The proposal by the House of Representatives to increase women’s participation in the legislative branch has been awaiting positive action. Indeed, increasing the number of women participating in all areas of national life is as welcome as it is imperative to achieve both gender equality and, importantly, gender equity. Considering that women in Nigeria presently constitute about half of the population, it is a grave disservice that only a tiny proportion of women form part of the government. A nation that is not engendered is endangered, asserts the National Gender Policy 2006 document, and we cannot agree more.
The House of Representatives lately proposed a constitutional amendment to reserve 10 per cent of seats in the bicameral National Assembly for women; Persons with Disabilities (PWD) are also to be allocated five per cent of legislative seats. The United Nations had aimed for a 30 per cent women quota in leadership positions by 1995 and 50 per cent by 2000. So, 10 per cent proposed by the Nigerian legislature 25 years after is far off target and, for obvious reasons, at a serious cost to society. But Nigeria cannot afford an additional number to the current members of the National Assembly. The nearly 100 slots proposed should be accommodated within the existing 469 seats that, in the 2025 federal budget alone, cost a burdensome N344.85 billion.
Because the female gender constitutes about half of the world’s population, this important half needs to be involved in all areas of human endeavour to reap its contribution to development and societal progress. Gender inequality ‘stagnates social progress,’ says the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5. SDG 5 rightly notes that the female gender constitutes half of the world’s population and therefore half of its potential. Gender equality is ‘not only a fundamental human right but a necessary foundation for a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable world’.
Global awareness for gender equality or gender parity is an idea that dates back to the 1945 United Nations founding Charter. It states in Chapter 3, Article 8 that ‘the UN shall place no restrictions on the eligibility of men and women to participate in any capacity and under conditions of equality in its principal and subsidiary organs’. Subsequently, gender parity has continually been affirmed and incrementally implemented by countries through local and international policies and structures.
In 1990, a UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) Resolution recommended targets for increasing the proportion of women in leadership positions: 30% by 1995 and 50% by 2000. Despite international conferences to drive this goal, the widely acclaimed 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing reported little progress. To date, it cannot be said that, across the world, mainstreaming women’s participation in leadership positions has been impressive.
Nigeria has made reasonable efforts toward gender equality since the return to democratic rule in 1999. The Olusegun Obasanjo administration, beyond having a Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development, also developed in 2006 a National Gender Policy (NGP) with the goal ‘to build a just society devoid of discrimination, harness the full potentials of all social groups regardless of sex or circumstance…’ To this end, an elaborate Gender Management System was designed that included such agencies as the Gender Equality Commission, National Centre for Women’s Development and National Council for Women Affairs. But, as the policy document rightly warned, the efficacy of the policy strategies to implement gender-sensitive policies is contingent on a number of factors, the most important of which is ‘political will’.
Political will has certainly not matched the good intentions and laudable objectives of the NGP (2006). According to Statistics Times.com, the female gender constituted 49.43 per cent (115.01 million) of Nigeria’s 232.68 million population as of 2024. Yet, The Conversation says that “Women currently make up only 3.9% of seats in the House of Representatives. In the Senate, three of the 108 members are women. In the executive branch, women head eight of the 45 (17.8%) ministries”. Only 22 of the 360 members of the House of Representatives are women, and only four out of 36 deputy governors are women. The country has never had a woman state governor.
The UN is reported to rank Nigeria 179th out of 185 countries for the percentage of women in the national legislature. This is a poor record for a country under democratic rule, and which prides itself as a continental leader. In comparison, five countries in Africa have at least 40 per cent women legislators; Rwanda reportedly has 64 per cent. Indeed, Rwanda’s constitution reserves 30% of parliamentary seats for women. It also demands that political parties ensure that women hold at least 30% of elected internal positions.
The minimum that the Nigerian government should immediately work for is the 30 per cent set by the Beijing Conference decades ago. To achieve this, governments at all levels must first muster the political will. Second, political parties must commit to a 30 per cent quota for women positions within the party, as well as candidacy for elections. This was recommended by the Justice Mohammed Uwais Commission long ago. Third, the legislatures must allocate 30 per cent of offices to women. Third, quotas and targets need to be set for mainstream gender in all areas of national life.
Beyond these immediate measures, the government must address the fundamental obstacles to women attaining leadership positions. These obstacles include financial resource that hinders women from contesting for high public offices, and attitudes to female leadership in a male-dominated society. Two crucial observations in respect of attitudinal discrimination against women are the male gender-biased wording of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and some provisions of the Nigeria Police Act, 2020.
Regardless of the provision in Section 17 (2) (a) that ‘every citizen shall have equality of rights, obligations and opportunities before the law’, Sections 5(a) and 30(1) do not seem to envisage a female president. Sections 24(f), 26(a-f), and 27(a) can be said to be not gender equality compliant. NGP (2006) asserts that “with respect to the Police Force, female police officers are not accorded the same degree of respect as their male counterparts. They are often treated as second-class officers regardless of their rank and are seldom awarded strategic career postings, thus limiting their opportunities for professional advancement”. Credence is lent to this claim by provisions in the Nigeria Police Act, 2020 such as section 118(g) that for enlistment into the Force, a female ‘must be unmarried’, and section 124 that requires ‘a woman police officer who is desirous of marrying must first apply in writing to the Commissioner of Police …requesting to marry and giving the name, address, and occupation of the person she intends to marry… [to determine] if the intended husband is of good character…’
One policy objective of the NGP is to “establish the framework for gender- responsiveness in all public and private spheres’ as well as promote a gender-sensitive and gender responsive culture in policy planning and national development.” To these ends, the NGP unequivocally urges that ‘the Presidency, the Federal Executive Council, the Legislature, and the Judiciary must embrace and demonstrate gender equality principles and practice for any meaningful change to occur in the wider society’. This is to say, simply, that the public sector must lead by example to be able to enforce gender mainstreaming in the private sector. The House of Representatives’ proposal is one small step in the right direction.
