It has been over a year since the general elections in Nigeria and the country’s official election body, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has revealed that it recorded a drop in women’s participation in politics. This means women in Nigeria are still largely under-represented.
However, with new parties springing up yearly and a democratic process that started more than two decades ago, it comes as no surprise considering the country’s stance on women’s rights and empowerment.
The INEC Stance
Representing the Commission at a ‘Consultative Forum on Sharing Experiences for the Conduct of the 2nd Peer Review’ in Abuja, INEC’s Deputy Director and Head Gender Division, Blessing Obidiegwu, expressed concerns over the limited roles and opportunities offered to women in the country, especially when it comes to politics.
Noting the man-made barriers women face, Obidigwu said: “In 2019, women who won primaries, for some reason, were set aside. A lot happened especially the killing of a women leader in Kogi State. I was there. I sensitised women and told them everything would be okay. You can imagine my pain when I saw that woman died.”
Optimistic about the future and the role the proposed electoral act could play in making that a reality, she encouraged more women to get involved and fight to be a part of the decision-making process regardless of the bottlenecks they will have to navigate.
“We know that when we have men and women at the table taking decisions, we will achieve better and our country will progress better and faster,” she said.
Relevant Statistics in Nigeria
Following the announcement of election results in 2019, only 11 women made it into the House of Representatives, despite the 260 seats that were up for grabs.
Similarly, a recent report published in The Nation by an indigenous non-governmental organisation, Center for Information Technology and Development (CITAD), showed that so far, only 36 women have gotten into the Nigerian Senate since the start of Nigeria’s democratic dispensation in 1999. A further breakdown of the report showed that men have occupied 618 slots of the 654 slots in the Senate since 1999, showing 94.5% for the men and a meagre 5.5% for women.
The current government in Nigeria under President Muhammadu Buhari has not done much in terms of inclusion as its ministerial appointment list featured only six women despite a total of 30 ministerial slots. State-level trends are not much different from the federal as no state has voted for a female governor so far, and there are only four female deputy governors in Kaduna, Ogun, Enugu, and Rivers states.
These numbers fail to fulfil Nigeria’s mandated quota of 35 per cent in terms of female participation in politics as stipulated in the National Gender Policy.
Observers and political analysts look forward to INEC’s policies for inclusion ahead of the next general election for Nigeria in 2023
This story is part of our new series on Nigeria where we analyse electoral reform in the country ahead of the next general elections in 2023.
