Senate President Ahmad Lawan says he regrets the inability of the 9th Senate under his purview to pass the Gender Equality Bill, expected to advance the rights of women in Nigeria.
Lawan made this known on Friday, on the sideline of the homage paid to President Muhammadu Buhari on the occasion of Eid-el-fitr festivities at the State House, Abuja
According to him, bills concerning the National Assembly could not see the light of the day but it was not a basis to write off the Senate as having under performed.
Of about 68 legislations or amendments, five bills sought to promote more opportunities for women in political parties, governance and the society at large.
But the National Assembly voted against all five bills concerning the women folk, prompting criticisms from cross section of Nigerians.
One of the five bills sought to grant citizenship to foreign-born husbands of a Nigerian woman. Already, a Nigerian man’s foreign-born wife is automatically a Nigerian citizen.
While another bill sought to allocate 35 per cent of political positions based on appointment to women. Another legislation sought to create special seats for women in National and State Assemblies.
The Senate President therefore advised proponents of such bills not to lose hope, but rather campaign vigorously when representing them to the 10th National Assembly.
In his words, “First of all, when the bills, five of them that concern women were not voted for by the National Assembly. I think naturally, there are things that we assume could happen. But they didn’t happen the way we wanted them. But remember that even bills that concern the National Assembly were killed.
“There are bills that concern the National Assembly itself, that did not see the light of the day. I felt bad that we could not pass even one. But then we shouldn’t really lose hope we should continue to campaign, we should talk to more and more members of the National Assembly. And we should also re-strategize.
“Maybe the kind of campaign that was undertaken may not be necessarily the one that will give you the kind of outcome that we needed. But I’m very confident that we should continue to campaign for issues that we have not been able to get right.”
