Ejike Okechukwu, the lawmaker representing the Anaocha II constituency in the Anambra House of Assembly, says women are architects of their political woes.

Mr Okechukwu, house committee chairman on basic education, said this when he received a group, Anambra 100 Women Lobby Group and 50-50 Women Action Group of Women Aide Collective (WACOL) in Awka.

“Women should stop crying out that men are violating or abusing them. Men actually do not wish political ills on women who have ventured into political affairs. The women fail to use their numerical strength to support their fellow women for reasons best known to them,” Mr Okechukwu explained.

The Anambra legislator added, “Women make rules in their meetings regarding how their burial rites, widowhood, girl child conduct should be. It is not the men. They put in unfriendly rules starting from the period of mourning, shaving of hair, what to wear, genital mutilation, among others.”

He claimed that women “enforce these rules too” and “should go back to the basics and change those archaic rules.”

The state legislator said that women should look inward to discard any practices of harmful rules against them, especially the rural dwellers, pointing out that Anambra “has domesticated the Violence Against Person Prohibition (VAPP) Law and that the gender bill “failed because women did not shine their eyes well. The men who stepped down the bill are your brothers, husbands and relatives.”

He further noted that “women should do their homework very well,” assuring them that “Anambra legislators respect women and would act in a manner that will benefit them.”

(NAN)