2013 Women's Day
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Eighteen years after the Beijing conference in which governments agreed to equal rights for men and women, Nigerian female politicians are still struggling to get equality in elective and political positions with their male counterparts
| By Olu Ojewale | Mar. 18, 2013 @ 01:00 GMT
IT IS still a man’s world. That is one reality women are faced with as they celebrate this year’s International Women’s Day with the theme: A Promise Is A Promise: “Time for Action To End Violence Against Women”, Friday, March 8. Although the lot of Nigerian women has improved since the much talked-about Beijing conference, at which governments agreed to equal rights for men and women in every sphere of human affairs in September 1995, there are still much catch-up to do by the female folk. The theme for this year’s women’s day would provide a platform for women activists to argue for more political representation which seems to have eluded Nigerian women when compared with their counterparts in other countries where women have been elected presidents.
Nigerian women could be said to have gained political prominence since the return of democracy on May 29, 1999. It cannot be overstatement by saying that democracy in the country has brought about an increase in the number of women political appointees, but the number of women seeking for elective political offices is still very insignificant. This glaring lopsidedness in the political landscape has been a great concern for a good number of persons and organisations who are clamouring for 30 per cent affirmative action for women both in appointive and elective positions. They believe that making it a constitutional issue would see the affirmative action entrenched and guaranteed for women.
Indeed, the highest elective position held by any woman in the country so far was that of the speaker of the House of Representatives. Patricia Ette held the post of speaker of the House, which made her the number four person in the country, from June 6 to October 30, 2007, before being forced to resign. She allegedly misappropriated some millions of naira. She was later absolved of all the fraud allegations by her colleagues, the accusers. Efforts to elect another woman as speaker of the House were frustrated last year. Opposition within her ruling Peoples’ Democratic Party and others ensured that Mulikat Akande was not elected to the post.
In the current dispensation, of the 109 elected senators, only seven of them are women. That translates into 7.63 percent of women representation in the Senate. The House of Representatives does not fare better. Of the 360 elected members, only 19 of them or 5.28 percent are women. In 2003, the percentage of females was 2.7 for the Senate and five for the House. In 2007, the figure rose to 8.25 per cent in the Senate and 7.22 per cent in the House. The female representation at the National Assembly is a far cry from the 30 per cent affirmative action prescribed by the International Women’s Conference in Beijing, China in 1995.
Without doubt, women have been elected councillors, but no state has ever elected a woman as governor except in Anambra State where Virginia Etiaba temporarily succeeded Governor Peter Obi, following his impeachment by the state House Assembly. In the previous and current dispensations, women were elected as deputy governors.
The administration of President Goodluck Jonathan appears to be following in the footsteps of his predecessors by appointing women to head key ministries, agencies, boards and parastaltals. With the calibre and number of women in his cabinet, Jonathan has not done badly for the women folk. The list include, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, finance, Diezani Alison-Madueke, petroleum resources; Jumoke Akinjide, federal capital territory; Olusola Obada, defence; Ruqqayatu Rufai, education; Stella Oduah, aviation; Hadiza Ibrahim Mailaga, environment; Viola Onwuliri, foreign affairs; Sera Ochekpe, water resources; Zainab Maina, women and social development; Zainab Kuchi, Niger Delta and Amma Pepple, minister of housing and urban development.
In the judiciary, women are not doing badly. For the first time in the history of the country, women are heading both the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal. Justice Aloma Mukhtar is the nation’s chief justice, while Justice Zainab Bulkachuwa is the acting president of the appellate court. All these achievements pale into insignificance when compared with other nations where women have been elected head of governments or presidents, such as in Germany, South Korea, Switzerland, Argentina, Brazil, Lithuania, Costa Rica, Malawi and Liberia.
From the look of things, Nigeria is not likely to elect such a high ranking female personality yet. The country still has a very low participation of women in politics. In an effort to re-awaken them, the National Orientation Agency, NOA, organised a national workshop on Promoting Women Political Empowerment, for Peace and Security in Nigeria, in Asaba, Delta State, February 28, this year.
