By Grace Yussuf
After the just-concluded party primaries, many stakeholders are at loss as to why the participation of women in politics this time around has been abysmally low.

The stakeholders, especially women activists, have decried the decline in women’s political fortune and their political entrepreneurship in this dispensation.

Some have attributed this development to the patriarchal nature of the country’s environment, while others have pointed to the culture that does not encourage women to go into politics.

However, the most important factor, they say, is the mercantile politics that is practiced in Nigeria.

The mercantile and monetisation of politics, make the political terrain not to be favourable to women, who most cannot afford such political enterprise.

Statistics by the Gender Strategy Advancement International, (GSAI), on the low political participation of women in Nigeria, showed that their participation falls below the world and African continental standards.

According to the report, the national average of women’s political participation in Nigeria remains at 6.7 per cent in elective and appointive positions.

This is far below the global average of 22.5 per cent and Africa’s regional average of 23.4 per cent and the West African Sub Regional average of 15 per cent, according to the report.

The Founder of Women of Aid Collective (WACOL), an NGO, and an activist with over 20 years of experience, Prof. Joy Ezeilo, frowns on the dismal participation of women in politics in this dispensation, saying they have continued to be disenfranchised.

Ezeilo said it was unfortunate that the efforts to get affirmative action entrenched in the nation’s constitution or to get a gender equal opportunities bill passed have not yielded expected results. The moves were meant to enhance women’s chances of running and winning elections.

She says the country has never seen this type of retrogression in women’s political fortune and a decline in their political entrepreneurship.

If PDP presidential candidate, party chair are from south, north won’t accept it – Bode George

“In Nigeria, to get a gender equal opportunities bill passed that would have enhanced women’s chances at running and winning elections, failed.

“And then, now the results from the primaries have shown poor performance for women and we are really worried. I have done this work for two decades and I am saying when are we going to get it right?
“We have done it in other countries and we have seen how they succeeded. In Rwanda, I was part of the movement for affirmative action and getting it into their constitution and more women are participating in politics in that country.
“And since 2015, it has declined and people are pointedly not too happy with APC for this declining women’s fortune because you expect the ruling party to be the one that will set an example and have a significant number of women.

“And there is no way we can make claims to sustainable development without the full participation of women in governance and indeed in all sectors including economy,’’ she said.

According to her, because of the mercantile politics that is practiced in Nigeria, the political terrain is not enabling, the monetisation is huge and most women cannot afford that.

“And of course, we know they are interrelated, sometimes women’s economic status also affects their political careers,” she said.

The law professor also attributed political violence and the current insecurity that pervades the entire country as contributing to women lagging in terms of being aspirants as their participation this time around is not as large as it was in 2015.

Others also affirm that the rejection of the five Gender Bills presented to the National Assembly early this year, which resulted in weeks of massive protests by women activists has also contributed to the low participation of women.

The demonstration described as the “mother of all protests” was aimed at calling on federal lawmakers to reconsider all the gender bills that were rejected during the Constitution amendment earlier in the year.

The National Assembly, in early March, voted against bills providing for 35 per cent affirmative action for women in political parties’ administration, they also voted against the bill to create special seats for women in the national and state assemblies.

Both bills got an abysmal number of votes during the clause-by-clause consideration during the constitution amendment in both chambers of the parliament.

Another activist, Ms Ene Obi, the Country Director of ActionAid, also lamented the low participation of women in politics in this dispensation as compared to 2011 and 2015.

Police raid terrorists hideout, neutralise 1, arrest informant in Katsina

“I think there are several factors responsible for low participation of women, there are very few women right now in politics, because of the patriarchal nature we have in our environment.

“And because of our culture and also not receiving the encouragement from the political class from the government of Nigeria,’’ Obi said.

She said governments lacked the political commitment to implement the 35 per affirmative action for female participation in governance, both appointive and elective, even though the National Gender Policy has stipulated it.

According to her, with the present 6.7 per cent of women’s representation, whether it is an appointive position or elective position, the impact of women cannot be felt.

This, she said, stemmed from a lack of recognition of women in the political parties.

Obi says the 35 per cent affirmative action women are seeking for now is that political parties need to make it a rule to insert in their own constitution 35 per cent of women representation in both appointments and elective positions.

