We are not fighting men with equality bill, says female senator

Binta Garba, an All Progressives Congress (APC) senator from Adamawa state, has appealed to men in the country not to see the gender equality bill before the senate as an affront to them.

Speaking with NAN in New York, Garba said men and women were partners in progress in all sectors.

“A woman must be given an equal opportunity to serve her motherland in every standard she would found herself be it in her work place, in her chosen career or whatever,” she said.

“We are not fighting the men.

“The gender equality bill initially was rejected and re-presented and deliberated upon; areas of concerns were looked into.

“Most parties that were obviously not in support of it now saw that it was necessary that such a bill should see the light of the day.

“And after the second reading, now the bill is being passed for public hearing and once it’s done, then the committee has to work on it to bring it back for the third reading.

“Areas of national interest will be looked into and that will give it the speedy passage.

“But we need to do a lot of lobbying within ourselves, our colleagues- the male counterparts – all sectors that obviously would be interested in seeing that this bill is being passed.’’

The bill sponsored by Biodun Olujinmi (PDP-Ekiti south) scaled second reading in September 2016 after some modifications.

The bill was to prohibit all forms of discrimination against any person in accordance with section 4 of the 1999 constitution.

The section prohibits all forms of discrimination due to gender, age and disability through spoken words, acts, rules, customs and practices by any person or institution.