Still on the issue of gender equality KAYODE KETEFE As efforts are being consolidated to review and amend the extant 1999 Constitution once again, the focus has all been on the "traditional" controversial areas. The areas that have expectedly claimed the preponderant attention of the majority of the stakeholders are state creation, establishment of state policing and community policing, fiscal federalism, immunity clause, enforcement of socio-economic right, rotational presidency, etc. Very few people, except the minority whose works involve gender advocacy and protection and promotion of womens' rights, have been concerned about the imperative of making the proposed new constitution gender-friendly. This writer attempts here to make some suggestions on how to improve the gender issue that has been indifferently shunned under the extant 1999 Constitution. This is important because a good constitution should safeguard the interests of all the people in the country and leaves no room for unfair discrimination against any person institution or body either directly by incorporation of discriminatory provisions or indirectly by featuring gaps which may be exploited to deny some people their rights. The 1999 constitution of Nigeria is afflicted with many defects, notable among which is the explicit and implicit discrimination against women. The explicit discriminatory provisions may be gleaned from section 26 and 29 on lopsided citizenship right and unfair prescription on renunciation of Nigerian citizenship respectively. Examples of implicit discrimination include the gender-biased language of the constitution and fundamental omissions of some innovations in modern constitutions of the world which have been employed to eliminate discrimination against women. All these points are highlighted, albeit with differential emphasis below. To start with, one may say the discrimination against women under the present constitution began from the process of making the constitution itself. An ideal constitution should have inputs of every shade of public opinion, every segment of the society and every sphere of distinct natural or convectional divides that constitute the eclectic mix of the country. This is because the process of making a constitution is as important as the final product,- the constitution itself. But the 1999 constitution was made without the inputs of women who constitute about half the population of Nigeria. The 1999 constitution was made by Constitutional Debating Committee comprising 25 members headed by Justice Niki Tobi, which was set up by General Abdusalam Abubakar on November 11 1998.The committee did not make adequate consultations with all segments of peoples and shades of opinions required in a country as complex as Nigeria. Now regarding the constitution itself, Section 26 of the 1999 constitution introduces what may be called dichotomy of a citizen's spouse right to Nigerian citizenship. Under that section, a foreign woman married to a Nigerian man is eligible to Nigerian citizenship by registration but the section fails to make the same right available to a foreign man who married a Nigerian woman. This is classical case of discrimination that is palpably at variance with section 42 of the constitution which provides right to freedom from discrimination on the bases of SEX, religion, ethnicity, political affiliation etc. Another instance of discrimination is section 29 of the constitution. That section provides that for the purpose of renunciation of citizenship of Nigeria, a married woman irrespective of her biological age shall be deemed to be of full age i.e. an adult. The implication of this will be realized when it is borne in mind that attainment of maturity of the mind is the legislative intention for making 18 years the minimum for eligibility to renounce citizenship. Now the provision that any woman that is married shall be deemed to be of full age for the purpose of the section is strange, especially in a country like Nigeria where girls as young as ten years are given away in marriages. Under the implicit discrimination under the 1999 constitution, one may cite the language of the constitution which obviously was gender biased. There is inordinate use of male pronouns like " He" " His" and "Him" to the total exclusion of female pronouns. The male pronouns appear about 253 times in the 1999 constitution. While this may appear innocuous especially in the light of the Interpretation Act which makes all male pronouns used in statutes applicable to women as well, yet the fact still remains that most modern constitutions have moved away from the patriarchal mentality of using exclusive male pronouns in the constitution to the gender neutral of using " a person" instead of "he" or to the gender sensitive of using "He or She" instead of exclusive use of "he". Furthermore, the 1999 constitution, apart from making a general provision forbidding discrimination against any person on the bases of sex and other factors, completely shies away from making gender-specific provisions to protect women from discrimination. Given the nature and scope of abuse of women right in the country, this almost amounts to a criminal omission. An example of such specific provisions is contained under section 3 [1] of the Ugandan constitution which provides "Women shall be accorded full and equal dignity of the person with men, while subsection 4 provides "Women shall have the right to equal treatment with men and that right shall include equal opportunities in political economic and social activities" Similarly under section 187 of the South African constitution, a Commission for Gender Equality is established. The commission is given powers to oversee, promote and protect gender related issues. There are also many gender specific provisions in the constitutions of Ghana, Eritrea and Ethiopia which are focused on ensuring equal opportunities for as all as well as eliminating all social and cultural discriminatory practices against women. Such Provisions are conspicuously absent under the Nigeria's 1999 constitution. |
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