Lawan rues National Assembly’s failure to pass gender bills

The Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, on Friday expressed unhappiness over the failure of the 9th National Assembly to pass the gender bills.

Lawan, who spoke with journalists during a visit to President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, said inadequate funds affected the performance of the National Assembly under his watch.

The parliament had in March 2022 rejected five gender bills which sought to promote women inclusiveness in governance, among other key areas.

Lawan said: “First of all, when the bills, five of them that concern women were not voted for by the National Assembly, I think naturally, there are things that we assume could happen. But they didn’t happen the way we wanted them. But remember that even bills that concern the national assembly were killed.

READ ALSO: Again, Women storm National Assembly in protest against rejected gender bills

“There are bills that concern the national assembly itself that did not see the light of the day. I felt bad that we could not pass even one. But then we shouldn’t really lose hope, we should continue to campaign, and we should talk to more members of the national assembly. And we should also re-strategize.

“Maybe the kind of campaign that was undertaken may not be necessarily the one that will give you the kind of outcome that we needed. But I’m very confident that we should continue to campaign for issues that we have not been able to get right.

“Let me give you an example. The mayor of FCT, almost every constitutional amendment period, the mayor of FCT will surface. But it has not been passed. Does that mean that we shouldn’t continue to ask for a mayor for FCT from those that feel there should be a mayor? No!”

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