A Gender Advocate has called on the Senate to reconsider it’s stand on the bill which seeks to grant 35% affirmative action for women as ministers or commissioners in the constituion amendment proposal.
The Senate had on July 26 voted against the stipulated percentage for women.
Of the 109 Senators in the National Assembly, only seven are women while 15 of 360 members of the house of Representatives are women.
The women who expressed concern at the margin said it depicts a glaring lopsidedness in the political space adding Nigeria would only attain it’s full potential of development if the 35 percent affirmative action in governance and other public offices is practicable.
CEO of Dukes Transnational Care Initiative (DTCI), Mrs. Cecilia Idika-Kalu spoke at a stakeholders forum in Abuja with the theme: ‘The Nigerian Woman: Citizenship Engagement in Democracy, Peace Building and Conflict Prevention’.
Mrs. Idika-Kalu said: ”For us, we see and believe that women do not have a secondary role to men in issues that affects society.
“Women have primary role and to that extent, we offer capacity to women to take up that role, strengthen them and tool them to be able to lend their voices to issues that have to do with peace building.
“One thing that we cannot do is to rest the case to demand for 35 percent affirmative action. The Senate has to reconsider it’s stand on that decision.
“It is an impossibility for us to rest the case of demanding for affirmative action, it may take more tume, further pressure and hardwork but it is important, if not for oirselves, for the generation after us and for our young ladies and daughters that are able and intelligent across Nigeria and have so much to offer to our development as a nation, we would press on.
Also speaking, the Head of ECOWAS Liaison Office at the Africa Union, Raheemat Momodu called for more professional and political mentoring for women.
She also suggested that the country establish women political fund where women who wants to go into politics would be funded.
She said: “So we need young women to be mentored by women who are already in governance or who are in political limelight. This would give them more experience to be able to aspire.
“One of the biggest obstacle to women being nominated or elected from party primaries is money and other materials resources to campaign and try to be on the same level playing ground with the men.
“If the fund is established no matter how small, it would help because women are large. Imagine if all the women in Nigeria contribute N5 a year, you would see how far it would go.
“Apart from the financial support that the money would provide, it would also help women across the spectrum of the society who believe in women and Equal Opportunity.”