By Correspondent in Ilorin
Prof. Nimah Modupe Abdulraheem of the Department of Jurisprudence and International law Faculty of Law, University of Ilorin, has called on Parents to desist from showing preference for a particular gender as is always the case when the male child is favoured over her female counterpart.
Prof. N. M Abdulraheem.
The academic made the call at the 197th Inaugural lecture of the University with the theme ‘Genderising The Rights For Partnership Not Rivalry, Friendship Not Foe, Complementarity Not Confrontation’ at the University auditorium
She cautioned that in matrimonial relationship, parties should eschew superiority contest and see each other as partners, friends and helpers.
According to her, the prerogative of who becomes the husband lies with the creator, adding that people should always be conscious of divine injunction that the superior among them is the highest in piety.
Abdulraheem said: “The guiding rules and regulations should always be interpreted, taking cognisance of the creator as the ultimate grundnorm whose purpose and intendments are embodied in those rules. The ultimate goal of the creator in the laws is to achieve balance in the rights of the two genders.
“The non-justiciability of educational objective ordinarily serves as a refuge for many government authorities from performing their educational roles, especially in the provision of infrastructural facilities to schools and institutions.
“However, rights advocacy is a veritable tool toward moving government to improve its performance in this area.
“It is, therefore, recommended that rights activists should increase their advocacy pressure in this regard.
“In addition, observance of due process should not be limited to federal government institutions and authorities but should be a process used for the award of contracts and other forms of patronage in all government educational facilities.
“There should be conscious legislation and enactments in Nigeria generally recognising the entitlements of widows and all surviving children irrespective of gender to inherit proprietary interests of the deceased husbands or fathers and repealing customary rule to the contrary.
“Court, while interpretating verses prescribing female share of inheritance,should take cognisance of the place of women under the Islamic law system and other rights accorded women which could suffer jeopardy if a strict approach to the understanding of discrimination is applied.”
The Don added that the trend whereby the female gender was politically stereotyped as incapable of holding state or national chief executive positions had no basis in the major Nigerian cultures, the constitution and Islamic law.
The lectuter also said that the capacity of a political aspiration should rather be assessed on the basis of personal attributes, including competence, charisma and integrity and not on the person’s gender.
“It is recognised that there is unfair division of work load in respect of household tasks which have the potential to hamper the progress of the female gender in her profession. However, this may no longer be tenable anymore as an excuse since examples abound of several women who have overcome these challenges.”
She, however, urged women to be creative in attending to their household responsibilities in order that such might not slow down their progress at work.
“To stem the tide of social and physical abuses as security breaches in schools, government needs to cause improvement in security infrastructure around schools.
“Additionally, the authorities of schools have to pay increased attention to the safety of the female gender and to raise consciousness about safety through security education,” she added