She also cites Rwanda, which is in Africa, as a country that deliberately encourages women’s participation, and the percentage of women in governance “is very impressive.’’

Referring to the Federal Character Commission, she says it came into being because of diversity in the country’s representation.

She advised that the concept should be reflected to correct the imbalance in the quality of the population in the national life that will lead to quality decisions.

The ActionAid boss thinks that men are just being insensitive to the choices to be made for quality living, quality population, and quality decisions by not including women in the scheme of things.

She says the call for the creation of an extra seat in every senatorial zone, to bring them on board for quality discussion was not taken.

According to a GSAI report, Nigeria ranks 181 of 193 countries on the Gender Equality Index, for countries with low women representation in governance.
The ranking took into consideration reasons such as poor resource allocation in the economic and social sectors, frequent conflicts, forced displacements, and inadequate inclusion of women and girls’ perspectives in policy-making decisions.

The report says other reasons include low representation of women in governance and politics; inadequate legal framework and limited capacity to support women’s empowerment and equality efforts, (UN Women, 2020).

The Executive Director, GSAI, Adaora Onyechere, wonders why the Federal Government has not considered certain policies on gender inclusion.

Onyechere spoke at a two-day capacity building workshop with the theme: “Capacity Building Workshop for Reporters and Editors on Media Independence to Promote Women’s Economic Inclusion and Gender Accountability in Governance”, in Abuja.

“Statistics of women from 1999 to date both in governance, in politics and the way the government has tailored their implementation of gender budget has been null and void, for a population with over 49.2 per cent.

“It is a serious problem and the need to evaluate and look at what the government has done is very important.

“From our investigations, there is no sense of duty to women’s inclusion at the community level. So it seems as if there’s not enough effective implementation of policies at the grassroots,’’ Onyechere said.

In the same vein, the National President of the National Council of Women Societies (NCWS), Lami Lau, calls on political parties to restructure their policies to reflect gender balance.

Lau says that is why the council has been embarking on advocacy drives to all political parties seeking ways of working together with them to strengthen the country’s democracy to ensure that women are actively involved in party politics.

Another activist, the Executive Director, Equity Advocates, Ene Ede, says apart from corruption and corrupt practices which are the bane of political parties, there has been no will for women to push hard in making demands on leaders on their exclusion and marginalisation.

Those negotiating on behalf of FG with ASUU are not doing good job –Yahaya Bello

Ede says if legal actions are taken against violations of compliance to affirmative action principles of a minimum of 35 per cent reserved positions on both elective and appointive are for women, then the attention of the government will be drawn to their issues.

Other stakeholders have called on political parties to reserve the positions of female running mates in their parties.

Specifically, the US-based National Democratic Institute has expressed concern over the exclusion of women as running mates in the presidential primaries for the 2023 elections.

It, therefore, emphasises the need for the media to beam attention on the marginalisation of women in the last presidential primaries by political parties.

These recommendations were among the highlights of a communiqué issued at the end of a two-day media training in Calabar for 25 journalists on gender reporting.

The event was organised by Women In Politics Forum (WiPF) for selected journalists, and the communiqué was signed by the President of WiPF, Ebere Ifendu.

Ifendu said that the media needed to be intentional in projecting women in politics through the publication of stories that would focus on issues rather than irrelevant personal matters.

Also on the way forward, Ezeilo expresses the belief that women can raise the quality of leadership, adding that for 2027, women have to start working towards that now.

She expresses the hope that the female members of the National Assembly will not give up the good work of pursuing the passage of the gender bills, which she describes as “ a beautiful piece of legislation, progressive piece of legislation’’.

She says the problem is deep-seated and women have to get to the root of it, saying it is time for decisive action by women to negotiate power.

For Obi of ActionAids, a lot of education is going on about the continuous voter registration for people to make sure they get their PVCs.

Besides recommitting and reconsidering all the five gender bills, women are also asking the lawmakers to pass the Gender and Equal Opportunities bill currently before the Senate and immediately domesticate the African Charters Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa, which Nigeria ratified in 2004.

The National Assembly is also being asked to domesticate the UN Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), which Nigeria ratified in 1985.

(NAN Feature)