What Does Political Progress Mean for Nigerian Women?

In 1983, during Muhammadu Buhari’s military regime, the first formal quota system to increase the appointment of women into governance was introduced. Buhari directed that at least one woman must be appointed as a member of the executive council in every state. All the states complied with this directive, and some states even had two or three female members. By 1999, Nigerian women’s participation in elective offices was 1.62 per cent. It increased to 4.2 per cent in 2003 and rose to a peak of 6.4 per cent in 2011, though still below Africa’s regional average of 23.4 per cent and the West African sub-regional average of 15 per cent.

By 2011, during Goodluck Jonathan’s presidency, twelve out of 42 appointed ministers were women. The steady increase between 1999 and 2011 was fuelled by the domestication of international women’s rights treaties, strong collaborations between women’s groups and civil society bodies and a framework for connecting ideological feminist positions to the realities of rural women. Buhari’s civilian administration saw a decline, with six out of 30 appointees during his first term and eight out of 47 during his re-election being women. The paltry progress recorded in women’s participation in Nigerian politics and governance between 1999 and 2011 has steadily declined, and the chart began a downward trend from 2011 to 2015. Our voices grew louder but the numbers became slimmer. Initially, it went almost unnoticed. But a decade has passed, and the stats are grim.

According to Invictus Africa, today, only four (3.7 per cent) of the Nigerian Senate’s 109 members are women, a sharp decline from the 6.4 per cent representation recorded in 2011. In the House of Representatives, only 16 (4.4 per cent) of the 360 seats are occupied by women. In the 36 state Houses of Assemblies, only 50 (5 per cent) of the 993 legislators are women. The robust participation of women in politics at the local level transcends to the national, and low participation at the local level impedes the pipeline for growth to the federal and national levels.