July 23, (THEWILL) — A group, the Support Reserved Seats for Women Coalition, has lauded the 10th National Assembly for its effort in promoting the Reserved Seats for Women Bill.
The group expressed this appreciation during a press briefing in Owerri, Imo State capital, ahead of the South East Public Hearing on the review of the 1999 Constitution, held in Owerri, for Abia and Imo States.
Speaking, the South East Coordinator of the coalition, Dr Adaora Onyechere, in company of the Chairperson of the Coalition, Dr Vivian Dimgba, and Imo and Abia States Coordinators of the, appreciated the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt Hon. Benjamin Kalu, for personally sponsoring the Bill, with other male and female co-sponsors and the National Assembly for giving it accelerated hearing and consideration.
She asserted that if the National Assembly did not pass the Bill for first and second reading, there would not be any discussion about it, adding that “for the fact that you passed it, we want to say thank you and we know that you are going a step further to pass the Bill entirely.
Onyechere disclosed that the bill seeks to create reserved seats for only women to contest elections in Nigeria, viz one Senatorial seat, one House of Representatives seat and three House of Assembly seats for women only to contest in each state of the thirty-six states of Nigeria.
She made it clear that the Bill is not contesting the already existing constituency seats in the states, but purely new seats created and reserved for women, who will represent the states, not any particular constituency.
Onyechere described the Bill when passed into law as a test Law planned to run for four election cycles, which is sixteen years, after which it will be reviewed to check the gains and losses and decide whether to continue with it or not.
She made it clear that the Bill will increase women voices, berating a situation where women who are greater in population, especially in the South East have just about 4 percent representation in the current Nigerian parliament; Four women Senators, 14 women House of Representatives members, only fourteen state Houses of Assembly with women representatives, while the rest 22 states have no single women parliamentarian.
In the case of the South East, Onyechere disclosed that Imo and Abia have no female representative in their parliament, while other states have members as follows: Enugu 2, Ebonyi 1 and Anambra 1.
