By Christiana Ekpa
The Leadership of the House of Representatives has revealed that it will meet with the leadership of women groups who have been protesting the rejection of five gender related bills during the consideration of the report of the adhoc committee on constitution review.
Speaker of the House, Rep. Femi Gbajabiamila asked the Deputy Chief Whip of the House, Rep. Nkiruka Onyejeocha to arrange a meeting with the women group within the shortest possible time, possibly before the House goes on break.
The House had earlier rescinded the decision to reject three of the five bills which are to relisted for consideration, but the women group are insisting that the five bills must be revised and passed.
They have been protesting at the gates the national Assembly for about three weeks.
After receiving a report from House Leader, the Speaker said “we will look at the report again in seven legislative days which is about two weeks.
“We may be able to do that I don’t know, in terms of the time frame because the Deputy Speaker, Hon. Idris Wase who’s bringing the second report has said it will be done very soon. We don’t want to take this in isolation, we will take it together with other reports.
“We might be going on Ramadan break soon. But Hon. Nkeiruka Onyejeocha please arrange a meeting with the representatives of the women with me in the office after next week so that we can agree on certain things particularly on the date when we make the reconsideration”.
House Leader, Rep. Alhassan Ado-Doguwa who addressed the protesting women in Tuesday on behalf of the House said “I went to the gate of the National Assembly to address the aggrieved women of our various respective constituencies.
“These are women who occupied the streets of National Assembly for about ten days. Mr Speaker They have communicated to your office and that of the Senate President, that they want us to address the three clauses of the electoral act.
“One is indigenship, second is about citizenship and third is women participation in administration of party politics. Recall that three weeks ago the House took this decision to revisit these bills earlier rejected.
“So I went to interface with these women, and convinced them to vacate the streets of National Assembly to allow members exercise their lawful duties. Their outcries can only be addressed if they allow members to discharge their duties.
“We gave them commitment that we will revert to them and make sure we do something about their outcries within 7 legislative days.”
