With barely one 12 months to the 2027 common elections, Nigerian girls danger remaining largely excluded from the corridors of legislative energy, as 13 states proceed to function all-male Homes of Meeting and a long-awaited constitutional modification to ensure girls’s seats hangs within the stability.
From Bauchi to Zamfara, not a single lady at present sits within the state assemblies of Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Imo, Jigawa, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Abia, Osun, Sokoto, Yobe, and Zamfara, which is a stark reflection of the structural limitations confronting girls in Nigerian politics and a warning sign that no significant change might rub off on the 2027 electoral cycle.
“NIGERIA HAS HISTORICALLY STRUGGLED WITH GENDER IMBALANCE IN POLITICAL REPRESENTATION. CURRENTLY, WOMEN HOLD LESS THAN 10 PER CENT OF SEATS IN THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY, AND A SIMILARLY LOW PROPORTION IN MOST STATE HOUSES OF ASSEMBLY.”
Ladies’s rights advocates stated the clock is ticking on the Reserved Seats for Ladies Invoice, a proposed constitutional alteration sponsored by Deputy Speaker of the Home of Representatives, Benjamin Kalu, which seeks to ensure particular seats for girls within the Nationwide Meeting and State Homes of Meeting.
With out pressing political will, they warn, Nigeria’s gender imbalance in governance might persist for an additional legislative time period.
Talking in Abuja on girls’s illustration, Chief Govt Officer of TOS Group and Nationwide Convener of the Reserved Seats for Ladies Invoice Marketing campaign Coalition, Osasu Igbinedion Ogwuche, urged President Bola Tinubu to intervene decisively to fast-track the invoice’s passage earlier than election campaigns start.
She described the proposal as a brief however obligatory corrective measure to reverse a long time of systemic exclusion of girls from decision-making areas.
Based on knowledge from the Inter-Parliamentary Union, girls occupy nearly 4 per cent of seats in Nigeria’s Nationwide Meeting, far under the worldwide common of roughly 27 per cent.
Within the 109-member Senate, solely 4 girls at present serve, whereas the Home of Representatives, with about 360 members, has round 15 feminine lawmakers.
This locations Nigeria among the many backside 5 nations worldwide for girls’s parliamentary illustration, with international rankings hovering between 178th and a hundred and eightieth out of greater than 180 nations.
Advocacy Lead of TOS Basis, Andikan Umoh, attributed the imbalance to excessive marketing campaign prices, political violence, patriarchal occasion constructions and weak institutional help for feminine candidates, noting that Nigeria lags behind African friends corresponding to Rwanda, South Africa, Namibia, and Senegal, the place constitutional quotas and occasion reforms have boosted girls’s illustration.
Umoh described the Invoice as “a social and democratic correction, moderately than a authorities empowerment programme.”
She pointed to what she referred to as a extreme illustration imbalance, observing that girls represent almost half of Nigeria’s inhabitants but occupy solely a marginal proportion of legislative seats, with some state homes of meeting having no feminine illustration in any respect.
She stated the Invoice was “a corrective response to a structural democratic deficit.”
Umoh added that worldwide proof confirmed quota techniques had strengthened governance outcomes, noting that such frameworks had “accelerated democratic reform and improved outcomes in well being, training, and collaborative policymaking.”
She emphasised that media framing could be central to public understanding, warning that the reform must be seen as “a matter of justice and governance, moderately than favour or competitors.”
In a separate intervention, the Managing Director of TOS Group, Kingsley Sintim, described the media as “a key ally in driving recognition and public understanding of the reform.”
He referred to as for “unified messaging, human-centred storytelling, and sustained public training throughout geopolitical, cultural, and linguistic divides.”
He additionally highlighted the significance of digital instruments and knowledge, referencing “truth sheets and the 469Tracker, which supplies constituency-level insights into lawmakers’ positions on the Invoice.”
Throughout an interactive session, editors and bureau chiefs raised considerations about political occasion engagement, grassroots sensitisation, cultural resistance in sure areas, and the timing of a constitutional modification near an election cycle.
Questions had been additionally raised on non secular interpretations, caucus dynamics, and whether or not former and serving legislators had been consulted.
Responding, Osasu stated engagement was ongoing throughout religion and regional strains, citing “coordinated outreach with Islamic clerics” and the usage of endorsements from “conventional and non secular leaders to counter misconceptions.”
She stated caucus conferences had taken place nationwide to “tackle considerations, align views, and encourage constituents to instantly interact their representatives.”
