House of Representatives and State\nHouses of Assembly. It is also important to note that the bill does not create\na superior or inferior legislative status for the special seats, as women\noccupying such seats would have equal privileges and responsibilities as other\nmembers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\nBill seeks to amend\nsections 77 (1) and 117 (1) of the Constitution to subject the special seats to\ndirect elections like every other legislative seat. In other words, the women\nmust be voted for directly by constituents who are entitled to vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As a Temporary Special Measure, the bill contains a\nclause which mandates a review of the special seats after four general election\ncycles of 16 years, for repeal or renewal. The aim of creating special\nwomen-only seats is to devise a path devoid of impediments through which women\ncan participate in mainstream politics\/governance and build their power base,\nwhich will be instrumental to their continued participation when the temporary\nmeasure ends and a full reversion to regular seats is required.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A prominent criticism of\nthis Bill is the potential increase in the cost of governance that will be\noccasioned by the creation of additional seats in the federal and state\nlegislatures. This is further fueled by public opinion surrounding the budget\nof the legislature, particularly the National Assembly on one hand, and the\ncurrent state and trajectory of Nigeria\u2019s economy in recent times, on the other\nhand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre (PLAC) conducted in-depth research on the possible quantitative and qualitative costs and benefits of the bill if implemented using the salaries and emoluments of legislators as approved by the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) and information volunteered by some lawmakers (in the media) on their salaries and emoluments and other sources. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The research further measured these estimated costs against an average of the Federal Government\u2019s last three (2019-2021) budget sums and found that the impact of\u00a0 additional legislators (219) on the Federal Government\u2019s Budget is a percentage increase of between 0.0314% and 0.163%. This is a rather marginal increase. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As valid as the cost concern\nappears, the point is however made that the destiny of a nation cannot be\nsurrendered on the altar of mere numbers as in cost and budget figures, but\nalso on proper consideration of the value addition of the human resource in\nwomen who will bring on board unique perspectives in decision making, including\nsuggestions that will ultimately cut down cost of governance and hopefully open\nnew revenue sources. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In addition to the importance of having representation\nin governance that is reflective of the population, research has shown that\nthere are intrinsic values that can be derived from having more women in\ngovernance. In some countries where special measures have been adopted to\nimprove the number of women in legislative houses, there has been an increase\nin legislation that address social issues such as healthcare, education, women\nissues, poverty, violence, etc. Also, a United Nations Global study on the\nImplementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 shows that\nwomen inclusion in policy making often results in improved conflict management and reduced armed violence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The bill if passed can\npotentially change the deteriorating trajectory of women\u2019s political\nparticipation in Nigeria. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The underrepresentation of women and other disadvantaged groups in politics have formed the basis of several public discourse around elections and political participation. The number of women in both appointive and elective positions at different levels of government are marginal at best, with the 2019 general elections seeing a decline in that number. Speaking at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2245,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[402],"class_list":["post-2238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-constitution-bill-on-special-seats-for-women-garners-support"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2238"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2246,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2238\/revisions\/2246"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}