Bloggers, tweeters brand Senate anti-women gathering

For shutting down the Gender and Equal Opportunity Bill, bloggers and other social media activists berated the Senate on Tuesday, branding it an anti-women body.

The bill was aimed at promoting gender balancing, girl child’s access to education as well as enforcing key international treaties on gender equality.

But it could not proceed to the second reading as the lawmakers voted against it.

Some of the commentators, who described the senate as a gathering of male chauvinists, wondered why enlightened individuals would continue to discriminate against women.Immediately after a tweet post from @NGRSenate announcing its decision, bloggers and social media activists went into action. They described the decision as the greatest ‘sin’ the lawmakers had committed against womanhood.

The online protesters went into history, listing some anti-women remarks made by members of the Senate in recent times.

For making a statement considered as gender insensitive, the Senate Leader, Ali Ndume; Dino Malaye, who represents Kogi West and Shehu Sani of Kaduna Central had, individually, incurred the wrath of female social media users.

 They said the Senate, by its decision, had joined force against the female gender.

A social media influencer, Japheth Omojuwa, described the voting as “the most devastating blow against the freedom and dignity of Nigerian women.”

Seasoned TV presenter, Funmi Iyanda; Dr. Joe Odumakin and several other female activists also protested the decision.

Meanwhile, a Lagos-based lawyer and human rights activist, Festus Keyamo, has gone after critics of the Minister of Information and Culture, Alh. Lai Mohammed, on social media. He challenged them to engage the minister more constructively.

The lawyer said it was not the responsibility of Mohammed to make the opposition happy, noting that he would do better when the opposition were angry.

The former spokesperson of the All Progressives Congress had faced media backlash in recent times over some of his comments, which his critics described as misinforming.

Earlier in the week, for instance, critics of the minister took to social media to query him after he denied telling the nation that the economy was beyond the power of President Muhammadu Buhari.

The minister was quoted as saying, during a radio programme last week, that the current economic situation was beyond the power of the President.

 But Mohammed, in a press statement, denied making such a comment, saying his “views were twisted” and misrepresented.

Keyamo rose to the minister’s defence on Twitter, saying it was not the responsibility of the spokesperson to make the opposition happy.

He also dismissed the online critics as being abusive, observing that they had wrongly resorted to the display of hatred rather than engaging the minister constructively.

In a series of tweets, the lawyer said, “The opposition needs to constructively engage Mohammed on arguments he proffers. To just bandy the phrase ‘lie lie,’ won’t convince anyone.

“The mandate of a government’s spokesman does not include making the opposition happy. So, the angrier the opposition is at Lai Mohammed, the better.

“The fact is that when you criticise someone with apparent hatred and not patriotism, you lose your sense of decorum and resort unconsciously to abuse.”

Keyamo said hatred for Mohammed had only succeeded in transforming him from an opposition party’s spokesperson to a minister of information, which many people never thought would be possible.

Keyamo’s tweets, however, have exposed him too to an online attack.

An online activist who tweeted on @sirjaay said it was unfortunate that the lawyer had classified Nigerians, who felt disappointed at the manner the minister addressed national issues, as opposition. He argued that some social media users who went online to condemn the minister campaigned and voted for Buhari during the 2015 presidential poll.

“Everybody has the right to share his position with others. To think that everybody that disagrees with the government is a member of the opposition is unfair,” he noted.

Also commenting, one Citr Oguntosin said Keyamo’s comment did not address issues raised by critics. He said the opposition issue could not have come up as the administration “is responsible to all Nigerians, irrespective of their party affiliations.”

He asked, “Why should he introduce the issue of opposition into the discussion? Can’t we discuss as a people without making reference to political parties? It is bad that those who are making these assumptions are educated people who should show the society the light.”