Federal lawmaker, representing the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, in the Senate, Ireti Kingibe, has said that the six special seats for women in the Nigerian Senate will not change anything.
According to her, the Senate will still remain overwhelmingly male-dominated.
She lamented that reducing the special seats to 6 does not solve the problem, adding that it does not fundamentally change representation or the balance of voices in the Senate.
Ireti, who is the Chair, Senate Committee on Women Affairs, pointed out that until there are deliberate measures to increase women’s representation, the situation would remain the same.
Speaking on Arise News, the lawmaker was asked whether the political setting in Nigeria is not rather too hostile for women.
She said, “No, it’s only because the men choose to make it so. In the National Assembly, outspoken men are described as just outspoken. Outspoken women like me are described as troublesome.
“Now I’ve even asked some men to define what the difference is between an outspoken female parliamentarian and why do you describe them differently? Now, the gender equal opportunity bill has gone to first reading. I’ve been struggling for it to go to second reading.
“Whenever I lobby some of my colleagues, especially the older ones, it is ‘why do you need that? Does it not contravene the Constitution?’ I said no, the Constitution says 50% and I’m asking you to enforce 35%.
“Now even the special seats the Senate insisted that from 37 they cut it down to six. Now, let me just give you theoretically, there are four female senators in the Senate right now, let us assume that two do not return, when you add six to them, please, what’s the difference? Eight senators.
“And I tried to make that argument that six is inconsequential. It does not change the narrative of anything. In fact, I will also tell you that even in the Senate, when you have four women, yes, you cannot spread four women across everything but lots of times you set up an ad-hoc committee of 20 people, sometimes there’s no woman on it.
“And at the end of the day, I believe that until we, the countries that are not gender inclusive, have penalties internationally, things are not going to change.
“They have started some of the penalties right now in a lot of the International parliaments, any country that does not have a woman, sometimes two women on his delegation, depending on the number of delegates, cannot vote its full votes.
“Nigeria is unlikely to comply, because the men have this reactionary attitude that is more cultural than even religions. Because countries like UAE, Saudi Arabia, all those ones that are Muslim countries, they’ve left us all behind and Nigeria is supposed to be even a secular state.
“So I do not see the reason, except that we have a society that is oppressive to women. Sometimes you want to say something. You’re not allowed to speak unless you make a fuss. How then do you get this country to develop without the voice of 50% of its population?
“We do have a problem. I am also waiting to see that, will we actually pass this bill before the 10th Assembly finishes? I remember that even after we do, we still need 24 state assemblies to agree.”
