Issued: Wednesday, 2nd March 2022
Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre (PLAC) is disappointed at the National Assembly’s rejection of five key Constitution Alteration bills aimed at improving women’s rights and political representation.
In February 2022, the Constitution Review Committees of the Senate and House of Representatives, after painstaking work and lobbying by civil society and women groups, proposed 5 Constitution Alteration Bills as follows:
- Additional Seats for women in the Federal and State Legislatures
- Indigeneship rights for married women
- Citizenship by registration for non-Nigerian men married to Nigerian women
- 35% Affirmative Action for women in political party administration
- Reserved quota for women in cabinet positions
Unfortunately, the aspirations of Nigerian women were dashed when these bills were rejected with overwhelming NO votes in both the Senate and House of Representatives during their voting on Tuesday, 1st March 2022.
Nigeria is still far from achieving women’s substantial and effective participation in political decision-making, especially in the Legislature. Nigeria currently sits at the bottom of every global ranking on women inclusion. Of note is Nigeria sharing the bottom three positions in the ranking of African countries on women in parliaments with two other African countries who have not had the benefit of elections in years. Women occupy a meagre 4% of seats in the National Assembly. Fifteen State Assemblies do not have a single woman in their composition, yet these are spaces where everyday issues affecting citizens, half of which are women, are discussed and decided. Several declarations to take specific action to improve women’s political participation have been made, including the National Assembly promising in its Legislative Agenda, to make inclusion a priority. However, in light of yesterday’s voting results, we make bold to say that they have failed in this regard.
PLAC has supported and closely monitored the work of the National Assembly on Constitution Review since the first set of alterations by the 6th Assembly. We are aware that women groups and civil society activists have fought for greater women’s political inclusion long before this time but have achieved minimal success owing to resistance and lack of commitment to measures proposed. Consequently, proposals such as the Special/Additional Seats Bill came as a unique response to the lessons learned over the years, that political parties would not implement numeric targets for women candidates to contest for elections. It is therefore unfortunate to see this proposal, which is a temporary special measure in use in other African countries, voted down.
We maintain that equal participation of women and their access to positions of political leadership and decision making at all levels are fundamental for achieving much needed economic growth and a well-functioning democracy. Nigerian women should be able to freely exercise their right to participate politically as voters, political party members, candidates, elected representatives and appointed officials. For these reasons, we call on the National Assembly to take measures to remedy the current situation.
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SIGNED:
Clement Nwankwo
Executive Director
Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre (PLAC)
