The Gender Strategy Advancement International (GSAI) has decried what it describes as the structural and deliberate exclusion of women from the ongoing primary elections of political parties across Nigeria ahead of the 2027 general elections.

Executive Director of GSAI, Adaora Sydney-Jack, while speaking to journalists in Abuja, called for sanctions against political parties that fail to meet affirmative action targets for women, insisting that Nigeria’s democracy cannot thrive while women remain systematically sidelined from candidate emergence and party decision-making processes.

“There should be enforceable accountability mechanisms. Democracy cannot rely solely on moral persuasion. Possible sanctions or incentives could include reduced public funding access, mandatory quota compliance, incentives for gender-balanced tickets, or electoral penalties for persistent exclusion.Several democracies already implement such measures,” she said.

Sydney-Jack said despite women constituting nearly half of Nigeria’s population and electoral strength, they continue to face significant barriers during party primaries, including exorbitant nomination fees, political intimidation, monetised delegate systems, and exclusion from critical negotiations where candidacies are determined.

The GSAI executive director said, “the troubling reality is that the recent primaries currently ongoing across parts of Nigeria have shown little or no meaningful shift from the entrenched norm. Across multiple political spaces, women continue to report being sidelined, pressured to step down for male aspirants, excluded from strategic negotiations, or subtly threatened with political ostracization should they insist on contesting.”

According to her, political parties have continued to treat inclusion as campaign rhetoric while resisting genuine reforms capable of guaranteeing women equitable access to political leadership.
She said in Nigeria, women participate massively as mobilisers, campaigners, financiers at grassroots levels and voting blocs.

The GSAI executive director said when candidacy and power-sharing emerge, women are relegated to ceremonial positions often reduced to “Women Leader” structures without consequential influence over delegate selection, zoning, financing or ticket allocation.

Sydney-Jack argued that the exclusion of women from party primaries was not accidental but deeply institutional, sustained through opaque consensus arrangements, elite patronage networks and patriarchal power structures within party systems.

“These realities create a democratic bottleneck that excludes women before the general election even begins,” she said.

She explained that despite years of advocacy, women continue to struggle because advocacy has not yet sufficiently disrupted entrenched political power economics.

She alleged that “Women frequently encounter exorbitant nomination fees, political violence and intimidation, cultural stereotypes questioning female leadership, limited access to campaign financing, exclusion from informal negotiation spaces where candidacies are brokered.”

Sydney-Jack noted that countries such as Rwanda, Senegal, Namibia and South Africa had significantly improved women’s political representation through intentional reforms, including constitutional quotas, parity laws and gender-balanced candidate systems.

Sydney-Jack warned that Nigeria risks economic and democratic stagnation if political parties fail to undertake reforms that promote inclusive participation, adding that women’s exclusion weakens governance, accountability and national development.

She further urged the National Assembly, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and political parties to institutionalise enforceable quota systems, and ensure transparent primary processes ahead of the 2027 elections.

On practical reforms that parties can implement immediately to make primaries more inclusive, she suggested sveral reforms that can be immediately achievable.

She stated financial reforms such as free or heavily subsidised nomination forms for women, public campaign financing support mechanisms, gender equity political funds, institutional Reforms, reserved delegate slots for women, mandatory quota systems within party executives and transparent digital delegate accreditation.

The GSAI executive director also proposed security reforms and zero tolerance for violence and intimidation during primaries, adding that Nigeria’s political parties possess the institutional capacity to undertake such reforms.