The House of Representatives has offered support for the creation of special additional seats for women both in the National Assembly, and the state Houses of Assembly, as a bill to that effect scaled second reading on its floor Wednesday.
If eventually enacted into law, membership of the House of Representatives will increase by 74, bringing the total to 434 from the current 360, while the Senate will increase by 37 members from its existing 109, to a total of 146.
The bill proposed alteration to sections 48, 49, 71, 77, 91 and 117 of the 1999 constitution (as amended), with proposal for one such additional Senator for each state and the FCT, 2 additional members of the House of Representatives from each state and the FCT, as well as one additional member from each of the three Senatorial districts of a state as members of the state parliaments, and all to be women.
Deputy Majority Whip of the House, Nkiruka Onyejeocha, who led 85 other members to sponsor the bill confirmed that Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila and some other principal officers of the House have endorsed the bill, and were part of the sponsors, noting that it was intended “to remedy the low representation of women in legislative houses by providing for the creation of additional separate seats to be contested and filled by only women as a temporary measure to promote women’s representation.”
She also stated that the bill, if signed into law, “is subject to a review after four general election cycles of 16 years, for the purpose of retaining, increasing, or abolishing the temporary measure.”
The lawmaker lamented that women had only 4.4% percent representation in the 9th National Assembly, adding that Nigeria has been identified as the worst performer in women representation in parliaments, in the West African region, and one of the lowest in the whole of Africa.
