The Independent National Electoral Commission’s (INEC) Gender Policy is a response to the National Gender Policy (2006) and Vision 20:20 (2009) which recognize that gender equality and women’s empowerment are basic human rights that lie at the heart of equitable development and which call on all state and non-state actors to promote gender equality through their institutional practices and policies (Excerpt from INEC Gender Policy). How much has this affected the role of women in Nigerian politics and how far have we gone?
I got an opportunity to witness an INEC engagement session with some Nigerian political party National Leaders, lawmakers, civil society groups and other stakeholders to discuss the state of Nigerian women participation in the electoral process and to find out the way forward and I discovered some truths and underlying realities facing Nigerian women in politics.
Women occupy half of the world’s population which makes it quite fair that women should play an equal role in the world’s development. While several countries have strived to uphold women’s role in their electoral process, Nigeria seems to be finding it very hard to pick up her pace. For a country supposed to be the giant of Africa, are we really where we ought to be?
From Professor Antonia T. Okoosi-Simbine’s address, the Hon. National Commissioner in charge of outreach and partnership committee, INEC, I got to understand that political parties are important stakeholders in the electoral process that serve as a basic platform for the public’s engagement and participation in the electoral process. Political parties exist with a primary goal of seeking and securing a country’s majority votes in elections in order to successfully run the government based on their ideologies, manifestos and campaign primaries.
This gave me an understanding that political parties invariably dictate whoever represents us in terms of gender and noticeably in Nigeria, men seems to dominate political parties, winning several elected offices as against a very low percentage of women. And the number keeps dwindling with the onset of Buhari’s administration. We all know that for a country to fully attain sustainable development, its democratic process must be gender inclusive. It is on that note that INEC launched the Gender Policy and organised this engagement session to rally political parties’ commitment to promoting gender equity in their structures and to encourage more women to participate in the country’s electoral process. Participants, especially active female politicians were expected to share their experiences, which were also to serve as a reference point for new actions to help women.
I was opportune to sit on the same table with the National Leader of KOWA Party, Alhaji Saidou Boboi and trust me I got a earful of what women are not doing and need to do to be more active in the Nigeria’s political environment. As we all know, KOWA party produced the first female Presidential candidate we had in Nigeria, Prof. Remi Sonaiya, who contested during the 2015 Presidential election. Alhaji Boboi was of the opinion that women need to learn to support each other more and to understudy the Nigerian political environment in order to fully understand their political role.
I was moved by Prof. Remi Sonaiya when she spoke about her experience contesting for the 2015 presidential election. I used to liken her case to that of Daniel walking into the lion’s den. She said participating in politics opened a lot of doors of opportunities for her, although it wasn’t an easy journey, she was able to participate because of her principles and with the support of her party members who believed in the power of a woman. She said some of the ways to promote women participation in politics is to abolish night meetings, deliberately reduce the influence of money, prevent party consensus and for women to leave the background of dancing and clapping.
Hon. Nkoyo Toyo, a member of the Nigerian House of Representatives and a stout member of PDP also shared her experience. As a practising politician, her experience was quite interesting. She stated the reality that it is important that society understands that politics is local, meaning that politics is peculiar to different communities and is subject to their beliefs and interpretation of the law irrespective of gender and qualification. This clearly explains why there seems to be a greater percentage of women participation in the South East.
She also stated that not being part of a major group makes you an outsider, which puts every party member on a turn by turn rule, probably one of the reasons women just joining political parties may take a while to be nominated for any role. Unfavourable electoral process, election malpractices, and funds mismanagement are also some of the reasons she mentioned were working against women’s participation in politics. She advised that INEC disintegrates its gender policy to suit specific locations and that Nigeria needs more regulatory measures to ensure efficient electoral process.
I observed that all of the political party national leaders present there were males; what stops a woman from being a party national leader? They all shared their views on the participation of women in their parties and the challenges they face. Some of the problems shared include lack of campaign funds for women, marital limitations, zoning formula, tribal laws, cultural intimidation, electoral violence, lack of strong media support, inadequate capacity development, lack of dedication and doggedness from female political aspirants.
Well, I do not want to believe that there aren’t dedicated Nigerian women out there who are ready to take up political roles; political parties need to be more innovative in its quest to engage women in politics. During one of the panel discussions, one party member shared a story of two female political aspirants who were called out by their constituency traditional rulers and were told to desist from contesting. We can start from educating our traditional leaders, then ensuring that women get the required skills and education to compete side by side with men; ladies, education does not have to end with graduating from the university, getting married and having kids, it is important to keep on learning.
One of the conclusions arrived at the meeting was for Nigeria to adopt an affirmative action in creating an enabling environment for women participation in the electoral process. Affirmative action involves taking actions to policy issues and laws to promote equal representation of gender in politics. Barrister Ebere Ifendu, President of Women in Politics Forum listed three types of affirmative action Nigeria can adopt to help promote women participation in politics, reserved seat, legislative candidate quota and voluntary party quota. These quotas are widely used by several countries, including neighbouring developing countries like Rwanda, Cameroon, Sierra Leone, and South Africa and it’s been working for them; can’t understand why Nigeria hasn’t adopted affirmative action yet.
While reserved seats regulate the number of women elected, legislative candidate and voluntary party quotas set a minimum for the share of women on the candidate lists, either as a legal requirement or a measure written into the statutes of individual political parties. Nigerian political parties can adopt the voluntary party quota and initiate new party laws and measures in line with the National Gender Policy to promote women participation, but this can only be effective if INEC enforces the implementation of these party laws.
At the end of the meeting, with the help of everyone present, some recommendations were reached to help Nigerian women become more active in the electoral process. Political party leaders vowed to address party violence, review their constitutions, manifestos to be gender inclusive, set aside funds to support women’s aspirations and conduct gender education to enlighten their members. Prof. Remi Sonaiya stated that instead of waiving the nomination fees for women candidates, high exorbitant fees should be moderated for all gender to pay to enable healthy competition. Other recommendations were for women to adopt a more diplomatic approach in pursuing their political role and for already practising female politicians to enlighten other women.
Nigeria still has a long way to go, but I believe every Nigerian needs a gender equality and equity orientation and with a sincere heart from female political aspirants, supportive spirit from male politicians, getting women to participate in the electoral process will be easy. Let the journey start with incorporating gender equality and equity education in every stage of the Nigerian educational system, and then every other step will be easy.
Stats source: http://www.quotaproject.org/country.cfm
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