Women are to gain one additional legislative seat in the senate and two in the House of Reps and the FCT in constitution review
By Anthony Musa, Abuja
Women may get additional 111 seats in the National Assembly from the next political dispensation if the recommendations of the House of Representatives Adhoc Committee on Constitution Review is endorsed by both the Senate and state Houses of Assembly.
The committee is recommending the creation of one additional Senate seat and two House of Representatives seats in each state of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory which will be contested solely by women.
They are also to have two additional seats per Senatorial district in each state House of Assembly beginning from the next legislative session.
At its meeting which was attended by its consultants, the committee adopted changes to section 48, 49, 71, and 91 which deals with composition of the Senate, the House of Representatives and state houses of Assembly to create additional seats for women.
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The report of the Committee, according to its Chairman and Deputy Speaker is to be submitted to the entire House for adoption before the end of February before it’s transmission to State Houses of Assembly for concurrence.
The law will create an additional Senate seat for women in each state of the Federation and the Federal Capital territory and two additional seats for women in the 36 states and the FCT reserved for women.
The proposed law also stipulates that these additional seats will be in addition to the existing seats in both the Senate, House of Representatives and state Houses of Assembly which women shall still be entitled to contest.
The law is also proposing three additional seats for women in state Houses of Assembly to be produced on Senatorial basis and will take effect from the next general election, after the lifespan of the current Assembly.
It also proposed that no Nigerian shall be discriminated against on the basis of sex, age, disability or health status.
The Adhoc committee however stepped down consideration of the clause which deals with immunity for Presiding Officers of the National Assembly and state Houses of Assembly as well as judicial officers.
It also stepped down consideration of provision which tends to take away the powers of the National Assembly to ratify or domesticate international human rights treaties.
It will also prevent security agencies from parading suspects arrested and accused of offences, describing it as form of torture, inhuman or degrading treatment.
This will amend Section 34 of the constitution to read “for the purpose of subsection 1(a) of this section, torture, inhuman or degrading treatment include parading arrested persons by the police or any other law enforcement agency.”