NASS proposes Electoral College model to fill women’s special seats

The National Assembly is reworking the Women’s Special Seats Bill before it to adopt the Electoral College model as a mode of electing women to occupy the proposed special seats in both the national and state assemblies.

Under the proposed model, women will not be elected into additional special seats through the general ballot, instead, political parties will nominate female candidates and seats will be filled through indirect elections conducted by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) with members of defined electoral colleges voting to elect successful candidates.

The Executive Director of the Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre (PLAC), Dr Clement Nwankwo, disclosed this in Abuja on Thursday during a Civil Society Roundtable on the Proposed Electoral College Model for Women’s Special Seats organised by PLAC with support from the European Union.

He said the National Assembly’s Committees on Constitution Review recently proposed revisions to the Women’s Special Seats Bill’s election mechanism for additional seats, a development he said had significant implications for achieving increased female political participation which the civil society actors needed to carefully scrutinise and brainstorm upon.

Nwankwo said the high-level roundtable was convened with members of the civil society and other key stakeholders to provide a platform for participants to review the recent developments in the constitutional amendment process, examine the implications of the proposed revisions and identify coordinated strategies for sustaining momentum around legislative reforms aimed at increasing women’s political participation.

According to him, the engagement served as a precursor to a broader civil society engagement during the forthcoming National Assembly’s Open Week scheduled to hold on July 14.

He said that under the revised proposal, each state of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory shall have a State Electoral College for the purpose of electing women into the additional special seats.

Nwankwo said the electoral colleges would be used to elect women into the proposed additional seats in the Senate, House of Representatives and the state Houses of Assembly.

The composition of the proposed Electoral College shall comprise all elected chairpersons of local government councils in the state; all elected vice chairpersons of local government councils in the state; all elected councillors in the state; all members representing constituencies in the state Houses of Assembly; all members of the House of Representatives elected from the states and in the case of the FCT, the senator representing the FCT.

According to the proposal, every member of an Electoral College shall be entitled to one vote each.

He said that under the revised bill, the National Assembly is now proposing a total of 157 seats, including 12 additional seats for women in the Senate, comprising 2 seats from each of the six geopolitical zones; 37 seats in the House of Representatives, one from each of the 36 states and FCT and 108 additional State House Assembly seats, 1 from each of the three senatorial districts.

If the proposed bill sails through, the number of seats in the National Assembly will increase from the current 360 to 397 while State Houses of Assembly will increase from 990 to 1,098.

According to the proposal, the existing seats remained open for women to contest as the additional special seats being proposed are not intended to stop women from contesting for existing seats.

He said the special seats were being proposed as a temporary special measure to address the severe underrepresentation of women in Nigeria’s legislative institutions.

He said women would be elected into the additional special seats through indirect elections to be conducted and supervised by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

The process will involve political parties nominating female candidates; constitution of electoral colleges in line with the constitution; voting by the electoral college with INEC conducting and supervising the exercise, as well as declaring the successful candidates to occupy the additional special seats.

The Special Adviser to the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives on Youth and Women Affairs, Joy Akut, said the proposed revision of the Special Seats Bill to adopt an Electoral College model was aimed at making the legislation more practical, politically acceptable and easier to implement without altering its core objective of increasing women’s representation in governance.

She said the review of the bill became necessary following concerns over its implementation framework, stressing that while the mission of the legislation remains unchanged, the mechanism for achieving it required greater clarity.

According to her, the need for the reform has become more urgent following the outcome of recent political party primaries, which saw many qualified female aspirants fail to secure party tickets, including several women who were already serving in parliament.

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