#IWD2022: Nigeria’s parliament fails to break bias, frustrates moves for gender equality, affirmative action

It is still fresh on the minds of Nigerians, especially the women, how federal parliamentarians voted against different gender bills last week Tuesday.

Following the votes, women hit the streets in different cities across the country to protest and ask the National Assembly to reconsider the bills. The “mother of all protest”, they called it.

The legislations, five of them, among others, seek to ensure affirmative action in political parties as well as elective and appointive positions.

People who monitored the Constitution Amendment process at both chambers of the National Assembly last Tuesday, will still remember not just how the lawmakers voted against the bills but their countenance during the process as well.

They would remember how obvious it was that some lawmakers had made up their minds to reject the gender bills from their poise when the bills were mentioned.

They would remember how the lawmakers echoed “no!!” in very loud tones when it was time to vote on the bills.

They would also remember how the lawmakers, after voting, and satisfied with the results, giggled and cackled at each other – over their actions which many said, have taken the country multiple steps backwards.

Although many remember scenes from last week Tuesday’s plenary session, very little were surprised.

Prior to the voting process, one could place a bet that the lawmakers would reject the bills – and win. This is simply because the male-dominated parliament has always been against legislations that would seem to give even the slightest power to women.

Although the Ahmad Lawan-led assembly has helped amplify this belief, the habit of rejecting gender-related bills dates back to previous assemblies.

NASS and its history of frustrating gender bills

When Ekiti senator, Biodun Olujimi, presented the Gender and Equal Opportunities bill for second reading in December 2021, this reporter could tell how the deliberation would end as soon as two lawmakers – men – began to pick holes in the bill.

The legislation was eventually stepped down.

That would be the third time Ms Olujimi would bring the bill to the Senate for consideration.

First introduced in the Eighth Senate in March 2016, it seeks to give women equal opportunities in employment, equal rights to inheritance for both male and female children; equal rights for women in marriage and divorce, and equal access to education, property/land ownership and inheritance.

The bill was rejected by male lawmakers who argued that the Nigerian Constitution was clear on the rights of citizens, including women.

Mrs Olujimi reworked the bill to address the issues raised, and represented it to the Senate. This time, it scaled second reading and was referred to the Senate committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters but no public hearing was held.

In November 2019, the bill was reintroduced. And during the second reading last December, two senators – Aliyu Wamakko and Yusuf Yusuf – argued that the word “equality” was against the socio-cultural practice of Islam.

So, the most recent show of disregard for women issues and affirmative action was, again, not surprising.

This time, they rejected five bills – bill to provide special seats for women at the National Assembly, affirmative action for women in political party administration and bill to grant citizenship to foreign-born husbands of a Nigerian woman.

Others are 35 per cent of political positions based on appointment to women and creation of additional 111 seats in the National Assembly as well as at the state assemblies and affirmative action in favour of women in appointive positions.

Besides “killing” the Gender Equality bill, the eighth assembly, led by Bukola Saraki, also voted against affirmative action for women as ministers in 2017.

The consistent effort and success of the National Assembly to discard gender bill proves one thing – the lawmakers are in no way interested in breaking the bias.

International Women’s Day

IWD, an annual global event marked on March 8, celebrates women around the world, promotes gender quality and seeks to eliminate gender stereotypes.

The theme for this year’s IWD is #BreaktheBias.

Besides eliminating gender bias and promoting gender equality, this year’s event seeks to celebrate women’s achievements in all sectors.

While many countries are probably celebrating the achievements and new feats of their women today, Nigerian women are on the streets, calling on the federal lawmakers to act righ with regards to the gender bills.

Many have described as shameful, the fact that Nigeria still struggles to make laws that will promote gender parity.

Ninth assembly and ‘audio’ promises

With regards to promoting legislations on gender issues, the ninth assembly is a far cry from what we have now.

Apart from promising to work ‘assiduously’ with the Executive, Mr Lawan has always claimed that the ninth Senate is gender-friendly and gender-sensitive, and will always be so.

He echoed this at the ministerial screening in 2019 where he and his colleagues refused to screen the female nominees. They simply asked the women to “take a bow and go.”

No senator queried the president for nominating only seven women among the 43 ministerial nominees.

It could be said that the senate president also “helped” to “kill” the Gender Equality bill last year when he insisted that the sponsor take down the bill.

Some political watchers believe that the bill would have been sent to committee stages where the sponsor and other relevant stakeholders will raise issues and address them.

“It is sad that at this age and time, we are still struggling to have men align with proposed provisions of Gender Equality bill. It is sad that at this time, our parliament is filled with men who are not willing to open up to the possibility of seeing women grown just as them.

