◾Wants women to rally behind their own
◾As SIDEC decries no female representative in Imo Assembly
By Eze Adiuku, Owerri
As the advocacy for the passage of Special Seats Bill advances, the Catholic Archbishop of Owerri Catholic Archdiocese, His Grace Archbishop Lucius Ugorji has lent his support.
Addressing a team from Social and Integral Development Centre (SIDEC), a Civil Society Organisation that paid an advocacy visit to him at the Assumpta Cathedral Church, Owerri on Tuesday, Archbishop Ugorji said: “as a Church, we promote human dignity. We all are created in the image of God. Before God, we are all equal. So when it comes to having positions whether in the civil service or elective, there should be no discrimination”.
The Advocacy is part of Project IMPACT being implemented in Anambra and Imo states with the aim to achieve inclusive electoral and governance systems where both male and female, youths and persons with disabilities are given equal opportunity to occupy elective public offices.
SIDEC is implementing the project in collaboration with the Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room with funding support from UK FCDO.
“Again in our constitution there is provision that you don’t discriminate against anyone on the basis of creed, gender, etcetera. So it is very clear”, the Catholic Archbishop stated.
Archbishop Ugorji however blamed women for not supporting one another given their numerical strength, adding that women are more in number as a result of higher life expectancy over the men.
He urged SIDEC to work on the women to ensure they really support for themselves.
The Catholic Archbishop harped on the need to change the mentality of people as they may believe that if such positions are ceded women it then means they are inferior to the men.
In her speech, Executive Director of SIDEC, Ugochi Agalaba-Ehiahuruike, who led the team on the visit decried low female representation in governance.
She said the three Commissioners and 14 Permanent Secretaries in Imo State is a commendable record but that there is no female legislator in Imo State House of Assembly.
Agalaba-Ehiahuruike frowned at a situation where the House of Assembly Committee on Gender Issues is headed by a man, stressing that issues on women with disability, widows, single mothers, and divorcees will not have the input of a woman.
She disclosed that there are only four women in the Senate, 16 in the House of Representatives and 55 women in all the state Houses of Assembly across the country.
Continuing, she said SIDEC is pushing for additional 37 Senate seats for women (1 per state + FCT), 37 House of Reps seats for women (1 per state + FCT) and 3 State House of Assembly seats for women per state (1 per senatorial district).
Also according to the Executive Director of SIDEC, the advocacy is for additional 108 reserved seats for women, adding that outside the reserved seats, women are free to contest other offices with their male counterparts.
While stating that such reserved seats will increase women’s representation in governance and promote gender equality and inclusivity, she said such has been experimented successfully in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, and Tanzania.
