As regatta Gender Bill, “In December 2021, a bill called the gender bill sponsored by the senator representing Ekiti South, Biodun Olujimi, was stepped down for the third time since March 2016 after some senators raised concerns over possible infringement on Islamic morals.”
A female presidential candidate in 2019, Funmilayo Adesanya-Davies, a Communication Arts expert, in the field of Applied Linguistics has ex-rayed the former and current performances of women’s participation in Nigerian politics, calling for increased female participation in 2023 both in elective and appointive positions.
In agreement with Kayode Oyero’ s submission, Adesanya-Davies ascertained, that “the Nigeria’s 10th Senate and 10th House of Representatives, which will resume by June are male-dominated, raising concerns about the lip service paid to affirmative action as well as gender and equal opportunity in the West African country.
Characteristically, of the new crop of federal lawmakers elected during the just-concluded February 25 presidential and National Assembly polls, only 15 of the 423 legislative seats declared so far by the electoral body are women while 408 are men. In other words, women represent 3.5% while men has 96.5% of the 423 seats.
The elected legislators include 98 out of 109 Senate, and 325 out of 360 House of Representatives seats. Altogether, seven parties won in the Senate, while eight parties won House of Representatives seats. Whilst the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared winners for 423 legislative seats, the electoral umpire indicated that supplementary elections would be conducted in 46 other constituencies.
Of the federal lawmakers elected so far, women got two seats in the red chamber, and 13 seats in the green chamber.
In terms of party representation for the 10th Assembly, INEC said APC won 57 Senate seats; the PDP, 29; LP, 6; SDP, 2; NNPP, 2; YPP, 1; and APGA, 1. For the lower chamber, the electoral chair said the APC has 162 seats; PDP, 102; LP, 34; NNPP, 18; APGA, 4; ADC, 2; SDP, 2; YPP, 1.
Two Female Senator-Elect Only: The deputy governor of Rivers State, Ipalibo Banigo, was elected the representative for Rivers West Senatorial District under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Kingibe Ireti was also elected the Senator for the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) under the Labour Party. She is the wife of Baba Gana Kingibe, a former secretary to the government of the federation (SGF),
13 Female Member-Elects for 10th Representatives:
1. Orogbu Obiageli – LP, Awka North/Awka South Federal Constituency
2. Nnabuife Chinwe Clara – YPP, Orumba North/ Orumba South Federal Constituency
3. Gwacham Mauren Chinwe – APGA, Oyi/Ayamelum Federal Constituency
4. Ebikake Marie Enenimiete – PDP, Brass/Nembe Federal Constituency
5. Akume Regina – APC, Gboko/Tarka Federal Constituency
6. Onuh Onyeche Blessing – APC, Otukpo/Ohimini Federal Constituency
7. Zainab Gimba – APC, Bama/Ngala/Kala-Balge Federal Constituency
8. Ibori-Suenu Erhiatake – PDP, Ethiope East/Ethiope West Federal Constituency
9. Onuoha Miriam Odinaka – APC, Isiala Mbano, Okigwe, Onuimo Federal Constituency
10. Beni Butmak Lar – PDP, Langtang North, Langtang South Federal Constituency
11. Goodhead Boma – PDP, Akuku Toru, Asari Toru Federal Constituency
12. Bukar Abba Ibrahim Khadijah Waziri – APC, Damaturu, Gujuba, Gulani, Tarmuwa Federal Constituency
13. Fatima Talba – APC, Nangere Potiskum Federal Constituency
The concern about disparity of the male-female percentage in all spheres of governance and career is rather discouraging, such that the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on Tuesday urged the National Assembly to consider and pass the Gender and Equal Opportunity Bill and other bills supporting affirmative action.
The Commission said, “The passage of the bills will reduce gender-based violations and legally equip women to challenge the inequalities confronting them including Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) which has continued to rear its ugly head in the society.”
Though a few women have been acting governors in Nigeria but none has been elected as governor in the last six general elections. With the governorship and state assemblies’ elections coming up on March 18, Nigerians expect a recordable number of wins by women. But can this election be a game changer?
Premium Times Nigeria in a report by Medinat Kanabe October 23, further stated that, “There are “Five states with no female candidates in the ongoing 2023 general elections.
Further analysis shows that, “Only 5% of Nigeria’s lawmakers are women. It’s about to get worse
Nigeria’s two dominant parties, APC and PDP, have less than 6 per cent of their parliamentary candidates as women.
Women’s representation in Nigeria’s parliament is among the lowest in the world but could get worse based on the new list of candidates for the next parliament.
At present, only 7.3 per cent (8 of 109) of Nigeria’s senators are women while only 3.6 per cent (13 of 360) of the members of the House of Representatives are women.
Despite the low representation in the current parliament, the percentage of female candidates in the elections that produced the current lawmakers is higher than what obtains in the list for next year’s parliamentary elections.
In 2019, 12.3 per cent of the senatorial candidates were women; three percentage points higher than the nine per cent for next year’s election. Also, in 2019, 11.9 per cent of the House of Representatives candidates were women; the figure is also nine per cent for the 2023 election.
The 2023 List shows, “The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) recently released the final list of candidates for the 2023 polls. The list has only 374 women among the 4,223 candidates running for the 469 seats in the National Assembly: 109 in the Senate and 360 in the House of Representatives.
At the National Assembly “It has been the tradition since Nigeria returned to democracy in 1999, the list highlights the poor representation of women in politics in Africa’s most populous country and one of the world’s largest democracies.
In fact, one of the 18 registered political parties, the African Action Congress (AAC), which has long-time activist and Publisher of Sahara Reporters, Omoyele Sowore, as its presidential candidate, has no female candidate for any federal legislative seat.
The presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC), Omoyele Sowore,.
Sahara Reporters publisher, Omoyele Sowore.
But the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Olufemi Adeyeye, attributed this to a prolonged leadership crisis that almost stopped the party from taking part in the forthcoming polls.
The 17 other political parties have only 92 female senatorial candidates, representing nine per cent of all the 1,101 senatorial candidates; and 282 for the House of Representatives, also representing nine per cent of the total 3,122 candidates all the parties are presenting for the 360 seats in the House.
No party has a female candidate for federal legislative seats in five of the 36 states of the federation – Bauchi, Kano, Sokoto, Yobe and Taraba – and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
Situation growing worse
Compared with the statistics of the parliamentary elections of 2015 and 2019, female representation in the 2023 polls is the worst, despite increased agitation in the last three years for gender balance and more active female participation in politics.
According to a report by a civil society organisation, YIAGA Africa, titled; “No Country Without Women,” women held 12.3 per cent of the tickets for Senate seats in 2019, “a decline from the 17 per cent in the 2015 elections.”
“For the House of Representatives, women’s candidacy was at 11.6 per cent in 2019, which was a decline from 15 per cent in the 2015 elections, and for State Assembly, the candidacy of women was at 12.7 per cent in 2019, revealing a decline from 14 per cent in 2015,” the YIAGA Africa’s Director of Programmes, Cynthia Mbamalu, wrote in an article under the title: “Women: Balancing Representation through Constitutional Reforms.”
Ms Mbamalu warned that Nigeria is heading to an almost all-male legislative house “if legislative measures are not taken to guarantee women’s representation in elective offices.”
How political parties stand
The country’s largest political parties, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), are not showing leadership to the other parties in gender parity; based on the number of female candidates they presented.