Thread by @AbdulMahmud01

Not sure I had the prescient mind of the sage to have known or predicted the outcome. I merely made my prediction on the basis of what I thought was missing: lack of attention of women groups to this issue.
The result of yesterday raises other issues. I'll summarise them

https://twitter.com/acresofsaphire/status/1498878001127305220

The problem here goes back to 2014. When the dominant section of our women's movement climbed on the partisan bed, it was bound to get lost in the anti-women politics that began to take root from 2015. The women's movement is still lost in the politics of itself.

The bills on women were in the public space for almost a year, question is: what did the movement do, in terms of lobbying, clarifying and identifying new approaches to enhance its cause. Nothing I presume. Nothing.
You don't cry when the head is off, my people say in Edo

I saw the bills in advance, while working with one of the largest partisan groups in the House. I drew attention to the discriminatory provisions of Section 26 of the Constitution 1999 which clearly exclude women from conferring citizenship on husbands

A better approach I advised was to amend Section 26 (2) (a) or Section 14 of the Interpretation Act without necessary causing a fuss or raising the suspicion of patriarchal politicians in NASS. Well, while it was accepted that my advice would address the problem, it came too late

I think @solomonapenja and @amasonic tried to get round the problem posed by Section 26 (2) (a) in their quoted tweet yesterday; but the premise of their tweet was flawed as it didn't take account of the jurisprudence on interpretation. I will explain.

If you look at Section 26(2) (a) and (b), you'll see that the drafters of the Constitution clearly intended to discriminate against women by the use of "any woman" (in S.26 (2) (a)) and "every person" (in S.26(2)(b)).
If the drafters had used "every person" in S.26(2)(a)

the canon of interpretation which relies on gender neutrality would have been used to give meaning to the very problematic and discriminatory section.
But, @solomonapenja and @amasonic canvased a position that doesn't provide any solution to the problem; it problematizes it

Their view that Section 14 of the Interpretation Act can be used to go round the problem in my view doesn't take account of the Masculine Rule in which Section 14 is founded. They suggest that where the feminine gender is used in an Act, it includes the masculine gender or males

My response to them is this: no, it doesn't because Section 14 of the Interpretation Act is not founded on the Two-Way Rule of Interpretation. If it does, the Interpretation Act would have stated that where reference is made to a woman, it includes man or vice versa

Or:

Where reference is made to a woman it includes man; or where reference is made to a man it includes woman.
I admit as they did that Section 26 (2)(a) hasn't come for interpretation by our courts, my view is that we can find jurisprudential guidance from the old English decision

of R v Crosswaite (1867) 17 ICLR 463 and the brilliant work of the legal scholar, Elmer Dreidger, 'Are Statutes Written Only for Men?'.

Going forward, all womens groups have to do is to propose an amendment of Section 26 (2)(a) by removing "any woman" and inserting "any person"

Or in the alternative, propose an amendment of Section 14 of the Interpretation Act to take account of the Two-Way Rule of interpretation of statutes.

The problem with struggle in our country is that there's so much passion and no rigour of scholarship. Illiteracy abounds

Good morning from the sanctum sanctorum of the shrine