By Daniel Kanu
Nigeria has been recording low participation of women in both elective and appointive positions. This has become a growing concern to many Nigerians and advocacy groups.
As the dust settles after the general elections, the negligible influence of women in the nation’s politics, and by extension, other spheres of national life, is becoming glaring.
Credible records show that 24 years after the return to democratic rule, women are still far behind in Nigeria’s political space as their representation is still too low.
The national data collected by the National Centre for Women Development on the involvement and participation of women in politics in Nigeria is to say the obvious, discouraging.
In the just concluded 2023 elections, records show that 378 women ran for Senate and House of Representatives seats, but only 17 were successful. While all the current female senators are not returning, seven of the current 13 female members of the House in the Ninth National Assembly also lost their re-election bids.
While some democracies and emerging economies are making strides with greater visibility of the female folk in public affairs, Nigeria appears to be slipping back.
In the Ninth NASS, only seven of the 109 senators are women; aside from two – Oluremi Tinubu, who is the wife of the President-elect, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, and Aisha Dahiru Binani, who ran for the Adamawa State governorship, – all the others lost their bids to return.
Unless there will be changes by court pronouncements, at the moment only three women will be in the Senate and 14 in the 360-member House of Representatives. Seven women won seats for the first time in the House. The figure of 17 women only out of the 469 federal lawmakers in the 10th NASS represents an insignificant 3.62 per cent, given their huge population.
Nigeria’s National Gender Policy recommended affirmative action and sought a more inclusive representation of women with at least 35 per cent of both elective political and appointive public service positions respectively. It appears those proposals have remained in theory rather than in its implementation.
The United Nations emphasises the importance of representation for every part of the population and of involving women in decision-making. It declared, “Women’s equal participation and leadership in political and public life are essential to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.”
It is sad that Nigeria, a signatory to most of the treaties, seeking proper balancing and integration of the women into politics and public affairs, has refused to put into practice what it pledged to honour.
Last year, in 2022, a Federal High Court in Abuja ordered the Federal Government to comply with the 35 per cent stipulation, which allows women to occupy 35 per cent of all appointments.
Pronouncing judgment in a suit filed by Women in Politics Forum, an NGO, the judge, Donatus Okorowo, said that the government had the obligation to implement the 35 per cent rule, accusing past governments of acting in breach of international treaties on women’s participation in government. He stressed that the intention was not merely a policy statement, but one that must be backed with requisite action by the government.
That judgment has not been obeyed, and despite efforts by women to ensure greater visibility and inclusion in political leadership, they are still at the sympathy of elected presidents and governors for appointments, and of party chiefs for nominations to contest elective offices.
Also, last year, the federal lawmakers rejected five gender bills, prompting women activists to picket the parliament building in Abuja, demanding passage of the bills.
Following the protests, the House rescinded its decisions on three out of the bills. The House overturned its decision on the bill that seeks to amend Section 26 (2a) of the 1999 Constitution by opening citizenship registration to males and females. If the bill is passed, foreigners married to Nigerian women can apply for Nigerian citizenship.
Several African countries are doing better. Some East African countries have at least 25-33 per cent gender participation at the national and sub-national levels. Rwanda records the highest with 61.3 per cent of women holding parliamentary seats. In Namibia and South Africa, voluntary quotas were deliberately adopted by the political parties to enhance women’s participation, leading to 46.2 per cent and 42.4 per cent political representation respectively.
Citing extensive studies, UNW said that increasing the number of women in decision-making positions is vital for political accountability and “genuine democracy.”
It has been established that societies that promote and protect human rights do better in advancing the cause of women.
Grassroots politician and former governorship candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in Abia State, Hon. Blessing Nwagba, told Sunday Sun that Nigeria needs to adopt effective policies that must be implemented to attract more women into politics and decision-making at all levels in public and private affairs.
She said that 35 per cent affirmative action is still a mere policy statement, which is yet to be translated into action.
For her, women have the capacity, competence, and credibility to lead on their merit, if given a fair playing field but a lot of barriers are put in place by the male-dominated society to discourage and emasculate the efforts of women in politics in Nigeria.
Dr Nwagba, a two-time House of Assembly member (Aba North Constituency), who ran for the Senatorial seat for Abia South in the last election, on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC), is aggrieved that Nigeria’s political climate has been hostile with so many barriers for the women that aspire to run for political positions.
“I think one of the factors affecting the campaign/advocacy against gender-based violence in Nigeria is religious and cultural differences. There are some culture that see it as a taboo for women to be heard and some religions condone child marriage.
“The joke is on our men, go to Rwanda where the majority of their parliamentarians are women, and see for yourself how developed that country is despite the fact that they came out from a civil war in 1995,” Dr Nwagba submitted.
Also, Princess Ifeyinwa Anazonwu-Akerele, who ran on the platform of APC, for Anambra North Senatorial seat expressed worry about the constraints against women in politics.
She told Sunday Sun that there is need to implement the 35 per cent affirmative action to encourage more women into politics.
Princess Anazonwu-Akerele harped on the urgent need for governments at the national, state, and local levels to strive for increased participation of women, advising that priority should be given to girl-child education and full implementation of the Child Rights Act.
Particularly, she urged the President-elect, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, who is known to be gender-sensitive, to appoint more women into his cabinet and other parastatals during the time of appointing capable hands that will assist in his renewed hope transformation agenda.
According to her, “there is a need to ensure that every institutional constraint on the way to women empowerment, especially in politics and leadership, is disenabled to enhance their contributions to socio-economic development”.
She said that the political terrain is hostile to women, stressing that “there are so many bottlenecks limiting the women. It is even like a war getting the ticket to stand as a candidate of a party in an election.
“The patriarch nature of our politics, the violence, threat, the huge finance needed to execute a robust campaign, the do-or-die attitude of our male competitors, among others, add up to discourage women wanting to go into politics and those already in politics,” Anazonwu-Akerele told Sunday Sun.
Also, the Vice Presidential Candidate of the Young People’s Party, YPP, in the 2019 election, Ummah Getso, said that the constraints working against women in politics are huge, insisting that a lot still needs to be done to attract more women into politics.
“Politics is like a battle or as if you are fighting a war in Nigeria and such cannot attract more women rather will discourage even those that are there.
“There must be deliberate effort to encourage the women, 35 per cent affirmative action must be put to practice not a theory, and there must be some waiver for them in certain areas. There should be an increase also in the appointive position.
“We are simply partners in nation-building and not rivals or competing with the men for the wrong reasons. We simply want to contribute our own quota to bring a balanced, genuine development for our society,” Getso told Sunday Sun.
Also speaking, Princess Ada Ogbu, who was a Senatorial candidate of the APC for Enugu East Federal Constituency, did not mince words in her views.
The politician reiterated the views of many that spoke with Sunday Sun.
She pointed out the hostile political terrain, difficulty in getting the party ticket as a candidate, corruption, the finance to prosecute election, and the unequal opportunity with the male competitors, among others, as obstacles.
Princess Ogbu said that concerted efforts must be made by the government and Non-Governmental Organizations to increase the level of participation of women in politics in line with the declaration made at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, which advocated 35 per cent affirmative action and in line with Nigeria’s National Gender Policy, which recommended 35 per cent affirmative action and sought for a more inclusive representation of women.
Commentators are of the view that democracy is about fair representation of all interest groups in the society and that the low representation of women, is a violation of the principle of democracy.