Lawan made the pledge in a speech after he was presented with an award of HeForShe by a group of women led by the Minister of Women Affairs, Dame Pauline Tallen in Abuja.

He said, “I believe we should give our women all the opportunities available for them to participate not only in governance but in all spheres of life, because governance is limited.

“The majority of Nigerians are women. It is not 50‐50, I think it is about 48‐52, and you need to unleash such powerful group into your national development. You must have a conscious agenda and plan to get the best of this lot, and I believe we can’t wait any more.

“We should be in a hurry, even though in a hurry we must be very meticulous in ensuring that we get every issue properly addressed to support our women.”

The Senate President said having understood the importance of women empowerment, something must be done to achieve the desired results, and expressed his readiness to support President Muhammadu Buhari in that regard.

“I am going to support Mr. President fully, and in the legislature here we will play our part and role very well to ensure that we give our women the desired tonic, the support they required to make them participate in governance, in politics, in business, in everything,” he said.

Lawan said there were not enough women as role models particularly in the northern part of the country and called for more efforts to provide girl-child education for women to reach their desired level of education and contribute in whatever their potentials will allow them.

According to him, “the fact remains that we have to encourage those we work with to ensure that they provide the leadership that will be exemplary to others who are outside, to be role models, that is what we lack.

“All over the country we have that deficit, but we have it more in northern part of the country. Personally, I believe a girl should be given opportunity to go to any level of education. If she wants to read up to PhD so be it.”

Lawan said in addition to empowerment there was need for concerted efforts to protect women and girls, particularly from sexual predators and called for stiffer penalties for convicted rapists.

“Last year the incident of rape was rampant but thank God it is coming down and I believe that the consequences on anyone involved in rape incident must be extremely punitive and prohibitive.

“Because if you educate or empower a girl it is like you educate the nation. The reverse is also the case. If you destroy one it is like destroying the nation.

“So for anyone to engage in destroying the life of innocent, sometimes even little babies, I didn’t know if death sentence will not be the kind of necessary punishment for this kind of a thing.

“Our laws must be extremely stiff to protect our women and girls from this kind of paedophile behaviour and attitude to life.”

Earlier in her remark, Dame Pallen Tallen said the HeForShe was a global initiative and a solidarity movement for gender equality between men and women.

The initiative, she said was to engage men and boys as advocates and agents of change in the efforts to achieve gender equality and women empowerment.

The award to the Senate President, she said, was in recognition of his support to women issues and urged the Senate to amend the 1999 constitution to repeal discriminatory laws that hindered the realisation of gender equality and women advancement.

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Speaking on the need for gender balancing at the event held in Ikeja, Sanwo-Olu said women were enriched with incredible potentials capable of promoting development in the society and must not be left untapped.

The governor stated that the women were not a threat to the existence of men, noting that women had demonstrated great capacity in all areas of human endeavours that were hitherto exclusive preserve of men.

He said: “Today, we join other countries of the world to sign up to the ‘HeForShe’ campaign, a United Nations women initiative aimed at enlisting the support of men in the fight for gender equality.

“This campaign is a clarion call on the male gender to sign up to this initiative because it is an idea that the society as a whole stands to benefit from.

“Women are endowed with incredible potentials that the society needs to harness to achieve optimum level of development. As the Chief Executive of Lagos State and one who believes in the critical role of women in advancing the socio-economic development of our state, I am proud to accept the responsibility to lead this campaign as an ambassador for the cause of women in Lagos State.”

The governor was decorated as the Chief Gender Champion of the state while other top citizens were also decorated as members of the movement.

Other Gender Champions that were decorated include the Deputy Governor, Dr. Obafemi Hamzat; Attorney General of the State, Moyosore Onigbanjo; Managing Director, Polaris Bank, Tokunbo Abiru; Oba of Elegushi land, Saheed Elegushi; representatives of the Christian and Moslem faith as well as a Youth representative among others.

According to the governor, a world without women was unimaginable.

He added that it was necessary they were accorded the right place in the scheme of things, while also reiterating the state’s effort to fight gender-based discrimination and violence.

He urged other Gender Champions to further advocate for gender equality.

“Finally, as the Chief Gender Champion for the “HeforShe” campaign, I call on other champions and everyone to support our women, and accord them more space to operate. Let us continue to love and believe in them and the world will be a better place for all of us to achieve our full potentials.”

On his part, the Attorney General of Lagos State assured that in line with the T.H.E.M.E.S agenda of the Sanwo-Olu led administration, violence against women in the society would be handled in accordance with the law.

Representative of the UN Women Nigeria and ECOWAS, Ms Comfort Lamptey, who was represented by Lansana Wonneh, described the governor as a principal fighter of segregation and violence against women, adding that his recognition was symbolic.

The governor was joined by the First Lady, Dr. Ibijoke Sanwo-Olu; Head of Service, Mr. Hakeem Muri-Okunola, Royal fathers and other dignitaries.

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