“We live in a place where women have to work twice as hard as the men and they do not seem to care,” Cynthia Mbamalu, the director of Programmes for Yiaga Africa, said on PREMIUM TIMES Twitter Space.

In June 2021, this paper reported how the Lawan-led Senate had recorded more failures than successes in the first two years. An updated version of that report would be to add the lawmakers’ disregard and rejection of gender bills to the list of failures.

Fear of “too much power”

Apart from the moral and religious reasons given for rejecting the gender bills in the past, one other reason that has been echoed more than once, is the fear of “giving women” too much power.

A member of the House of Representatives, Muhammed Kazaure, had in March, warned his colleagues against giving women ‘too much opportunity.’

He also warned them against being ‘overthrown’ by women.

The women, he said, already have enormous power over men, and giving them more will condemn the men to the back seat.

“What I fear Mr Speaker, they control us at home. When we give them opportunity outside, when they control us outside the home, they will capture everything, Mr Speaker.

“That is what I fear because most of the women are very intelligent because you can see a chief, a big man controlled by his wife. That is what I observe,” he said.

And recently, Rivers State senator, Betty Apiafi, said something similar.

Ms Apiafi, who is also the Chair of the Senate Committee on Women Affairs, said the northern caucus of the National Assembly met prior to the day of voting, and agreed to reject all gender-related bills.

“The women actually lobbied a lot but what happened is that the northern caucus of the National Assembly – both House and Senate – took a decision not to vote on any issue concerning women.

“…Because of the bias that they have about women. They just don’t want women to come to the National Assembly. they just don’t believe that women have to be heard.

“Infact, on this particular constitutional amendment, we came from different directions, Olujimi brought her bill, Nkeiru brought hers – which is a fall out of the Uwais panel report.

“I came with my own engendering the western law. We came from different directions, they pulled down every single one of them,” she told AIT last week.

The lawmaker also said there is no possibility that the bill can be represented in a constitutional amendment.

“You can only re-present the bills when there is another constitutional amendment. We have been on these bills since 2007, it’s not today we started and we always get the same response from men.”

The way forward

The establishment of 35 per cent gender quotas in the Constitution and manifestoes of political parties can be a mutually reinforcing strategy, the Centre for Democracy and Development has said in its latest report on Women and Electoral Politics.

CDD said parties should also be encouraged to undertake gender audits of the implementation of such commitments that are made available to the public ahead of elections. And civil society should systematically review such audits, reporting on parties who are either adhering or reneging on gender quotas.

It also said “top-down” approaches to advocacy on women’s representation should be reviewed.

And like many other Nigerians, the CDD stressed the need for the National Assembly to pass the Gender and Equal Opportunities bill and the bill that seeks to create special seats for women in the federal and state legislative houses.

If passed into law, it said, these legislations will strategically and constructively increase female representation.

For Ndi Kato, the Executive Director of Dinidari Foundation, Nigeria will not get better unless gender equality is seen as a solution.

The country, she said, would only get better when laws that enable the rights of women to survive, freely participate in governance and decision making are given priority.

The National Assembly’s rejection of the gender bills has further shrunk the space for women’s participation in governance and decision making, she said.

“From the quality of law-making, you can see that things are lopsided, and this is affecting Nigeria as a country. Women make up over 50 per cent of our population and these people are disenfranchised and their rights are not guaranteed.

“Who would the indigeneship and 35 per cent affirmative action in the political parties hurt? It’s enraging to see that Nigerian men do not want to hear anything that has to do with women’s rights.

“You can draw a straight line from the quality of lives of women (especially in the north) and the insurgency we are facing today. Countries where women are included in decision making, given equal representation and their rights guaranteed, are better than ours. Until gender equality and equity are considered as a possible solution to our problem, things will not get better,” she said.

Besides recommitting the gender bills for consideration and passage, both the Executive and the Legislature need to be reminded that Nigeria is a signatory to a number of international instruments that address gender inequality such as the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).

Article 7 of this law prescribes that state parties shall take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in the political and public life of the country and, in particular, shall ensure to women on equal terms with men the right to vote in all elections and public referenda and to be eligible for election to all publicly elected bodies; to participate in the formulation of government policy and the implementation thereof and to hold public office and perform all public functions at all levels of government; and to participate in non-governmental organizations and associations concerned with the public and political life of the country.

There is also the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action that addresses various aspects of women’s lives in relation to the realisation of their human rights.

Nigerian lawmakers therefore need to understand that except these laws are passed and enacted, there would always be bias in public spaces – leaving the women disadvantaged.