Last week was a very interesting one for me. I was in a good mood most of the week, starting from the early hours of Tuesday morning when I stayed up all night to watch the US Presidential Debate. I shouted and hooted in support of Hillary Clinton as she took Donald Trump to the cleaners. It was such a treat to watch. On March 15th 2016, the Nigerian Senate threw out the Gender and Equal Opportunities Bill that had been presented by Senator Biodun Olujimi (Ekiti State). Those opposed to the Bill cited religious and cultural reasons, the usual arguments when men want to justify the marginalization of women and girls. The civil society activists and development partners interested in keeping the Bill alive continued to work on ensuring that the Bill could live to fight another day. A technical team worked on the document, and portions of the Bill were re-written to appease the key dissenters. There however remained the tricky issue of getting the Senators to agree to the revised Bill. I will not go into details of my involvement, but I am pleased to let you know that all the efforts paid off – the Bill scaled through a Second Reading on Thursday September 29th. A big thank you to the Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki who was very supportive of the Bill, Senator Biodun Olujimi, the lead sponsor of the Bill and a true Shero, and Senator Sola Adeyeye for being such a great champion. If the Bill had been turned down again on Thursday it would have died a natural death. Now it has been passed on to the Committee stage, and after a Public Hearing, it will be presented for a Third Reading. Hopefully, the Bill will graduate with flying colours. When I got the news from the Senate staff in a call immediately after the Bill scaled through, I let out a very loud whoop, jumping up and down in excitement. I met up with the people I had been working with on the lobbying and we were all so elated. We went to the Senate to say thank you to some of the sponsors of the Bill such as Senator Olujimi and Senator Adeyeye.
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Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi is a Gender Specialist, Social Entrepreneur and Writer. She is the Founder of Abovewhispers.com, an online community for women. She can be reached at BAF@abovewhispers.com
17 Responses
Amen. God bless Nigeria.
Black people, expectially Nigerians we refuse to face the fact but rather will have deceive by our local believes.
The point is that we don’t face reality. Our cultures believes and professed religious as blindfolded us. My prayer is that our eyes of understanding should be enlightened. Peace be unto you,NIGERIA. Amen.
Happy Independence Nigeria. I was also elated after seeing the gender equity passed on to the next reading on TV News. It was really a great development. The “upandan” syndrome in Nigeria is real but i try as much as possible to enjoy the success and learn from the failures. And i hope one day, our great nation will grow against this slogan mentality “somebody is doing you” that is the cause of any affliction is from somebody. God bless Nigeria.
Happy Independence day to Nigeria and abovewhispers. I was really expecting the usual Independence day write up i have been used to, but this really took another dimension. “Upandan” cracked me up and it is a reality we face almost every week. May God bless our Nation.
Happy independence day to my loving country. God bless Nigeria and all her inhabitants, even though there are lots of ups and downs now. Nigeria will get better by the power of God’s Spirit. Proudly 9ja!
happy happy independence to a great country. Nigeria the land full of milk and honey. I pray for greater grace.
happy independence Nigeria. I wish this country all the best.
When one is in Lagos or other cities in Nigeria, you’d have no other how uncivilized several other parts of Nigeria are. Still very much embedded in all sorts of myths and superstitions
We pray change indeed happen to this nation, the positive change we all are craving. It’s long overdue
The superstition have to stop and we need to really face reality…sooo many deaths because NIGERIANS will not take the needed actions
Illetracy is a disease,most of the people mostly affected are those with literally no knowledge of the implication and consequences
Consistent medical check-up is very necessary and am happy at Hillary’s success against Donald…i pray the bill passes the final stage…..God bless you Ma
Very enlightening…. Thanks and God bless you
Happy Independence to you all # Whispers…. Long Live Nigeria. I see light at the end of the tunnel…… Only time will tell, and plenty of patience. God bless us all, God bless Nigeria….
#UpsAndDowns #SmilesAndFrowns – These are irresistible. Well, I have seen them as part of living life, when the going gets tough, only the tough gets going. And God never said it would be easy – but he did promise a safe landing.
Great one writer. Happy Independence Great people of a great nation.