Our concern about the seeming lack of clarity around gender issues and the failure of women’s groups to moderate a collective position, made this organisation seek and get support from the Heinrich Boll Foundation to explore some of these issues in greater depth. The project started with a national workshop held for representatives of women’s organisations in Abuja . Our objective then was not only to strategize but also to communicate the issues in ways that were generally acceptable. But it soon became clear that the process of identifying and conceptualizing various themes under the constitution is huge and a handful of workshops could not fully address them. Although the workshop was able to initiate a discussion around some of these issues with people of different backgrounds, it failed to arrive at a common agenda for action. The analysis that followed the workshop exposed the rich political dimensions around the areas of concern and linkages between these issues and the wider problems put forward by other advocates.
The project has been implemented in phases.
In the first part of this project which was politicizing gender issues in the constitutional review process, a three-part action plan to provide women in Nigeria with a campaign document and strategies to politicize their issues was envisaged. However, in undertaking the first part which was a consultative process, it became clear that there was the need to seek wider consultation and involve more groups in the consensus building process.
We started with developing and structuring of a campaign document with inputs from within and outside Nigeria , particularly materials and other resources from South Africa , Uganda and India where similar constitutional developments have taken place. A small team met and worked out this process and consulted with colleagues from elsewhere. The team also reviewed discussion documents developed by local experts on each theme and linked them to the Nigerian situation. A desk review was commissioned to provide a broad background on the situation in Nigeria for women. These discussion documents became the basis for a retreat that followed in Abuja at which papers were presented, discussed and strategies explored. What this process revealed was that the issues were far from defined, some extremely sensitive and that at best the issues required further clarity before they could form the basis of the campaign document.
Thematic Debates
Following initial consultations, we were able to identify sub-themes that required further consideration. While discussing economic and social rights, religion, affirmative action and citizenship under the 1999 Constitution, we drew attention to a wide range of sub themes that had far-reaching implications not only for the constitution but for other matters of policy. Each theme opened many more concerns and we needed to establish their conceptual linkages and use those to broaden the scope of the national debate. This is not unique to the Nigerian situation. Colleen Lowe-Morna the CEO of the Commission in Gender Equality notes that women in the South African Parliament (like their counterparts in Australia and New Zealand ) found that “as the number of women in Parliament has increased over the last two decades, there has been the broadening of issues under debate...” .
The under listed points for instance, represent a summary of some of the main highlights and dimensions that emerged as sub themes in the discussions.
I. Social and Economic Rights(S&E)
- Which S&E rights do we want included or specifically covered by the constitution?
- Should these S&E rights be specific or covered in a general clause?
- How do we address enforcement of S&E rights, if they are not specified and where specified how do we ensure compliance?
- Should such rights be exclusive to women?
- What about the question of inadequate public resources
- How do we monitor compliance under the constitution – should there be the Gender Commission like in South Africa ?
- What should be the underlying concept for appropriating these rights – individual or collective/group rights?
If the later how do you quantify these rights?
ii. Religion
- Should the argument remain at the level of secularity or not?
- How do we define secularity in the light of the Sharia in certain parts of the country?
- Is "multiple religions" a better reflection of the Nigerian situation and what does this mean for the constitution and the rights of women and other citizens?
- Whatever form we adopt, how do we protect women from discriminatory religious practices?
- Should the state be involved in anything religious? Should religion be personal?
- What does it take for the state to be ‘non-religious’ - does this always mean secularity?
- If the state is not involved, how will women find fairness to exercise their ‘religious freedoms?’
iii. Affirmative Action (AA)
- What does it mean, how will it be addressed, how does it work in the light of federal character principle now entrenched in the 1999 Constitution?
- At what level or in what way should we apply AA – Should we adopt the Ugandan, South African or Indian approach?
If we follow any of these approaches there will be need for broad constitutional reforms, in South
Africa for instance the electoral law was favourable and different from that in Nigeria . If women in Nigeria are to follow this they need reform of that law
- Even where the constitution provides for AA, mechanisms for enforcement must be envisaged and entrenched, what will they be?
- How can we avoid or reduce some of the negative consequences of AA –given what we know in other
countries, particularly the quantity versus quality argument, debates around reversed discrimination, etc.
iv. Citizenship
- The problem of citizenship and pluralism is easy to state but very difficult to solve.
- Can federalism in Nigeria resolve the problem of national identity and how?
- The 1999 Constitution uses the concept of federal character and indigeneship to justify representation and identity. Can these continue to co-exist? How do these concepts perceive women?
- How are women going to address not only the discriminatory position of the 1999 Constitution on citizenship but overcome the distortions which federal character will have no affirmative action for women?
- If federal character is set aside, how will the problem of plural representations be addressed, how will we arrive at equity of representation in Nigeria ?
Judging from the range of issues generated by our initial consultation and the fact that there were many unanswered questions, we re-ordered our approach to this programme and built further consultations into the initial context. At the end of each level of consultation, briefing notes on each of the thematic issues was developed for further discussion.
They included:
· Oversight Institutions and Constitutional Reform in Nigeria
· Oversight Institutions and the Democratic Process in Comparative African Perspective
· The Role of Oversight Institutions in Handling Gender Sensitive Issues
· Resource Allocation, Public Funds and Gender
· Women; Phases of Deprivation in Nigeria
· Nigeria; a Secular or Multi Religious Society?
· Federalism and the Challenge of Citizenship in Nigeria ’s Multi Ethnic States
· Affirmative Action: a Gender Perspective
· Issues On Constitution And Religion
· Equity for Women Under Sharia Law in Nigeria
· Safeguarding Women’s Rights Under the Sharia Criminal Justice System
· Sharia, Gender, and Right of non Muslims in Northern Nigeria
These notes were published and widely circulated enable more people will themselves with the issues and comment on them (disseminated to NGOs, the media, relevant Ministries, members of the National Assembly, political parties, politicians, traditional rulers, other relevant networks). With inputs from these various groups or interest, we proceeded to organize 6 small meetings to on the basis of geopolitical zones.
Outcomes So far
The Project of Reforming the 1999 Constitution from a gender Perspective is on going but we have so far succeeded in identifying and defining many of the gender issues relating to the constitution. These are contained in our numerous publications and memoranda to government committees and panels including the NPRC and the National Assembly Committee on the Review of the 1999 Constitution in 2006.
We also like to share credit for the establishment of the Development Page in the Thisday Newspaper which evolved from the Constitution Debate Page we commissioned in 2003.
With the setting up of the National Assembly Committee on Constitutional Review in 2008 the stage was set for another process in which we have been participating at the levels of advocacy and public hearings. Following the intensified debates on the Constitution and worried about the invisibility of gender issues and women’s concerns, we set out for a campaign tour of the major Nigerian media houses. It was a useful exercise as it has given media exposure to gender perspectives in the on-going national discourse.
We have also submitted memoranda to both the House of Representatives and Senate Committees on the Review of the 1999 Constitution and participated at the Public Hearings. . |
