To change Nigeria’s situation, more women needed in leadership, says Masi-Garba

The only female senator of the 57 Senators from northern Nigeria, Binta Masi-Garba, has advocated for an affirmative action on female representation in both state houses of Assembly and the National Assembly, saying women’s positive contribution in leadership and development is critical to the development of the country.

Senator Binta Masi, born in Kaduna had the rare experience of representing Kaduna state and now Adamawa, her ancestral home respectively at the National Assembly on different occasions.

The National Assembly is carrying out amendment to the1999 constitution but during the speakers’ conference held in Yola recently, the conference said it was waiting the national assembly to hasten the transmission of the document for its input, what is delaying it?

I am surprised to hear that the state houses of Assembly said it is not in receipt of our document because we had to hurriedly and quickly complete our work so that the state lawmakers could have the ample time to deal with the document and make its necessary input and by the provision of the constitution, we need at least two-third of the state houses of assembly I.e. about 24 state houses of assembly to support the amendments. What was your take on local government autonomy?

We agreed on that because our argument is not farfetched from the fact that the local government is the base from which development can be fostered, youth can be gainfully employed, artisans can by empowered to run their trade without necessarily over populating the city centres.

If our youth can find jobs and access to support for their small scale businesses, there would be halt on the rural-urban migration because what they go looking for in the city, they now have access to it in their village or local government.

It was unanimously agreed by all that it was a necessary and expedient move if Nigeria will move forward as a strong and united country. The idea was accepted by all except for few objections from some senators who were former state governors, who find it unsettling after serving as governors for eight years, allowing local government autonomy seems strange to them.

The beauty of what happened was that we included the speakers of state houses of assembly in the constitutional amendment team on an observatory status along with all female state legislators included in that capacity too, so it helped the process. Another highly contentious issue in the constitutional amendment was my recommended amendment in section 147 of the 1999 constitution where a new clause was introduced saying the federal character should be included in screening and appointing nominees for ministerial appointments including a 35percent affirmative action in the nominations.

My arguments was that Nigeria has to stick to its Beijing conference agreement. Many African Countries like Uganda, Kenya, South Africa, have all introduced the Beijing conference agreement into their constitution.

Some people were throwing religious arguments at me on that, but I had to tell them that you cannot be holier than the custodian of the religion in Saudi Arabia who have admitted women into their council of Shura which is like their national Assembly and I can confidently tell you that the number of women in Saudi Council of Shura are more than the number of women in the American congress.