By Joseph Erunke

ABUJA-AS Nigeria observed International Women’s Day today, the Coalition of United Political Parties, CUPP, has urged lawmakers to expedite work on bills that appear friendly to women.

CUPP spokesman, Ikenga Imo Ugochukwu, who said this, Tuesday, at a media conference, flayed the decision of the National Assembly to reject women-friendly bills.

Ugochinyere, who said the rejected bills would have opened the political space for more women participation in governance, said the lawmakers must rescind their decisions.

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Ugochinyere, who congratulated “our dear women – mothers, wives, daughters, and sisters and expressed solidarity with their aspirations and global expectations”, said the leader of the opposition family, Iyorcha Ayu “is pained by this parliamentary decision and have since commenced action towards mobilising our lawmakers on how best to deal with the challenges posed by the rejection of the bill.”

He said that International Women’s Day “is another opportunity to reflect on how far we have come as a people in giving our women the pride of place in our society, in conformity with relevant best practices.”

He said: “It is an occasion to reaffirm our support for implementable affirmative actions for our women and to further re-emphasise our firm resolve to end all forms of Gender-Based Violence within our powers.

“We, therefore, join all men of goodwill across the world to celebrate our immensely resourceful and industrious women, while calling on all Parliaments to favourably expedite work on all women-friendly bills before them, to further enlarge the space for public participation of our women in the economic and socio-political aspects of our daily life.”

Açcording to him,”the opposition is also working hard to create more participation platforms for women internationally.”