{"id":2539,"date":"2022-03-09T16:11:57","date_gmt":"2022-03-09T16:11:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/?p=2539"},"modified":"2022-03-09T16:34:55","modified_gmt":"2022-03-09T16:34:55","slug":"house-of-reps-rescinds-decision-on-3-gender-bills-but-is-it-enough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/house-of-reps-rescinds-decision-on-3-gender-bills-but-is-it-enough\/","title":{"rendered":"House of Reps Rescinds Decision on 3 Gender Bills, But Is It Enough?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Responding to protesters who converged at the gate of the National Assembly to commemorate International Women\u2019s Day and protest the decision of national legislators voting down five women bills seeking to expand the rights of women, the House of Representatives rescinded its decision on three of the bills at plenary on Tuesday, 8<sup>th<\/sup> March 2022. It decided to re-open votes on the three bills. These bills include: the bill to expand the scope of citizenship by registration (to confer Nigerian citizenship on foreign spouses of Nigerian women), the bill to provide qualification for State indigeneship rights and the bill for affirmative action for women in appointive positions in the Federal and State Executive cabinets. \u00a0However, their decision on two most important of the five bills, namely a bill to create specific seats for women in the Federal and State legislatures and a bill for reserved quota for women in political party administration, remains unrescinded. It is unclear if the decision of the House of Representatives to take fresh votes on three of the five bills is a decision reached jointly with the Senate. The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria requires that for any Constitution amendment to take place, both houses must pass the bill by two-thirds majority of members present and voting. Thereafter, it will require approval by a simple majority of members in two-thirds of States of the Federation. Thereafter, Presidential assent would be required. The five gender bills are part of proposals put forward by legislators articulating what needs to be done to reverse the apparent marginalisation of women in Nigeria\u2019s governance. The National Assembly which has 469 members has only 21 women. In the State Houses of Assembly, of the 990 members in the 36 States of the Federation, there are only 45 women. Fifteen (15) States have no women in their Houses of Assembly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Specific Seats bill sponsored by Hon. Nkeiru Onyejeocha,\nDeputy Chief Whip of the House of Representatives made its way past the\nCommittee level on to plenary voting, where it failed. The bill seeks to create\nadditional seats for women \u2013 one Senate seat from each of the 36 States of the\nFederation and two House of Representatives seats per State. At the State\nAssembly level, each of the three Senatorial Districts in each State is\nexpected to produce one female member, adding three seats to already existing\nseats at the State Houses of Assembly. The bill does not seek to take away any\nof the existing seats in the Federal and State legislatures. It only seeks to\nadd to the number of existing seats and does not interfere with any person\ncontesting for the existing seats. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Women converged in front of the National Assembly in\ntheir numbers to protest gender inequality, as they commemorated the 2022\nInternational Women\u2019s Day with the theme, \u2018Gender Equality for a Sustainable\nFuture\u2019 and #BreakTheBias. Similar demonstrations took place in several States\nacross the Federation. Nigerian women and supporters of women\u2019s rights and\ninclusion were disappointed to say the least, &nbsp;on 1<sup>st<\/sup> March 2022, when the Senate\nand House of Representatives voted on 68 Constitution Alteration Bills,\nincluding five gender bills which failed to pass. Dissatisfied by the outcome\nof the votes, &nbsp;women who had gathered at\nthe gate of the National Assembly earlier that day to enjoin the legislators to\npass the bills, continued to converge at the venue in the following days to\nprotest the unfortunate development. It appears that the House of\nRepresentatives has retraced its steps as it rescinded its decisions on three\nof those bills. It is expected that the House will reconsider and vote on these\nbills, alongside another set of Constitution Alteration bills in the next four\nweeks. The House has however, read for the Third Time and passed the 5<sup>th<\/sup>\nConstitution Alteration bills&nbsp; which were\nvoted for at its plenary session on Tuesday, 1<sup>st<\/sup> March 2022. While\nthe House of Representatives rescission of its decisions on three gender bills\noffers a glimmer of hope, citizens and groups advocating for women\u2019s rights\nmust remember to take advocacy to the State Houses of Assembly, which are the\nnext stage of the Constitution review process, to ensure that bills passed by\nthe National Assembly receive the required votes from the State Assemblies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nigeria ranks low in Africa and in the world for\npolitical representation of women. This is a problem that needs to be addressed\nimmediately, to ensure that women (who account for half of the Nigerian\npopulation) are directly involved in policy and decision making. This highlights\nthe need to continue to press on the government to take significant actions\ntowards full participation and equal leadership opportunities for women at all\nlevels of decision making in Nigeria. With continued women exclusion from these\nstructures, a sustainable future cannot be guaranteed for Nigeria and the world\nindeed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Responding to protesters who converged at the gate of the National Assembly to commemorate International Women\u2019s Day and protest the decision of national legislators voting down five women bills seeking to expand the rights of women, the House of Representatives rescinded its decision on three of the bills at plenary on Tuesday, 8th March 2022. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1744,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2539","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=2539"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2539\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2545,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2539\/revisions\/2545"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}