Mike Omeri, director-general of the NOA, in statement in Abuja, March 1, said that the Nigerian women had not been taking their rightful position in politics and urged them to get more involved, especially in elective offices. He said the agency organised the workshop to create awareness and promote women participation in politics. “Nigeria is blessed with brilliant, resourceful and intelligent women. Therefore, the nation needs your wealth of knowledge and experience to further consolidate and sustain our democracy,” Omeri said.
In the same vein, Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan of Delta State, who was represented by Amos Utuama, his deputy, blamed culture and religious constraints as major impediments that would not allow women to fully participate in politics. He said despite the constitutional guarantee of equal rights in politics, women were still being held back by religious and cultural biases against them.
Joseph Edozien, the traditional ruler of Asaba, in his contribution, called for concerted efforts to remove obstacles against women which include preventing girl-child education and forcing them into early marriage, among others. These constraints, Edozien said, had created psychological and emotional barriers for women in the society and debarred their participation in politics. The Asagba of Asaba, while commending the NOA for organising the workshop, said that the nation could not afford to neglect about 50 per cent of its population in the scheme of things and expect to succeed.
The workshop similarly dealt with some other issues militating against women venturing into politics. It noted the issue of discrimination among the men folk, both in voting for candidates and in allocating political offices to women. In the party setup, analysts said because men were more dominant in the hierarchy and women always constitute a smaller percentage, it behoves on the men folk to make decisions, which more often, favour them at the expense of women.
Analysts similarly observe that women also have issues of social, cultural and religious attitudes of different Nigerian societies to contend with as most of such practices tend to relegate them to the background. Based on these realties, they say only very few men, even among the educated ones, would allow their wives to participate in politics or contest elections. In the North, for instance, the one major impediment preventing women from participating in politics has to do with putting women in the purdah system or house seclusion of women.
The issue of education is also believed to be very crucial. According to statistics, women constitute a larger percentage of the illiterate group in the country. Although the number of female enrolment in school has increased over the years, some parents still prefer to send males to school at the expense females. This has left a good number of females uneducated and therefore, unable to participate fully in the political process unlike their male counterparts.
Apparently, these are issues that concern some gender-based organisations who are fighting for the emancipation of women. Comfort Idika-Ogunye, a lawyer and executive director, Female Leadership Forum, FLF, a gender-based organisation, in a newspaper interview recently, expressed sadness about the level of women participation in politics. “For Nigerian women particularly in areas of political participation, women are not there yet. In Nigeria, women’s participation in governance is still very, very low; we are still about seven; we are still the lowest in the world. And Nigeria has also been identified as one of the worst countries that women can live in. We must improve on some of these indicators and benchmarks,” Idika-Ogunye said.
According to her, the Nigerian political system does not favour women because most parties are usually formed by men with financial muscles. “Also, a lot of the women do not have the financial capacity to operate in most of these political parties, because our political system has been highly monetised,” she said.
Idika-Ogunye agreed with the opinion of Edozien that culture and religion are also major factors limiting most women from participating in politics. She argued that both culture and religion, at most times, emphasise that women should be seen and not heard, and that “a lot of them (women) often carry this perception into the political arena.”
To a large extent, the activist said women’s participation in politics is often to support the women folk. “We need to give the women a chance to show their worth. Only a woman understands how a woman feels. Let’s support all women in politics to help them overcome their challenges,” she said.
But Maureen Popoola, a lecturer at the Nigeria Institute of Journalism, disagreed. She said women who have been elected or appointed into political office have not been helping their women folk. “I don’t even give a hoot about how much they have risen in politics because they have not used their position to better the lot of the rural women. Women are still being abused daily; widows are still being maltreated; the issue of girl-education, rape and others are still very prevalent in the society. Our women in power are not helping their counterparts that are suffering,” Popoola said.
She agreed that since the Beijing conference, many women have become presidents and held several important posts across the world. She also noted that a lot of Nigerian women have gone up in the political ladder in the past few years. But she regretted that despite the stride Nigerian women have made in politics, it has not translated into bettering the lot of the poor and rural women.
Whatever political divide one may chose to belong, Nigeria’s history is replete with political achievements of great women such as Margaret Ekpo and Janet Mokelu who were members of the Eastern House of Assembly, the late Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, and Gambo Sawaba, among others. Their dogged fights against injustice and cultural emancipation of women in Nigeria are still good reference points for Nigerian women.
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