A former Chairman, Senate Committee on Environment and Ecology, Senator Grace Bent, on Sunday, urged the members of the eight senate to dismiss the petition against President Muhammadu Buhari’s ministerial nominee from Kaduna State, Mrs Amina Muhammed.
Bent in a statement in Abuja, asked the senate to ignore the issue of non-indigeneship of Kaduna raised by Muhammed’s political opponents as mere allegation borne out of bitterness.
She noted that disqualifying such a woman of substance based on frivolous petition, would be unholy, impious and debasing for women in Nigeria whose contributions to national growth and development, have been unequalled.
She said, “Nigerians should stop this absurdity of humiliating and debasing their women with the slightest opportunity.
“It is an aberration as well as barbaric for anyone to begin to discriminate and fight a woman on the basis of marital affiliation. I feel our Senators should not entertain that.”
Bent identified those behind the plot to deny the Kaduna State’s nominee of ministerial appointment as high-handed, mischievous and ignorant political elites who did not wish Nigeria well.
The former member of the senate said Nigerians should at all times be ready to tap from the intellectual property which, according to her, “Muhammed is imbued with and should jettison cheap blackmail and sentiment so far raised to deprive the nominee of her constitutional right as a Nigerian.”
She said the constitution of Nigeria accords every right to any Nigerian woman to serve the country in any capacity notwithstanding her marital affiliation or state of origin, and quoted section 42 (2) to buttress her argument.
She said, “I ran through the constitution and discover that it rather supports inter-ethnic marriage, whereas section 42 (2) states specifically that no ‘citizen of Nigeria shall be subjected to any disability or deprivation merely by reason of the circumstances of his or her birth.
“What the ill-informed opponents of Muhammed were trying to do is to deprive this hard working, intelligent and committed woman of an opportunity to extend her service to Nigeria.
“I reckoned that as a former Presidential Adviser on Millennium Development Goals, Mohammed was excellent in dedicated service, making great impacts, which were reckoned with internationally.
“Nigeria should continue to tap from her intellectual property rather than willfully deciding to dump her like a used pack.
“I served in the Senate and represented Adamawa State by marital affiliation. I had lived in Adamawa and had claimed no other place as my home. The people recognised my worth and supported me to be a Senator.
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