96% female contestants lost in 2023 polls

BAOBAB for Women’s Human Rights, a Civil Society Organisation dedicated to the promotion and protection of women and girls, has said that about 96 per cent of women, who ran for various positions in the 2023 General Elections, were defeated by their male opponents.

According to the organisation, seven women were elected as deputy governors, four elected for the Senate, 15 for the House of Representatives, while 48 are in state Houses of Assembly.

BAOBAB Programme Director, Anne Lawal, stated this at a Roundtable Strategy Meeting on Women’s Political Participation and Leadership, themed, “The Road to 2027: How can women have a better deal?” yesterday, in Abuja.

According to her, out of 15,307 candidates that contested under the 18 registered political parties, males constituted 13,754, while 1,553 are female.

Lamenting that in terms of women representation in politics in Africa, Nigeria was lagging behind, Lawal called for the establishment of special seats for women in the National Assembly.

She stressed the need for Nigeria to adopt constitutional provisions and electoral laws for affirmative action to ensure women and other marginalised groups are not shortchanged, as it is done in Angola, South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, Morocco, and Mozambique, Namibia.

She also called for an effective implementation of laws that promote women participation in politics.

“We have lots of laws that have not been domesticated. How do we domesticate these laws? One of them is the Maputo protocol that talks about women’s political participation.”

How are we working with the laws and that was why we took a look at other African countries on what they are doing differently,” she added.

A renowned gender activist, Ene Ede, said only having a constitutional quota for women would enhance female participation in politics.

According to her, the last time women had good representation in the political space was during the administration of former President, Goodluck Jonathan.

Executive Director, BAOBAB, Bunmi Dipo-Salami, urge advocacy groups to shift focus to political parties, ahead of 2023 polls.