By Olakunle Olafioye
Ahead of the inauguration of the 10th National Assembly, Nigerians have been admonished to embrace merit and jettison primordial sentiments of ethnic and religious considerations in choosing the leadership of the new legislative arm.
A former Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Iyom Josephine Anenih, who gave this admonition, expressed frustration with the poor performance of women at the just concluded 2023 general elections.
She, however, expressed optimism that better future lies ahead for women in the country. Excerpt:
We saw fewer women contesting the 2023 elections compared to the 2019 elections and consequently much fewer of them got elected. What does this suggest about women participation in the nation’s polity?
It is an indication that the country is not ready for women now. Before women can contest an election they must emerge from their parties’ primaries. It is the party that will give them the ticket to contest in the general election. When you talk about a smaller number of women contesting elections then we have to go back to the basics – the foundation, which is the political party. Political parties have been the major obstacle against women participation in government all along because the political parties are so male-dominated and the method of selecting candidates in most parties is usually through congresses. And the congress is through delegate election not through Option A4. So, who are the delegates? How do the delegates emerge? Who is in control of the delegates? So, these are where the problems of women in politics in Nigeria originate from. If women don’t get through party primaries, there is no way they can get the ticket to contest at the elections. If you look at the structures of most political parties, at the leadership level, you hardly find women there. The only one you can find is the women leader and maybe a welfare officer who is a woman. We don’t have principal officers like chairman or secretaries, vice chairman – officers who take decisions, who are women at that level. These are people who influence the delegate lists. So, when a woman wants to contest, she is told to pick her nomination form at discounted rate and goes for the primary without being in control of the delegates who will vote for them. Don’t forget most women don’t make the delegate list. You can’t even say women should vote for women because women are not even on the list as delegates. This is why it is very difficult for women to scale through.
But in the past we saw a good number of women scaling through. How come it is getting more difficult despite the advocacy to enhance women participation now?
It is getting worse now because the parties are getting worse. Our political parties are getting more undemocratic. At the beginning parties had their problems, but it was not as pronounced as we have now. And then there were conscious efforts to encourage women, but now what we see is that there has been more conscious efforts to discourage women participation in politics. It is terrible that a country like Nigeria that prides itself as giant of Africa, a country that ought to be the leading light of progression and development, is the one frustrating women’s participation in government. It is not only in politics; it is in all aspects. Any country that does not support women will remain in the dark age and backward. Look at all the progressive countries you will discover that they are encouraging women to take up positions of responsibilities. They do everything to make sure they have more women in governance.
Does it then mean that women should just hands off and leave politics for men entirely?
We would not leave politics for men. It is just for women to re-strategize. I am sure the experience women had in 2023 would make us sit up and do something desperate next time. The youth organized themselves and they got the not-too-young –to-run movement and they succeeded in bringing down the age of representation which enables younger people to aspire for elective positions. I believe the women will do that. The women actually made spirited efforts in the ongoing National Assembly to ensure women are constitutionally given certain percentage or slots, but it was thrown out. This time around I hope the 10th National Assembly will be more sensitive to the plights of women than the outgoing one. Every other country has done that so Nigeria should not be an exception. We are not asking for something that is impossible or that has not been practiced elsewhere. Women are going to strategise ahead of 2027 and come out with better strategies in 2027. What happened in 2023 will not repeat itself again. Nigerian women will not repeat 2023 mistake again.
The jostling for the position of the Senate president in the 10th National Assembly has begun. And many are of the opinion that fairness and equity should be considered in zoning the position of the headship of the National Assembly. What is your take on this?
Personally, I am of the opinion that merit should be the major consideration as far as the leadership of the 10th National Assembly is concerned. All these primordial sentiments about ethnicity and religion that have kept us bound must be jettisoned if we must progress. Look at America. When you get there you will find Nigerians and other nationalities as judges and as senators. If you go to England you will find other nationalities occupying sensitive positions in that country. Why is our case so different? We must stop all these primordial sentiments when it comes to picking those who lead us; it is dividing us more and robbing us of what it takes to become a truly united nation. It is putting us into tribal mode that will never allow us to come together as we ought to have as a nation. There are easterners who are in the third generation, but who were born in the West or the North even though their parents were originally from the East, their first language is either Hausa or Yoruba. Most of them have never been to the East before from wherever they are. But when it gets to election period you will now tell them that they are from the East and so that they cannot contest for elections in the North or in the West. There are some Hausa people in the East who have never been to the North because their grandparents came to the East and settled in the East. They and their parents were born in the East and they speak Igbo more fluently than they speak their own language. But when they want to vie for elective position then you tell them they cannot. Why do we do this to ourselves? If we claim to belong to the same nation we should be ready to see ourselves as one. We should stop placing emphasis on those things that divide us. I wish there won’t be questions about tribe and religion in the forthcoming census. Everybody rushes to America to have their children. The moment a child is born in America and the birth is registered in America it automatically becomes American citizen, but when you come to Nigeria you cannot be the citizen of where you are. Again, talking about gender now, why should everybody from the president to the speaker of the House of Assembly be men? What about the women? Are women not part and parcel of this country? We have women senators, why can’t we have a woman as the Senate president? Why can’t we make a woman the Speaker of the House of Representatives? And that is what we are asking for? Nigerian women are asking that a woman be made the Senate president or the Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives.