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Opinion: Gender Gap; Breaking the Bias

By M.O ENE

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#BreakTheBias

Driving past the United Nations headquarters last Sunday, I did not notice special signs for the UN Observance of International Women’sDay 2022 (IWD): “Gender Equality Today for a Sustainable Tomorrow.” The pandemic still sustains, and half the world is virtual… a sad exception being the Russian ruining of Ukrainian lives and landscape.

Days earlier across the Atlantic in Nigeria, the Senate voted on amendments to the constitution. Sadly, the bills seeking to level the field for women failed. It was not surprising: less than 10 percent of the 109 senators are women, and the eighth Senate in 2017 had rejected a similar amendment that sought 35% affirmative action in line with the Beijing Declaration and Platform of Action to achieve gender equality.

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The undisputed male champion of women empowerment in the Ninth Senate is Senator Chimaroke Nnamani, the first 4th Republic governor of Enugu State and the chairman of Senate Committee on Integration and Cooperation in Africa/NEPAD. Two years ago, on Tuesday, March 10, the senator spoke out loud for gender equality, one of the six motions up for voting. The voice votes clearly gave the gender-gap motion a resounding ‘NAY’! It was difficult to document the dinosaurs living in the wrong age! Surprisingly, in an eye-popping verdict, Senate President Ahmad Lawan ruled that the motions were adopted, including the motion on gender equality!

Fast forward to late February 2022: With 68 Bills for “Acts to Alter the Provisions of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999,” Nigeria might as well consider a new Constitution that restructures the polity for true federalism because amending a fundamentally flawed document will not make it kosher. Three amendments are relevant here: #35: … Special Seat for Women in the National and State Houses of Assembly; #37: … Affirmative Action for Women in Political Party; and #68.… Reserved Quota for Women. None was approved.

There was no pity party. No female lawmaker loudly lamented the failure of these amendments. Ironically, men may need the amendment someday, when women wake up and push their power of population, participation, and personality. A good example is Anambra State, where all three senators could have been women, if not for the shelving of Bianca Onoh-Odumegwu-Ojukwu, former Nigerian ambassador to Spain.

In Enugu State, Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi deserves kudos for picking and sticking with a female deputy, Cecilia Ezeilo, sustaining some female lawmakers, commissioners, special advisers, etc. However, we expect the state to be in the forefront and chasing the Beijing benchmark. Hopefully, the governor will rectify gaping gender gaps during the expected cabinet reshuffle in the run-up to the 2023 general elections.

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An affirmative action for women empowerment is noted in the four women councilors from Nkanu East LGA. Impressed by the development and in the addition to his substantial fiscal and high-powered physical support of PDP local elections in his senatorial district, Senator Nnamani made an extra targeted donation of ₦3 million to support the women. He personally delivered to dough.

Senator Chimaroke Nnamani did not just wake up to empowering women in 2019. Back in 2001, besides other pro-women initiatives, he signed into law a bill outlawing harmful practices (religious, social, or traditional), against widows in Enugu State. The remarkable and internationally applauded act empowers not only widows and widowers but all women to take charge and live free from fear of cultural cruelty and current chauvinism.

We must break the bias that keeps women in the backyard. Advocacy alone will not break the bias; it will take more women active on political platforms. Yes, politics can be both dangerous and dirty, which is why we need many more women in politics to clean the horse stable and rid political processes of pathetic pettiness and vile violence.

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In his message to the Rivers State chapter of the National Council for Women Societies (NCWS) on 20 December 2021, Governor, Nyesom Wike, stated: “You are catalysts and instruments for social engineering in our society. If women are not part of what society does, society will not progress. Every man, irrespective of who he is, has a woman whom he adores or loves.”

Men in power with Talibanesque mindset are a problem, but women themselves are major obstacles in taking charge and liberating our politics. History has many role models, from Nnete Okorie-Egbe of 1929 Aba women to Ahebi Ugbabe, Margaret Ekpo, Janet Mokelu, Oyibo Odinammadu, Lady Neboh, Justina Eze, Kema Chikwe, Chris Anyanwu, Uche Ekwunife, Dora Akunyiri, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Stella Oduah, Princess Alu Ibiam, etc.

Senator Chimaroke Nnamani has not only advocated for legislation to eliminate all forms of discrimination against females, but he has also addressed the problem at its roots. On October 11, 2019, to commemorate the International Day of the Girl Child, he paid the WAEC fees for all female public schools’ students in Enugu East Senatorial District for the May/June 2020 exams.

The road is rough, but women can level it. As Senator Nnamani stated in IWD-2020: “You should not be deterred by the obstacles. You must strive to do more to surmount hurdles. You have demonstrated enough tenacity of purpose. Your perseverance, resilience, and indomitable spirit as good managers of human and material resources have been unparalleled.”

#BreakTheBias: Imagine a gender equal world!

Happy International Women’s Day!

© MOE, Tuesday, March 8, 2022

@aladimma