Nigeria could not afford to be left behind in the global trend to protect and defend the rights of women, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rep. Femi Gbajabiamila, has said.
The Speaker stated that on the part of the 9th House, it had already made the protection of women and promoting gender-based issues, an important 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 the whole lot within its limits to protect and defend the rights of girls, even though he clarified that the final aim might be to achieve gender equality through addressing the hobbies of each women and men.
"We can't be left at the back of in the 21st Century wherein the arena is a international vicinity. We cannot be left at the back of as a country in terms of how women are included", Gbajabiamila said.
However, in pursuing gender issues, the Speaker harassed that the Legislature, in collaboration with other stakeholders, should interrogate why attempts to promote matters affecting ladies often faced hiccups.
He mentioned that a number of the elements will be "sentiments" and pastimes of various dimensions, which needed to be tackled so that gender-based totally troubles could have a clean sail in Parliament.
Speaking especially at the Gender Equal Opportunity Bill, which had failed passage numerous instances on the National Assembly, Gbajabiamila promised that the House could reintroduce it, at the same time as on the identical time partnering with stakeholders to take care of the factors running in opposition to the invoice.
The Speaker said, "That invoice has been with the National Assembly for 6 to seven years, I wager. It failed more than one times. When a bill fails like that, truly there have to be a reason. It is that motive that we need to interrogate. If you preserve supplying a invoice time and again once more, thinking k, we can put on those humans down, the motives why it failed continue to be.
"What we need to do is to interrogate the problems, the sentiments. Why did the bill fail? When we find out, there are two methods to method it: both you percentage training by means of sensitising/lobbying folks that may be in opposition to the bill for that reason, or to recouch the bill and acquire the identical result."
Gbajabiamila added, "It is our desire in the House to push the invoice thru, but we need to paintings hard and discover why the bill has had challenges. It's a terrific invoice that we want to look at and push thru."
The Country Director of OXFAM in Nigeria, Mr Constant Tchona, while speaking in advance, knowledgeable Gbajabiamila how because the Nineteen Sixties, the business enterprise were supporting the 3 levels of presidency to come to be "extra agile and attentive to troubles of social safety, human rights, humans-oriented coverage making and implementation."
Tchona, who praised the Speaker for his gender and social improvement tasks, seized the possibility of the go to to canvass the passage of the Gender Equal Opportunity Bill by using the Legislature.
He said this will "move an extended way to redefine inclusive social and monetary improvement in Nigeria."
The company embraced maximum of the social improvement projects of the Speaker, imparting to partner with the Speaker's Office to execute and produce them to fruition.
Signed:
Lanre Lasisi, Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to the Speaker, House of Representatives, Federal Republic of Nigeria.
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