By Our Reporters
Normal activities at the National Assembly, Abuja took a huge, disruptive blow on Wednesday, 2 March, 2023 as an army of protesting Nigerian women took over the main gates and thoroughfare of the national parliament to demonstrate their grievances with the ongoing amendment of the 1999 Constitution in which a number of female-friendly bills were voted down by the lawmakers.
The women, whose age, educational attainment and status in life cut across all demographics, including the physically-challenged, rallied together in a display of great camaraderie on the protest ground, insisting that all the female-centric bills dropped by both chambers of the National Assembly must be re-introduced and passed, or else they would continue to occupy the parliament.
The women protested under the aegis of the Nigerian Women Groups, a coalition of over 100 gender-based civil society organisations. They included lawyer and rights activist, Mrs. Abiola Akiyode-Afolabi, who led the women in call-and-response protest songs and dances, etc; President, Women in Politics Forum, Ebere Ifendu; and Programme Director, YIAGA Africa, Ms. Cynthia Mbamalu, among others. A contingent of Women in Business (WIMBIZ) was also prominent at the protest.
The Dream Daily Newspaper observed that the protesting women were well provisioned with food, water as well as other existential comestibles, including entertainment, to sustain the protest for a considerable length of time as they threatened to do if their demands were not met. In fact, The Dream Daily Newspaper noticed a steady supply of food and water to replenish the fast dwindling stock of the protesters, which suggests that the organisers were well prepared for the long haul.
The Dream Daily Newspaper can also report that national parliamentarians, their legislative aides as well as other workers at the National Assembly and visitors could not access the assembly complex through the main boulevard. They had to use other access gates to gain access, which alternative routes were not easily accessible to workers and legislative aides who came to work by public transport. The protesting women announced publicly that they were aware of these alternative getaways used by the lawmakers and threatened to also block them in the coming days if the National Assembly members remained impervious to their demands.
Also, the operations of private transporters who usually convey workers and visitors to the assembly complex were grounded well past midday when the security men at the gates allowed them to ferry passengers to the alternative gates. Even then the passengers were forced to disembark at these other gates and walked the long distance inside the vast National Assembly Grounds.
When it dawned on the lawmakers that the protesting women were going nowhere on the day, the National Assembly leadership dispatched some members to address the protesters.
The women were addressed by the Minority Leader of the Senate, Eyinnaya Abaribe, who said he supported the bills but was outvoted. He urged the women to seek the voting records to ascertain the actual identities of the lawmakers who voted against the bills.
His words: “I will pass your message on to the Senate President and I will urge him to come and respond to you personally. I voted for everything for women. I voted for everything that you wanted. The record of the voting is a public document. It is your right to ask for it from the Senate President and the Speaker and publish it so that everybody will know.”
Mbamalu said the women groups would demand the voting records.
Senators Ajayi Borroffice and Sabi Abdullah also came on behalf of the Senate to address the protesters, who insisted that they would only speak to the Senate President and the Speaker of the House of Representatives.
Curiously, attempts by a female Senator from Plateau, Nora Daduut, to address the women were rebuffed.
Hon. Lynda Ikpeazu of the House of Representatives also came to address the women on behalf of Speaker, House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila.
Akiyode-Afolabi said: “Women have questions that we want to ask them. Why is it that in this country, we seem not to be relevant because the attitude we saw yesterday, the issues that were treated, show that we are not taken seriously. This is 2022. The country should have grown up by now. We want to find out from them. Issue of citizenship is a major problem for them.”
The women, in an official statement, said male parliamentarians had strengthened constitutional biases against women by denying citizenship to a foreign-born husband of a Nigerian woman, while allowing Nigerian men’s foreign-born wives to be awarded automatic citizenship; denying Nigerian women indigeneity through marriage; and denying 35 per cent appointed positions for women by settling for 20 per cent.
However, it appears that the women would have to wait for the 10th National Assembly, which will be elected next year, to have another fighting chance of getting the killed bills passed. This is because Senate spokesman, Ajibola Basiru, has foreclosed a review of the constitutional amendment process.
In an un-nuanced reaction to the women’s protest Basiru said: “They are free to protest; it is part of their democratic right to protest. To protest is a right of everybody. The bills cannot be revisited! There were 68 bills, 21 of them could not pass, so why should we revisit three bills. They should continue with their lobbying and strategy ahead of another round of legislative amendments. That it was rejected at this time does not mean it has been foreclosed. Then, they need to even come up with practical and implementable propositions.
“It is part of the democratic process that you must respect the decision of the government and it is also part of their democratic right to protest. We identify with their protests but there is nothing that we can do for now. The National Assembly has taken a position and we cannot reverse ourselves.”
About four-gender related bills failed to pass at the Senate and the House of Representatives on Tuesday. The rejected proposals include Bill 35 to “provide for special seat for women in the National and state Houses of Assembly;” Bill 36 to “expand the scope of citizenship by registration;” Bill 37 to “provide for affirmative action for women in political party administration;” Bill 38 to “provide criteria for qualification to become an indigene of a state in Nigeria;” and Bill 68 which is to give women a quota in the federal and state executive councils or ministerial and commissionership seats.
Below are pictures of the protesting women as captured by The Dream Daily Newspaper’s Photography Department:
Leave a Reply