2023: Canadian Govt Commits N2.6bn to Increase Women Participation in Politics

•UN urges traditional rulers to intensify effort to end violence against females in politics

•Discrimination against women to be discussed at Council’s meeting, says Sultan

Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja

The Government of Canada has revealed that it was committing the sum of $8 million Canadian Dollars, which is equivalent to N2.6 billion in the next four years to increase Nigeria’s women participation in elections in the 2023 electoral cycle and beyond.

The Canadian High Commissioner to Nigeria, Ambassador James Christoff disclosed this yesterday, in Abuja, during a dialogue with traditional leaders on ending electoral violence against women as voters, supporters, candidates and election administrators ahead of the 2023 general election.

Christoff who was represented by the Head of Cooperation, Djifa Ahado said Canada firmly believed that supporting the empowerment of women and girls was the best way to have a more peaceful, more inclusive and more prosperous Nigeria.

He said having women at the table to play a greater role in decision making, particularly at the political level was a key part.

Christoff said the Canadian government recognised that women considering political participation faced a number of challenges – whether as a candidate, a political supporter, an election administrator or a voter.

He lamented that women were often subjected to discriminatory stereotypes, discouraging and negative attitudes that limit their political participation.

Christoff noted that it was also a fact that women vying for representation in the public sphere or those administering the electoral processes often faced intimidation and violence.

According to him, “As a student of tradition and culture, we recognise the important role that you can play as traditional leaders to create an enabling environment by embracing positive attitudes and questioning negative stereotypes of women in politics, to encourage the meaningful participation of women in electoral processes at all level and for the benefit of all.”

Christoff said while some progress had been made, there had also been setbacks.

He stated: “Canada is contributing 8 million Canadian dollars or N2.6 billion over four years to increase the participation in elections and appointments of women in Nigeria both in the 2023 electoral cycle and beyond.”

Also, the United Nations Resident Coordinator/Humanitarian Coordinator, Mr. Matthias Schmale said full and equitable participation of all citizens, including women, persons with disabilities and young people in public life was essential to building and sustaining a strong, vibrant and inclusive democracy in Nigeria.

He noted that the full and effective participation of women in governments and decision-making opportunities was globally recognised as a key driver in achieving sustainable development.

Schmale stressed that although much progress had been made to increase women’s representation in all areas of public life across the globe since the adoption of the Beijing Declaration, change had been incremental but unfortunately slow.

He said globally, the average representation of women in national parliaments was at 26 per cent, whilst it was only four per cent in Nigeria, the lowest for sub-Saharan Africa and globally.

Schmale added that the low figure signified a decrease in women’s political representation, which previously stood at 6.9 per cent in the 2015 general election, saying that similar statistics could be observed among state legislatures and ministerial appointments at 4.4 per cent and 16.2 per cent.

His words: “Women’s ability to participate in political and electoral processes in Nigeria is hampered by numerous constraints. They include negative stereotypes, sometimes perpetuated by culture and tradition, playing a real and significant role in women’s political marginalisation.

“This type of violence against women has far reaching consequences, and is manifested in several forms. It could be physical violence, sexual violence, threats and coercion and gender hate speech.”

Schmale pointed out that during the past elections in Nigeria, there have seen reports indicating that some female voters were prevented from accessing polling units, while others were either threatened or intimidated to vote for candidates other than their own preferred choice.

He further noted that there had been reports of female electoral officers, observers and security agents being held hostage for hours and prevented from conducting or participating in elections by thugs.

Schmale noted that the key objective of the meeting was to generate hope and public support from traditional leaders in form of denouncing violence in elections and advocating for increased women’s political participation.

Giving a summary of the situation of women’s political participation in Nigeria, UN Women Country Representative to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Ms. Beatrice Eyong said one of the reasons why women were marginalised politically was because of the misconceptions that people have about gender equality.

She explained that gender equality actually seeks to remove all the constraints that are obstacles to developments.

Eyong stressed that evidence from many countries showed that societies with large and persistent gender inequalities pay the price of more poverty, more malnutrition and more illness.

On his part, the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar said he believed it was the responsibility of traditional rulers to ensure women are given equal rights in terms of participating in politics by advising politicians to allow women to participate.

Abubakar who was represented by Etsu Nupe, Yahaya Abubakar said while reducing fees for nomination forms for women by political parties was one of the ways to ensure participation in politics, he believed that subsidising such fees for women should be abolished because it would remove negative bias against women.

“We in the council of traditional rulers, we are going to hold our meeting. This will be part of items to be discussed in our meeting and ensure that we present this to all other members because only very few of us are here. This will be part of our agenda, we still have some time before the general election,” he noted.

In his views, Ooni of Ife, Enitan Ogunwusi said despite the fact that the women represent 50 per cent of the country’s population, it was yet to translate to equal representation in political leadership positions.

The Ooni who was represented by Onisan of Isan-Ekiti, Oba Gabriel Ayodele noted that the poor participation in politics and the number of women in political position in Nigeria was going at a low rate in spite of effort to change such trend by Nigerian women groups, advocates, activists and civil society organisations.