She described the approaching month as decisive, stating that “the subsequent thirty days” had been vital and that “mindset shifts require constant publicity to the socio-economic advantages of inclusive governance.”
She warned that failure at this stage would have lasting penalties, saying it could “exclude half of Nigeria’s inhabitants from illustration for an additional electoral cycle.”
In closing remarks, members acknowledged proposals for different legislative pathways, together with govt sponsorship, whereas recognising progress already made.
Nigeria has traditionally struggled with gender imbalance in political illustration.
Ladies at present maintain lower than 10 per cent of seats within the Nationwide Meeting and a equally low proportion in most state homes of meeting.
Cultural norms, political occasion dynamics, and structural limitations, together with restricted entry to marketing campaign financing and political networks, have contributed to the underrepresentation of girls in elected workplace.
Efforts to extend girls’s participation have included advocacy campaigns, civil society interventions, and worldwide help for gender-inclusive governance reforms.
Reserved seat or quota techniques, just like the one proposed within the invoice, have been utilized in a number of nations to extend feminine political illustration.
In nations corresponding to Rwanda, Sweden, and India, quota techniques have led to measurable will increase within the variety of girls lawmakers and, in some circumstances, improved legislative consideration to social welfare, training, and healthcare points.
Advocates argue that such measures are obligatory in Nigeria to make sure that girls’s views are mirrored in policymaking and to handle systemic gaps in political participation.
Uba Sani, Governor of Kaduna, additionally lamented that girls’s participation in politics doesn’t replicate their inhabitants dimension and voting energy in Nigeria.
Talking on the flag-off of the north-west zonal marketing campaign for the Reserved Seats for Ladies Invoice, the governor stated girls make up almost half of Nigeria’s inhabitants and a good bigger share of energetic voters, but stay considerably under-represented in elective and appointive places of work.
He stated girls at present occupy lower than 5 p.c of legislative seats on the nationwide degree, describing the disparity as the results of long-standing structural, cultural, {economic}, and institutional limitations.
“This disparity just isn’t a mirrored image of capability or competence; it’s the results of structural, cultural, {economic}, and institutional limitations which have persevered for many years,” Sani stated.
The governor famous that the north-west has traditionally recorded low feminine participation in elective politics, formed by deep-rooted social norms, {economic} constraints, and restricted entry to political networks.
Nonetheless, he stated the scenario might change with intentional management and institutional reforms.
Sani stated Kaduna state affords an instance of what’s doable, citing the election and appointment of girls into senior political positions.
Based on him, Kaduna has a feminine deputy governor, a feminine member of the state home of meeting who additionally serves as majority chief, a feminine head of service, and a feminine elected native authorities chairman in Jaba LGA.
“The Kaduna state instance demonstrates girls can win elections, head strategic positions in authorities, lead successfully, and command public belief when given a good alternative,” he stated.
“These milestones didn’t happen by chance. They’re the end result of deliberate decisions, inclusive management, and the braveness of girls who stepped ahead to contest and serve.”
Sani stated the proposed Reserved Seats for Ladies Invoice, which is a part of the continued constitutional overview, aligns with international democratic finest practices and goals to handle continual under-representation by creating constitutionally assured areas for girls in legislative establishments.
He defined that the invoice proposes 182 further seats reserved completely for girls throughout the nationwide and state assemblies, together with further seats within the Senate, Home of Representatives, and state homes of meeting.
The governor stated the invoice wouldn’t displace current seats however increase illustration and is designed as a brief intervention spanning 4 election cycles, after which it could be reviewed.
He cited nations corresponding to Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Bangladesh, and Zimbabwe, the place related mechanisms have improved girls’s political participation.
Mary Alile Idele, APC nationwide girls chief, stated Nigeria has witnessed a “troubling decline” in girls’s illustration within the Nationwide Meeting from 2003 to 2023.
She stated girls held about seven p.c of seats in 2003, however the determine has dropped to fewer than 5 p.c in current assemblies, putting Nigeria amongst nations with the bottom charges of feminine legislative illustration globally.
“This downward development is not only a statistic—it’s a wake-up name. A democracy the place half of the inhabitants holds lower than 5% of political illustration is a democracy working under its full capability,” Idele stated.
She stated the Reserved Seats for Ladies Invoice would assure constitutionally protected political area for girls, strengthen democratic inclusion, and encourage younger girls to see management as their proper.
Idele additionally counseled President Bola Tinubu’s administration for prioritising inclusive progress and gender empowerment, describing the invoice as “an funding in Nigeria’s future.”