The Speaker of the House of Representatives Rt. Hon. Abbas Tajudeen, has said that the life of the 10th House will be a decisive term in the realisation of gender inclusion and balance in politics and governance in Nigeria.
The Speaker stated this when he hosted a delegation from the British Parliament parliamentarians in office on Monday, saying that the 10th House has identified the need to ensure gender parity, and has commenced the process of effecting constitutional reforms aimed at achieving the goal.
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Speaker Abbas, who noted the diverse nature of the 10th House given its multiparty origin, told the MPs that not only is the House diverse in political party representation, it also takes the issue of women and youths very seriously.
“The 10th House is quite a diverse institution in that for the first time in the history of this legislature, we have seven different political parties being represented in the parliament. For the first time, we also have created and dedicated two standing committees to women and two for the youths. The reason being that we are being very intentional about giving these two segments of our society adequate voice to be heard in the decision-making process.
“For the women, we have the committee on Women Affairs, and that on Women in Parliament. While we also have the Committee on Youth Development, and that on Youth in Parliament. We have ensured that we don’t leave any female representative without a key leadership position in the House so that they can use that platform to also advance the cause of women in the House,” he said.
The Speaker assured the MPs that the House under his leadership will play a decisive role in actualising gender parity.
He said: “It would also interest you to know that we have passed so many legislations, and we have equally proposed some bills in the constitution amendment to ensure that this time around, we have the decisive term for women inclusion in governance. We have proposed a legislation that will cede 33 per cent of seats for women in parliament, and we have also proposed for 30 per cent of non elective positions for women across all tiers and arms of government — borrowing a leave from our brothers and sisters in Uganda and Tanzania where similar initiatives were done in the past and it’s really working for them.
“We want to see how we can be able to convince not only our brothers here and the senators, but also the subnational legislatures where 2/3 of them will have to vote in favour for the bills to become laws. And I want to use this opportunity to thank the President and the First Lady who are both ambassadors of the legislature – the First Lady is a three-term senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and who has also gotten involved in this fight of ensuring that this time around, our women get to their rightful places in our politics.”
The Speaker therefore called on the United Kingdom parliament for support in actualising the feat saying: “These are some of the initiatives we are working on and I believe a collaboration with you in the UK parliament will go a long way. We need advice. We need support on how best to achieve this. These subject matters have been on the front burner for many years through various assemblies without any success. But this time around we want to make sure that we break that jinx by getting them passed, and we will need your support and I assure you that the constitution amendment exercise will go on as planned and we hope to ensure that women have the inclusion that they deserve.”
Earlier, the leader of the delegation, Kate Ofunne Osamor, a Nigeria-born British MP, had told the Speaker that they were in the House to deepen the parliamentary diplomatic ties that exist between Nigeria and the UK, and to also find out about the place of diversity and gender inclusivity in Nigeria’s Legislature and other aspects of governance.
Other members of the delegation also asked questions on different areas of Nigeria’s legislative practices relative to what obtains in the UK, just as the Speaker of the House took time to explain the leadership structure and composition of the House and how they came about.
Other Members present also provided insights into the workings of the House through its Committees as enshrined in relevant sections of the constitution.