The gender inequality in Nigeria is widespread due to patriarchy, imbalance in socio-economic opportunities, cultural and religious factors and inadequate enabling legal and policy frameworks, among other factors. The situation was brought to the fore in its fullest during the 2019 general elections. JOY YESUFU caught up with some female candidates who relieved their experiences during the last elections.
The Nigerian Women Trust Fund, (NWTF) recently put together a strategy meeting for female politicians to relieve their experiences during the just concluded 2019 general elections.
The already concluded general elections witness a huge decline in female representation at all levels of Nigerian political process. This is directly connected with multiple challenges faced by female aspirants before, during and after the general elections.
The processes and outcome of the general elections doesn’t reflect any plans or intent to close gender gap at any level of governance in Nigeria.
Chief executive officer of NWTF, Mufuliat Fijabi, said the strategy meeting was put in place to serve as a record that it is very important Nigeria as a whole, begin to analyse perspectives that will enhance her governance process.
She said just as it happened in 2011 and 2015, the percentage of women who won as elected representatives dropped again, maintaining that during the process, some of the women were intimidated while some of them suffered one form of violence or another.
According to her, the percentage of women elected at all level of governance has dropped and this is not good for us. “Currently Nigeria is at the lowest level in terms of countries with good percentage of women in governance. The governance that doesn’t make it easy through different structural barriers, electoral violence, and voter inducement, makes it difficult for women to win elections and also automatically excludes women from the governance process.
“I hope that the entire process be put in spot light, the fact that women are not very represented in Nigeria’s governing process, whether as appointed representatives or elective representatives, means something needs to be done. There must be a political will and a deliberate effort to ensure that women are put in strategic positions and as we all know, we have very brilliant intelligent Nigerian women who are already doing very well globally. It is becoming a thing of shame to us as a nation that we have women who thrive so hard and are successful outside Nigeria but they are not here in the country as contributors to governance because they are not at the front burner of national development.”
She added that some of the female candidates have taken their case to the tribunal since they feel that they have not been treated fairly and the judiciary is the last hope for every Nigerian.
Three female candidates who were at the strategy meeting all agreed that participating in the last general election was like going to a battle field and their male counterparts suppressed them every way possible to ensure they didn’t get the mandates.
One of them, Mulikat Akande Adeola, a former house leader who contested under PDP for Oyo North Senatorial district said getting through the primaries wasn’t difficult for her but during the election, it turned out that voter inducement and other form of violence became the order of the day.
“With the way things are going, soon we will get to a point when no woman will be anywhere in governance except maybe for some appointive positions.” She maintained that men are women’s problem and are the ones that have the money to engage in all kinds of things.
Adeola further said that the electoral process was not properly put in place and that was the reason ‘inconclusive elections’ became the order of the day.
Read Also:
“The police is enough to watch over the conduct of the election and not the business of the military. Military should just provide security to ensure that there are no thugs or ballot snatchers. Why should any election be inconclusive if our planning is accurate? We don’t need inconclusive elections, we are just making it more expensive for the candidates,” she added.
Mrs Christina Ude, who contested under the Social Democratic Party (SDP) for Orlu East, Orlu and Orsu Federal Constituency of Imo State said she started off in the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) but Governor Rochas Okoracha asked her to drop her ambition.
She said the governor told her not to bother about buying the form that he will give her a political appointment when ‘they get back to office’ in 2019. She left the APC for SDP when she discovered that the governor was bent on frustrating her ambition.
“Imo state is a peculiar state, the primaries was difficult for me. I had a lot of support in the constituent but I get threats and phone calls that were offering me money so I could drop from the race. 19 years of democracy, no woman has represented us in my area and they say this time let a woman represent us and see what a woman can offer. I had a lot of support, I was sidelined in a lot of places where I got large number of votes.
“My agents were threatened. People came with thugs. Two days to the election, someone called me and told me that if I didn’t give him a certain amount of money he would bring thugs to all the units to make sure my votes don’t count and he actually did it. It’s really tough for women to run for position because they will do everything to break you and if you are not strong enough, you drop out in a drop beat.”
Mrs Phina Kanu, contested under APC for the state House of Assembly to represent the good people of Umuahia South in Abia State. She said women who contested for election went to battle field with men as vote buying was common in the state.
“At some point during this last election, I became highly discouraged because threats were coming from everywhere. What I saw in the field is that most people want to vote for the woman, they wanted a change, they wanted a woman for the first time to run their affairs but voter inducement was so much you hardly knew where to start.
“And since you are financially handicapped as a woman, you won’t like to do what others are doing and would like to show good example as a mother. Violence was everywhere, I was intimidated. We had to run to hide because of the other candidate who felt he was more powerful. This discouraged a lot of my supporters,” Kanu noted.
At the moment, only 62 positions will be occupied by women in the next dispensation. Two members of the senate, 11 House of Representatives members, four deputy and 40 state House of Assembly members. That is not where we use to be. In 2015, we had seven Senate members with 22 House of Representative members and 55 state House of Assembly members. The decline of women in governance process in Nigeria is alarming.
There must be a political will and a deliberate effort to ensure that women are put in strategic positions. Currently, Nigeria is at the lowest level in terms of countries with good percentage of women in their governance process.
Voter suppression was another issue that emerged in the field especially for some specific candidates, mostly women whom their male counter parts felt should not get the mandates.
The entire structural process of Nigeria is making it difficult for women to come out as voters talk more of being candidates. Let us not see this thing as normal because gradually it is eating deep into the system and before it gets really bad or worse, we need to talk about it. We need to deal with it as a nation and remove the barriers that make life difficult for women.
Women are an integral part of the Nigeria society so must be carried along in every process.
