Kalu Seeks US Partnership for Electoral Reforms, Women’s Representation in Politics

Juliet Akoje in Abuja

The Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Benjamin Okezie Kalu, has advocated partnership with the United States government to support Nigeria’s efforts in promoting gender equity and electoral reforms.

Kalu made the call during during a meeting with a delegation from the US Embassy in Nigeria led by Mr. David Frost, a political counsellor and Cassandra Carrony at the National Assembly yesterday.

The Deputy Speaker, who also chairs the House Committee on constitution review, said the collaboration would be on three key areas of technical expertise, advocacy and capacity building.

Specifically, he emphasised the need to share comparative insights on gender responsive electoral systems, amplify stakeholder engagement with civil society, media, political parties and co-create a women’s legislative leadership programme to train future female lawmakers.

“How do we partner the US? We seek the US Embassy support in various areas, technical expertise, share comparative insight on gender responsive, electoral system. Let’s know how you’ve done it and succeeded; advocacy, amplify stakeholders engagement with civil society, media and political party.

“You already have structures. We can adopt those structures and make them to reflect what we want to achieve with this particular mission. It’s not a fanciful outing. It’s impact oriented. We need to capacitate those that will drive the impact and it’s through this strategic partnership.

“For traditional rulers, we are thinking as a committee to integrate them into constitution and assigning roles to them, to help enhancing national cohesion and unity,” he said.

Earlier, the US delegation said their mission to the National Assembly was to explore areas of collaboration with the Deputy Speaker’s Office on the ongoing constitution review.

“We met with the Deputy Speaker very briefly when PLAC hosted event at the Hilton, about LG autonomy. It’s one of the things we are here to talk about. The focus here today is on the work of the Constitution Review Committee.

“The purpose of our visit is to further the collaboration we’ve had all these years. It’s important to maintain this connection and communication,” the delegation said.