Reps Make New Decision On Rejected Gender Bills | READ DETAILS

Reps Make New Decision On Rejected Gender Bills | READ DETAILS

The House of Representatives has made a U-Turn on three of the earlier rejected gender bills.

Five gender bills were rejected by the lawmakers during the voting on the 1999 constitution amendment bills on March 1, 2022.

Rejection of the bills had sparked nationwide reaction with women staging a protest at the National Assembly.

The 3 affected bills seek to;

expand scope of citizenship by registration, affirmative action for women in political party administration and provision for criteria to be an indigene of a state in Nigeria.

Moving a motion to revoke the House’s decision on the bills on Tuesday, March 8, Hassan Fulata Abubakar said;

“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 the Committee of the Whole for reconsideration”.

Responding, the Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila noted that the move by the House is against the established tradition of constitution amendment, however, he noted that the House  in its wisdom decided to revisit the bills for the good of the country.

According to the Speaker, the House will re-vote on the bills in the next phase of the constitution alteration exercise expected to happen in 4 weeks time.

“Last week, the House voted on the constitution amendment. There are issues arising therefrom and the House in its wisdom has decided to take a cause of action for the good of the country and that action is to rescind three of the decisions that were taken that day and after the rescission, we will list them on the next set of amendments coming up.

“If we still at that point have a difference with the Senate, we will go for harmonization. Now harmonization may not be the practice when it comes to constitution amendment because I have heard people argue here and there.

“But the constitution I believe under section 5, allows the House to regulate its own procedure and we will be relying on the provision of the Constitution to harmonize the differences between us and the Senate and hopefully this will go through,” he said.