The suspension by the Bauchi State House of Assembly since February 2012 of the only female member of the House, Mrs. Rifkatu Samson Danna, for voicing out her people’s opposition to the unconstitutional transfer of the headquarters of Tafawa Balewa local council from Tafawa Balewa town has been faulted by a democracy-inclined NGO, Human Rights Writers’ Association of Nigeria (HURIWA).

In a statement issued today in Abuja, the Nigerian capital, HURIWA asked the Bauchi State House of Assembly to reinstate and recall Mrs. Danna, of Bogoro Constituency, “without any further unjustifiable, unconstitutional and morally indefensible delay.”

HURIWA also tasked Bauchi State Governor, Mr. Isa Yuguda, “to use his good offices to plead with the leadership of the Bauchi State House of Assembly to recall the only female member of the legislative house immediately.”

It said that “Honourable (Mrs.) Rifkatu Samson Danna, a Christian and the only female member of the Bauchi State House of Assembly, was suspended following her opposition to the transfer of the headquarter of Tafawa Balewa local government area from Tafawa Balewa town enshrined in the 1999 Constitution to Bununu in contravention of the law which requires constitutional amendment before any such relocation could be validly effected.”

HURIWA in the statement made available to News Express by e-mail recalled that Hon. Danna’s ordeal began when she “opposed the decision to relocate the Headquarter of Tafawa Balewa local government area from Tafawa Balewa town to Bununu and further raised suspicion that the hurried manner the House unanimously approved the relocation without hearing from the majority of her constituents in Bogoro constituency may have been occasioned by a decision from a meeting in which she was not privy to nor present to air her opinion.”
The group lamented that “almost two years after she was suspended, Mrs. Rifkatu Samson Danna has neither been paid her wages nor has she been allowed to represent her Bogoro Constituency in the Bauchi State House of Assembly just as her constituency is the only one dominated by religious and ethnic minorities in Bauchi State.”

In the statement jointly endorsed by the National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, and National Director of Media Affairs, Miss. Zainab Yusuf, HURIWA said the continuous suspension of Mrs. Danna “is completely untenable, illegal, unconstitutional and a total breach of the constitutionally guaranteed inherent fundamental right of her constituents to be so represented in the Bauchi State House of Assembly.”

The group “expressed shock that the Federation of women lawyers (FIDA), National Assembly committees on Women Affairs and the Office of the First Lady of Bauchi State have remained silent and allowed the only female voice in the Bauchi State House of Assembly to be extinguished even when Nigeria’s First Lady, Mrs. Patience Goodluck, has said a lot about women political empowerment and is credited with influencing the appointment of the appreciative high percentage of Women into the Federal cabinet of her husband – President Goodluck Jonathan.”

HURIWA said it was a breach of chapter 4 of the constitution on the fundamental freedoms of thought and expression for the male-dominated Bauchi State House of Assembly to conspire in a grand scale fashion to eliminate the only female voice from their midst.

It tasked Governor Yuguda “to intervene in this instance and use it as a litmus test to show his gender equity strategy to the nation also said thus.”

“We use this forum to call on the office of the wife of the President of Nigeria, Mrs. Patience Jonathan, to appeal to the Bauchi State House of Assembly to recall Mrs. Rifkatu Samson Danna from the indefinite suspension without further delay,” HURIWA concluded.

•First Lady Patience Jonathan has been asked to interve and get Hon. Danna restored to her post.

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