Some women protesting the rejection of gender bills by the National Assembly have given the lawmakers till March 31, 2022, to reconvene in order to reconsider and pass the bills.
The women also demanded the immediate domestication of the African Charter Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa, which Nigeria ratified in 2004, as well as the United Nations Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, which was ratified by Nigeria in 1985.
The women, under the aegis of the Women Occupy NASS Movement, who on Tuesday suspended their protests, warned that the failure to meet their demands after the date would lead to the occupation of all state houses of Assembly in the country alongside the National Assembly.
Speaking during a press conference in Abuja on Wednesday, one of the leaders of the movement, Dr Abiola Akiyode-Afolabi, revealed that plans were underway at the state level should the National Assembly renege on its promises.
She said, “We demand urgent reconvening, reconsideration, and immediate passage of the all-women/gender-related bills by the National Assembly.
“All the bills must be passed by March 31, 2022, to gloriously end the women’s month.
“Also, we demand the immediate domestication of the African Charter Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa, which Nigeria ratified in 2004; and the immediate domestication of the UN Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, ratified by Nigeria since 1985.
“Failure to do so, we are going to occupy in a bigger way. They are just giving us more time to plan. We have started planning from state to state. It will not just be at the National Assembly, we are going to occupy all the state houses of Assembly in the country.
“It is not a threat, it is a matter of affirming our person in the country; it is not negotiable. We have given them the benefit of the doubt by suspending our protests based on the commitment of the principal officers of the National Assembly.”
Akiyode-Afolabi also stated that Nigerian women were still interested in knowing the voting pattern on the bills.
“As our representatives, we have sent letters to the National Assembly to let us know the voting pattern. We will continue to demand for it as a matter of right. For the first time as a movement in 2023, we will use some of these decisions to determine who we are as citizens.”
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