Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rep. Femi Gbajabiamila has assured that Nigeria would not be left behind in the global trend to protect and defend the rights of women.
Speaking at the National Assembly, where he received a delegation from a development partner, OXFAM International, on a courtesy visit to his office in Abuja on Thursday.
He assured the team that the House would do everything within its limits to protect and defend the rights of women, clarifying that the ultimate goal would be to achieve gender equality by addressing the interests of both women and men.
However, 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.
He 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 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 push the bill through, but we need to work hard and find out why the bill has had challenges. It's a good bill that we need to look at and push through."
Speaking Country Director of OXFAM Nigeria, Mr Constant Tchona informed Gbajabiamila how since the 1960s, the organization had been supporting the three tiers of government to become more agile and responsive to issues of social protection, human rights, people-oriented policy making ANS implementation.
While praising the speaker for his gender and social development initiatives, he seized the opportunity of the visit to canvass the passage of the Gender Equal Opportunity Bill by the Legislature.
He stated that this would go a long way to redefine inclusive social and economic development in Nigeria.
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