Fewer women in elective positions despite efforts

The number of women in elective positions in Nigeria remains low despite efforts aimed at ramping it up in recent years.

More than 60 years after independence and 23 years after the end of military rule, the country’s political leadership is still largely dominated by men.

According to research by ElectHER, a non-governmental organisation championing the inclusion of African women in politics, the percentage of women running for parliamentary seats in the 2023 elections in Nigeria is lower than previous years and lower than both 2015 and 2019 elections.

It said for the Senate, the percentage of women running decreased by four percent in 2023 compared to 2019. Only 8.6 percent are female candidates compared to 12.3 percent in 2019. For the senatorial seats across the geopolitical zones, only 92 are women of the 1,068 candidates.

In the presidential category, there is only one woman, representing 8.6 percent of the candidates, and there is no female running mates.

In the governorship elections, of the 416 governorship candidates, only 6 percent are women.

Currently, the percentage of women holding seats in the House of Representatives is just 3.6 percent, with 13 out of 360 being women. There are 311 seats to be occupied in the House of Representatives from all geopolitical zones; only 286 are female candidates and 2,825 are male candidates, the report showed.

In the 2019 election, 235 women, representing 12.34 per cent of candidates, contested for seatd in the Senate but only seven (6.42 percent) were elected.

Also, 533 women contested for the House of Representatives in 2019 but only 11, 3.05 percent, were elected.

At the state level, no woman has been elected governor, and the number of female deputy governors has declined from six in 2015-2019 to four currently.

The 2023 election saw the second female gubernatorial candidate (of the All Progressives Congress in Adamawa State) in the history of Nigeria, after Aisha Jumei Al-hasan, the candidate of the same party in Taraba State contested in 2015 but lost the election.

The World Economic Forum, in its Global Gender Gap Report 2022, ranked Nigeria 141st out of 146 countries in the world in terms of political participation.

This trend has persisted despite the passage of legislation, such as the Gender and Equal Opportunities Bill, aimed at promoting gender equality in political representation.

According to electher.ng, the underrepresentation of women in politics is largely due to persistence of gender stereotypes and biases that are reinforced by cultural norms, which portrays women as less capable and qualified than men.

“These negative stereotypes have created significant barriers for women trying to enter politics such as lack of support from party leadership and fundraising,” Electher.ng said.

The organisation said the limited access to education and political networks also play a significant role in women’s underrepresentation in politics. Many women in rural areas lack the education and resources needed to participate in politics, while others struggle to gain access to political networks dominated by men.

Efforts to increase female participation in politics have been ongoing aimed at increasing women’s participation in politics, however, these efforts have not yielded significant results, and women continue to face significant challenges in accessing political power.

According to the Independent Electoral Commission, 44.4 million (47.5 percent) of the 93 million registered voters in 2023 are women.

Some women have been announced winners of senatorial and House of Representatives seats in their respective constituencies. Idiat Adebule for Lagos West Senatorial District; Regina Akume, House of Representatives, Tarka/Gboko, Benue State; Blessing Onuh Otukpo/Ohinmi, Benue; and Beni Lar, Lantang South/Latang North, Plateau.