The House of Representatives on Tuesday, July 9, passed for Second Reading, a Constitution Alteration Bill to provide Special Seats for women in the National and State Houses of Assembly (HB 1349). The bill is sponsored by the Deputy Speaker, Rt. Hon. Benjamin Kalu and 12 other members of the House. It proposes the creation of one additional legislative seat to be contested by women only for each State and the the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in the Senate and House of Representatives, which would total 74 seats. It further proposes three special seats for women each at the 36 State Houses of Assembly totalling 108 women only seats. The bill has been referred to the Committee on Constitution Review for further legislative action.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This bill was\nfirst introduced in the 9th<\/sup> National Assembly and sponsored by\nHon. Nkeiruka Onyejeocha and 85 other members, including the former Speaker of\nthe House, Rt. Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila. It was one of what was known as the five\n\u201cgender bills\u201d on constitution alteration that had sought to address women\nissues in the fifth constitution alteration exercise of the 9th<\/sup> Assembly.\nHowever, it failed to pass when it came up for voting in March 2022. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The bill at the\ntime had proposed 111 seats at the federal legislature, i.e., three special\nseats for women in each State and one in the FCT in the Senate and House of\nRepresentatives. The current bill (HB 1349) however reduces this to 74 in\nresponse to concerns raised about having a bloated legislature. It has a\nprovision mandating its review and possible termination after 16 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This bill is a\nresponse to the low numbers of women in the legislature in Nigeria. Currently,\nthere are only 4 women Senators and 16 women Representatives in the 469-member\nNational Assembly. At the States, only about 55 women occupy elective positions\nin the State Houses of Assembly out of a total of 990 legislative seats. This\nappalling statistic is further highlighted in the Interparliamentary Union\u2019s\n(IPU) ranking for women in national parliaments where Nigeria occupies a very\nunimpressive position of 178 out of 182. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A closer look\nat this index shows that Nigeria sits above only two African countries \u2013 Niger\nRepublic and Eritrea. Niger is currently led by a military government after a\ncoup in July 2023 while Eritrea has not held elections since 1994. This leads\nto the question of why Nigeria, the West African hegemon, is occupying the\nlowest positions in Africa along with these countries? What is our reason for\nfailing to ensure that women are part of decision making and that governance is\ninclusive of a group that makes up nearly half of the Nigerian population. The\nreasons are many \u2013 cultural, religious, economic and institutional. This bill\naddresses the fourth reason.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Very few women\nhave been elected to political positions since the 1999 general elections and\nin subsequent general elections. There has been a steady decline since 2007\nwhen there were about 36 women in the National Assembly (9 in the Senate and 27\nin the House of Reps). This is the best record so far, and even then, women\nwere less than 10% of the National Assembly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The gender imbalance\nin elective positions does not appear problematic to many because it has become\na permanent feature of Nigeria\u2019s political system. For those who understand\nthat it is a problem, there is the question of what to do and how. Women groups\nhave canvassed for 35% affirmative action in elective and political positions,\nwhich the National Gender Policy recognises. However, there has been resistance\nto the implementation of a policy that would require political parties to set\naside 35% of slots for female candidates because it would involve male\ncandidates giving up their seats or existing constituencies fielding only women\nin elections in order to meet up with the target. Such arrangements are best\nsuited for countries operating a proportional representation system of\ngovernment where parties win parliamentary seats in accordance with the votes\nwon in elections. <\/p>\n\n\n\n To address\nthis, the bill was proposed as a way of ensuring that women actually contest\nand win seats to the legislature without threatening seats already held by men.\nThis proposal is not novel. It is a Temporary Special Measure (TSM) that is\nused to remedy the low representation of women in elective positions. Also\nknown as seat reservations or women-only constituencies, they are commonly\nadopted in countries using a First-Past-the-Post electoral system e.g.,\nTanzania, Kenya, Uganda. The idea is to not only help women develop political\nexperience, structures and networks to be able to compete but also to ensure\nthat women\u2019s voices are part of decision making, which is ultimately beneficial\nto citizens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Currently more than 130 countries worldwide have adopted some type of\nspecial measure (or electoral quota system) to address women\u2019s\nunder-representation. Strikingly, the majority of Nations that have adopted\nspecial measures\/quota systems are low or middle-income countries \u2013 many of\nthem in Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the second\nreading of the bill, opponents such as Ghali Tijani (NNPP: Kano), Olamijuwonlo\nAlao-Akala (APC: Oyo), Billy Osawaru (APC:Edo) and Patrick Umoh (APC:Akwa Ibom)\nargued that the bill was undemocratic and discriminatory to men. They also\nexpressed the view that candidates should be chosen solely on their merits\nrather than their gender, and that women should mobilise to vote for women.\nThese objections would be valid if there was a level playing field in politics\nand women actually succeeded in primaries. Political parties shape candidate\nrecruitment and ultimately election results, so if a woman is not on the\nballot, the question of her mobilising other women to vote for her cannot\narise. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The reality is\nthat the electoral environment is often biased against female candidates.\nReports document widespread stereotypes and general skepticism about the\nappropriateness or ability of a woman to wield political power. The language\naround campaigns and elections reinforces cultural expectations that politics\nis a masculine space, and this is reinforced by the high levels of aggression\nand violence seen during elections. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A vox\npop<\/em> carried out by PLAC revealed that men were more open to supporting\ntheir wives or female relatives for appointive positions because it is not\naccompanied by the violence and vitriol seen in elections, which basically\nshows that they are in agreement that it is not a safe space for women. Even then, the number of women in appointive\npositions is less than 35%. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Also, women are\nstill responsible for the majority of childcare and household tasks therefore\nfor some, seeing a woman contest for elections is a challenge to cultural norms\nand an abdication of her responsibility. There is also the issue of women\nlacking access to resources and money which are needed to win elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As long as\nthese issues persist and women fail to make it to the ballot, then the view\nthat women can compete with men on equal footing in the current electoral\nenvironment as we know it, remains wishful thinking. Worse still, these are\nissues that cannot be addressed in the short term. <\/p>\n\n\n\n To advance\nwomen’s representation and leadership in Nigeria, there is need to complement\nexisting efforts to build women\u2019s capacities and level the playing ground with\ninnovative strategies such as the one being proposed by the Special Seats\nBill. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It is\nnoteworthy that the debate at the second reading revealed a poor understanding\nof the contents of the bill by lawmakers. A lot of awareness is needed around\nthe bill if it is to succeed. PLAC will be closely following the progress of\nthe bill and advocating for its passage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The House of Representatives on Tuesday, July 9, passed for Second Reading, a Constitution Alteration Bill to provide Special Seats for women in the National and State Houses of Assembly (HB 1349). The bill is sponsored by the Deputy Speaker, Rt. Hon. Benjamin Kalu and 12 other members of the House. It proposes the creation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3605,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3601","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=3601"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3601\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3606,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3601\/revisions\/3606"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}