APC shuns women’s representation, poses barrier to female’s political participation 

…as the number drops from 7% to one

By Adebayo Obajemu 

Many analysts say the  APC -led Tinubu administration has not affirmed affirmative action for women’s representation in governance. They had promised 35 percent before the captured power. Now the number has dropped to almost zero.

The reality on ground contrasts sharply with the APC  campaign promise on women representation. Dr. Betta Edu, who was the then  National Women Leader of the APC during the 2023 general elections, promised that women would hold 35 per cent  of  elective and appointed positions.

As it stands today, women currently make up less than 20% of President Bola Tinubu’s cabinet, with seven afemale ministers serving out of 48 total positions. This translates to about 14.5% representation, which falls short of the 35% affirmative action target promised during the All Progressives Congress (APC) campaign in the last election in 2023.

This is even worse with elective position, where they have virtually disappeared.

The current administration’s negligible gender inclusion spans cabinet, advisory, and agency roles. In the Federal Executive Council,  female ministers make up 14.5% of the cabinet. Notable ministers  include Dr. Doris Uzoka-Anite (Industry, Trade, and Investment), Hannatu Musawa (Art, Culture, and the Creative Economy), and Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim (Women Affairs).

Special and Technical Advisers

In the administration, women hold advisory and institutional positions in the presidency, including Hadiza Bala Usman (Policy Coordination), Dr. Jumoke Oduwole (Investment), and Nkiruka Maduekwe (Climate Change).

Key Parastatals and Agencies

In the area of parastatals and agencies women hold high-level leadership appointments, such as Prof. Moji Adeyeye at NAFDAC and Kemi Nana Nandap as Comptroller General of the Nigeria Immigration Service. Q

According to analysts, these figures are not encouraging. The battle for a legal document to promote women’s participation in governance was dealt a blow when APC’s control  National Assembly in 2022 rejected five gender bills that were among the 68 amendment bills at the constitutional review.

This is nothing but a disturbing sign that  affirmative action, which backs the reservation of 35 per cent of elective positions for women  has suffered a major blow.

Recall that  the  then minister of women affairs, Pauline Tallen, had in 2021 called for a 50 per cent representation of women in leadership positions, Business Hallmark  reports that the national average of women’s political participation remains at 6.7 per cent – far below the African regional average of 23.4 per cent, and the global average of 22.5 per cent.

It must be noted that in the country’s 26 years of democracy, the political and governance space has displayed  a patriarchal society, which upends  women’s political  inclusion, equal opportunity and aspirations, as no woman has attained the position of president, vice president, or governor, which was in acting capacity in Anambra State after the removal through impeachment of Peter Obi.

Elective Position

When it comes to  gender parity and women’s political participation, a 2022 Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) report showed that the Nigerian Senate, dominated by APC since 2015 had in 2019 elected eight women out of 109, which represents 7.24 per cent. Out of the 360-member House of Representatives, only 13 women were elected (3.61%). These figures, according to the report, fell short of  the global average of 26.1 per cent of women in parliament.

No one doubt the fact that women’s outing for elective positions shown  on the ballots was deemed  low, a 2022 UN women report showed that the outcome of elections gave even fewer females chances at governance.

Out of about 2,970 women on the electoral ballot of 2019, which stands at 11 per cent, only 4.71 per cent of women got elected. This reveals  a decline from the 5.6 per cent witnessed  in 2015.

Business Hallmark’s findings revealed that in 2023 about  1,553 women  were  on the ballot, representing 10 per cent of the entire candidates. And only less than 5.61 got elected.

In a  2023 report made available  by the Centre for Democracy and Development, titled ‘Analysis: Female Candidature and Nigeria’s 2023 Elections’,  posited that more women seeking elective positions in Nigeria  opted for new and smaller political parties, which gave them weaker chances of being elected for offices at the state and federal levels. The reason for this according to Professor Abdullah Abubakar, a political scientist in his chat with BH “is because the dominant political parties, APC and PDP, give women less visibility and opportunities.

Going further Abubakar  noted that “political parties are  vehicles and instruments of the domination of women”, this makes the chances of women in major political parties even slimmer.

He added that political parties are so monetised that women don’t get a level playing ground and referred to the little positions allotted to women by such parties as “mere tokenism.”

He averred that “to institutionalise the domination of women, some positions are allocated to them like women leaders, deputies and so on. It really does not do credit to the self-esteem of women, because they are able to achieve whatever they want to achieve; but to relegate them to such positions doesn’t make sense,” he said.

Abiodun Ajoke, a grassroots mobilizer and community leader in Yagba West Local Government of Kogi state voiced  dissatisfaction with the parties, especially APC and their agenda for women’s inclusion in governance.

However, the 2023 CDD report blamed  the low outing of women in  APC  to the lack of internal democracy in the major political parties, and male dominance in the political party leadership.

On the  quotas for women in the APC, a former women leader, Stella Okotete,  noted that the new party constitution clearly gives women 35 per cent affirmative action, while acknowledging that “religion, finances and tradition, which are all man-made,” were hindrances to women.

But commentators like Juliet Ekeh noted that even at that the 35 percent affirmative action has not been strictly adhered to.

” This 35 percent affirmative action is a mirage , it has been observed in breach”, she told Business Hallmark.

However, amidst a low turnout of female candidates in the APC for the 2023 general elections, Okotete assured that the new constitution will solve the problem of low number of female candidates in the party in the 2027 election.

Nigeria Lags behind UN position

Despite being designated as the giant of Africa, UN Women reports that Nigeria is lagging behind countries like Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda, Tunisia, Senegal, and Uganda, who have adopted constitutional backing for equal rights and opportunities that increase women’s representation in governance.

Dr. Idayat Hassan, the director of the Center for Democracy and Development (CDD), says because women make up about half of the country’s population and top the list of voters in the country, they ought to be included in the affairs of governance.

She explained that the implication of fewer women reflected in the governance architecture would be an inability to actualise the Sustainable Development Goals. “When you have fewer women in government, development will elude you. Like I earlier mentioned, you cannot be for us without us because you don’t know these peculiarities.”

Analysts have pointed out that other key drivers of marginalization of women by APC or any other party for that matter include   violence, monetisation of the electoral process and godfatherisim.

Recall that in March 2022, women groups protested rejection of women bills by the Senate and House of Representatives on additional seats for women in the legislature, indigeneship rights for married women, citizenship by registration for non-Nigerian men married to Nigerian women, 35% affirmative action for women in political party administration and reserved quota for women in cabinet positions.

These women led by Civil Society Organisations registered their displeasure by staging a protest at the National Assembly .

Protest and Activism

The protest which started on 2nd March 2022, a day after the voting on the Bills, came to a climax on International Women’s Day, 8th March 2022 where women showed up in their numbers with placards chanting different slogans such as ‘No women, no nation.’ Some female legislators, wives of State Governors and men attended the protest in solidarity.

Speaking at the protest ground on March 8, 2022 the then First Lady of Ekiti State and Chairwoman, Nigeria Governor’s Wives Forum, Mrs. Bisi Fayemi, called on the legislators in the National Assembly to recognise the demands of women who make up 50% of the Nigerian population and give them leadership positions.

Since the protests of 2022, Civil Society Organizations have remained mute on the matter. As it stands with little or no advocacy on the matter, the 2027 election may not fare better for women.