Senator Kingibe Touts Achievements, Speaks On Challenges Facing Female Lawmakers

The Senator representing the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Ireti Kingibe, has defended her achievements one year as a senator and the challenges women face as lawmakers in the National Assembly.

The FCT senator said collective empowerment is crucial to change the narrative in the FCT and the country as a whole than individual empowerment which does not positively impact the lives of the people for long.

Kingibe, who was speaking at the 2024 edition of Voice of Women (VOW) conference and awards, in Abuja with the theme: ‘Achieving Women Inclusion for a Sustainable Nigeria’, said, “I have been a senator for a year and a half, I am primarily a legislator.

“I have bills waiting to be passed, creating the nursing and midwifery school In Gwagwalada, I have maternal free healthcare for women.

“I have a few of such bills still pending,” she said.

An anonymous speaker at the event had criticised the senator saying, “Those women we mobilised are now looking at us and saying that they have given us money, they have given us salt, rice, when there is nothing as such.

“They didn’t even call us to their inauguration, they didn’t come back to say thank you,” she said.

Responding, Senator Kingibe said, “Since I have been a senator, I have empowered…and I have everything on record…10,000 people.

“Now, it is not possible… FCT has four to five million people and for me to personally see everybody that voted for me.

“I am also building a 50-bed hospital, I am putting up an ICT centre in Gwagwalada and Nyanya. I paid with my personal money 2,000 JAMB forms for free,” she said.

She added that, “At the end of the day, governance means to me… bringing things for the general good and not for the individual,” she stated.

She stressed that, “The truth is that being a woman in the national assembly is very, very, very hard.

“So, I have to lobby for everything. When I leave here, I will go to the national assembly, sign in and then go from ministry to ministry so that all those things that don’t get attention by the executive, I can slip them into the budget from lobbying different ministers to put it in their budget.

“I have also renovated with my personal money and made allowance for the ante-natal centre in Gwagwalada teaching hospital. Any of you can go and verify all these things.

“So, I’m sorry. Yes, women complain, I haven’t come to them one by one; it is not possible. It is either I do that and then you don’t get anything else.

“So that is my frustration and I want women to understand that you are voting for other women so that our general lives will improve not because she is going to come and meet you personally,” the senator said.