House of representatives rescinds decision on 3 gender bills

The House of Representatives has rescinded its decision on three bills affecting women in the ongoing constitution amendment which have now been tagged the “gender bills”.

The bills are the Citizenship bill- this bill seeks to amend section 26 of the 1999 constitution to provide for citizenship by registration for foreign spouses of Nigerian women. The constitution already confers automatic citizenship on foreign-born wives of Nigerian men.

Affirmative action bill- This bill proposes an amendment to section 223 of the constitution to provide 35% affirmative action to ensure women occupy at least 35% in political party administration.

Indigeneship bill- The bill seeks to amend the constitution to allow a woman to become an indigene of her husband’s state after at least five years of marriage.

The House took the decision to rescind its decision after a motion by honourable Hassan Fulata, who called for a suspension of the House rules in order to reconsider the motion.

“Honourable members recall that on the first of March we voted for constitution amendment on 68 bills, however, three (gender) bills could not scale through because we could not obtain the two-third majority to pass the bills.” Fulata said.

“Accordingly, in line with our extant rules, I move that we suspend our extant rules to rescind our decision in respect of these three bills and recommit to them committee of the whole for reconsideration.” He added.

Speaker Femi Gbajabiamilla in contribution said the bills will be considered when voting begins on the constitution amendment coming up in four weeks.

The decision of the House came after serious protests by women groups after the bills failed to pass during the first round of voting on March 1 2022.

The women groups took their protests to the national assembly. They did not stop there as they also mobilized across the country and the protests spread across the states.