The European Union (EU) on Friday threw its weight behind the Reserved Seats for Women Bill, aligning with rights advocates and political stakeholders to push for its swift passage.
The bill proposes the creation of 37 additional seats in the Senate, 37 in the House of Representatives, and three reserved seats per state in all 36 state assemblies, exclusively for female candidates.
Speaking at the 2025 GOTNI National Leadership Conference in Abuja, the Head of the EU Delegation to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Gautier Mignot, hailed the initiative as a vital step towards gender equality and urged broad-based national support.
“One of the secrets for a nation’s success in development is to empower women and girls. The most prosperous countries are those with the least gender inequality, granting women full space to participate in collective decisions and socio-economic life. There’s a very important debate ongoing in Nigeria, especially in the National Assembly, about the special seats bill to ensure more women’s representation. I think this is a very important bill for the country, and it deserves support from everybody”, Mignot added.
Addressing journalists after the event, the President of the GOTNI Leadership Centre, Linus Okorie, described the conference as a platform for building leadership competencies across individuals, businesses, and government institutions.
He said Nigeria’s leadership gaps could only be addressed by raising the right calibre of leaders.
“There is a huge demand for leadership development in Nigeria. The only way we can make progress is for Nigeria to take responsibility for encouraging citizens to grow their leadership competencies. Our problems will be solved by Nigerians, not outsiders,” Okorie stated.
He stressed that countries making progress are those investing heavily in leadership capacity, adding that such investments would drive productivity and innovation in Nigeria’s economy.
Women’s representation in Nigeria’s legislature remains among the lowest in the world, with only 3.7 per cent of Senate seats and 3.9 per cent of House of Representatives seats currently held by women.
