Dogara Wants NEDC Office Named After Aisha Buhari

ABUJA - Former speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, has called on the federal government to name the headquarters of the North East Development Commission (NEDC) after wife of the President, Aisha Muhammadu Buhari to appreciate her efforts to ensure the establishment of the commission.

According to a statement by Dogara’s media aide, Malam Turaki Hassan, Dogara stated this on Saturday night at the presidential Villa in Abuja, during the Iftar hosted by the First Lady for Presidential aspirants of the various political parties.

Dogara recalled that Aisha Buhari’s swift and patriotic intervention ensured that the Bill was signed into law by President Muhammadu Buhari when some powerful persons tried to block presidential assent to the Bill.

He called on the management of the NEDC to name its headquarters in Maiduguri after the First Lady because she single handedly contributed to the success of the bill which he sponsored.

Yakubu also advocated for the creation of 3 State Assembly seats in each senatorial district exclusively for women in each of the 36 states of the federation, saying if proposal was adopted and enshrined into the constitution, will provide for minimum of 9 legislative seats in each of the state houses of assembly and 324 across the country.

He said, “Through Constitutional Amendment, we should create 3 House of Assembly seats per senatorial district in each state to be exclusively reserved for women. These seats should rotate among the local government councils in each of the Senatorial Districts in alphabetical order.

According to him, some State Assemblies have no single women member, added that women are free to contest the other general seats with men but even if they don’t win any other seat, each State Assembly must have a minimum of 9 women members.

“Also, it was proposed that one additional House of Representatives seat be created for each State and the FCT which should be exclusively reserved for women.

“A total of 37 exclusive seats for women would be created to rotate amongst the three Senatorial zones in each State. This means in each subsequent National Assembly; women are guaranteed an irreducible minimum of 37 seats in the House of Representatives even if they don’t win any of the 360 general seats for which they are to compete with men.

“The proposal for the Senate should be worked out after effectuating the two proposals in (a) and (b) above and assessing how impactful they are. “These commonsense proposals guarantee a minimum total of 361 legislative seats for women across Nigeria.”

Following the proposal and nomination by Dogara, Governor Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai of Kaduna State was adopted by the First Lady to lead the campaign for the creation and actualization of the special legislative seats for women in the country.