Senate denies diaspora Nigerians voting rights, rejects Affirmative Action for women - ITREALMS

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The Nigerian Senate has rejected the 68 amendment clauses of the 1999 constitution denying Affirmative Action for women, which sought to create special seats for the female gender, reports ITREALMS..

This is coming on Tuesday in Abuja, as they denied Nigerians in diaspora the right to vote during elections and also denied support for the 35 per cent for appointed positions for women.

Tuesday, March 1, 2022 is known as the first day of International Women’s Month.


ITREALMS gathered that the Bill sought to create special seats for women in the Senate, House of Representatives and State Houses of Assembly by creating one special seat in each state of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) reserved solely for women without prejudice to their eligibility to contest in the existing senatorial seats in each state and the FCT.

Part of the bill read:

“For the House of Representatives, it is two additional seat for each state and the FCT that is to be reserved for women without prejudice to their eligibility to contest for the other seats. And finally for the Houses of Assembly of each state one additional seat from each of the three Senatorial District is reserved solely for women. This is to enhance/encourage women participation and representation in governance.”

ITREALMS also gathered that at the end of the session, out the 91 senators who registered to vote on the clause, 30 voted yes, 58 voted no and 3 abstained, making it a colossal failure.

Additional clause on Affirmative Action (Clause 68), which sought to alter the constitution to provide a minimum percentage of ten women nominees as Ministers and Commissioners in the Federal and State Executive Councils respectively, as it will guarantee inclusivity of women in governance suffered set back and did not pass.

The clause, ITREALMS gathered, required the support of at least 73 senators, but the voting was 44 in favour and 43 against with one abstaining.

Equally, ITREALMS reports that ‘Affirmative Action for women in political party administration,’ which suggested “a minimum of 35 per cent of party executive members at all levels did not seal through with 53 voting for “no” and 34 going for “yes” while 3 abstained.

Uboshe Uboshe/Editor

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