A coalition of gender advocates has renewed calls for re-introduction of five gender bills rejected by the ninth National Assembly. 

Under the umbrella of #constitutionwomenwant, the group, led by Women Advocates Research and Documentation, (WARDC), with support from United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and Palladium, at the weekend in Abuja, launched an hashtag for a series of online and offline activities, including social media campaigns.

Founder and Executive Director of WARDC, Dr. Abiola Akiyode-Afolabi said: “Women’s leadership and political participation are crucial for advancing gender equality and inclusive governance. That is why WARDC is moving to galvanise public support at national and state levels for reintroduction and passage of five genders bills.

“The movement is growing and people are getting more involved, and the Deputy Speaker of House of Representatives, Benjamin Kalu, has been speaking about the gender bills, so we hope that we will be able to maintain that relationship and convince members of parliament.

“We have two assignments at this event, one is to hashtag campaign #afgirmativeaction and #reconsider5genderbills, and the second is, to relaunch the signature campaign on the gender bills, which was started earlier, as this will ensure the safeguard of the rights of women and vulnerable groups.”

She added that the campaign sought to raise one million signatures nationwide for reconsideration of the bills. 

Kalu, on his part, said: “Not all issues or debates on the floor on the House get to sail through on first attempt, but the attempt by women in the ninth Assembly, in my own analysis, was a very successful one, and that has given rise to a better strategy that the women are adopting in current review for the 10th Assembly.”

Represented by his Special Assistant on Strategy and Programme Development, Katu Simon, the Abia State representative submitted: “I think that the five bills need more enlightenment to their purpose. Quite a number of people, even some of the legislators didn’t get to understand them until it got to the floor of the House. So, I think if there’s anything that should be done now and better, is the aspect of educating not just the legislatures, but the people to understand the value of these bills.”

Highlighting efforts by the Occupy National Assembly campaign on the proposed pieces of legislation, ex-Country Director ActionAid Nigeria, Ene Obi, observed that the media played a key role in promoting the campaign.

Her words: “The media was with us throughout the four weeks of occupation, they were there and they gave all the prominence. It was a battle.

“One thing we need to note is that in many conversations with members of the National Assembly, they asked what we did before. We did a lot of things, but it was not enough before the bills were presented. Now we are going to make another presentation of the bills, we need to do more. We need to do a lot of sensitization.”