Senate bemoans NCWD overlook

The Senate Friday frowned upon the dilapidated status of the National Centre for Women Development (NCWD), Abuja.

This is even as the chairman, Senate Committee on Women Affairs, Betty Apiafi (PDP, Rivers West), accused men of lording it on women “even in areas of gender responsibilities like the Ministry of Women Affairs, Centre for Women Development, etc with numerical advantage.”

The Centre was established in 1992 as a development-driven research and policy formulation as well as gender and capacity-building centre for women, particularly during the Better Life for Rural Women Programme of the late Maryam Babangida era.

Bemoaning the sorry state of the Centre while fielding questions from journalists after submitting the 2022 budget proposals for the Ministry of Women Affairs, Senator Apiafi said no money was earmarked for renovation of the Centre despite its dilapidated status.

She said, “During the 2022 budget submission to the appropriation committee, passionate appeal was made by me for the Committee to look for money for the required rehabilitation of the Centre.

“It is worrisome that out of the N5 billion earmarked for the Ministry in the 2022 budget, nothing was allocated for rehabilitation work at the Centre.

“Despite being the most vulnerable or at the receiving end of all manner of un-pleasantries in the country, gains of policies and programmes rolled out by both the federal and state governments hardly get to them.

“For instance, how many of the Houses built for the rehabilitated people from IDPs centres in Borno state will be allocated to women? How many of the poverty alleviating interventions being made by the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development will be benefitted by women.”