Nigeria must join rest of the world to protect rights of women — Gbajabiamila

…says House’ll reintroduce Equal Opportunity Bill

By Tordue

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rep. Femi Gbajabiamila, on Thursday, urged the federal government to raise its standards concerning the rights of women.

In a statement signed by Special Adviser on Media, Mr Lanre Lasisi, the Speaker declared that his leadership has already made the protection of women and promoting gender-based issues, a hot item on its Legislative Agenda.

He spoke at the National Assembly when he received a delegation from a development partner, OXFAM International, on a courtesy visit to his office in Abuja on Thursday.

Gbajabiamila assured the team that the House would do everything within its limits to protect and defend the rights of women, though he clarified that the ultimate goal would be to achieve gender equality by addressing the interests of both women and men.

“We can’t be left behind in the 21st Century where the world is a global place. We can’t be left behind as a country in terms of how women are protected”, Gbajabiamila stated.

However, in pursuing gender issues, the Speaker stressed that the Legislature, in collaboration with other stakeholders, must interrogate why attempts to promote matters affecting women often faced hiccups.

He noted that some of the factors could be “sentiments” and interests of various dimensions, which needed to be tackled so that gender-based issues could have a smooth sail in Parliament.

Speaking specifically on the Gender Equal Opportunity Bill, which had failed passage several times at the National Assembly, Gbajabiamila promised that the House would reintroduce it, while at the same time partnering with stakeholders to attend to the factors working against the bill.

The Speaker said, “That bill has been with the National Assembly for six to seven years, I guess. It failed a couple of times. When a bill fails like that, clearly there must be a reason. It is that reason that we need to interrogate. If you keep presenting a bill over and over again, thinking okay, we will wear these people down, the reasons why it failed to remain.

“What we need to do is to interrogate the issues, the sentiments. Why did the bill fail? When we find out, there are two ways to approach it: either you share education by sensitising/lobbying people who may be against the bill for that reason, or to recouch the bill and achieve the same result.”

Gbajabiamila added, “It is our desire in the House to…