WiPF Decries Low Participation of Women, Persons with Disabilities in Politics

Seriki Adinoyi in Jos

A non-governmental group, Women in Politics Forum (WiPF) has decried the  low participation of women in leadership, elective positions and governance, despite advocacies and proposal by Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in the country.

 President of  WiPF, Barrister Ebere Ifendu,  stated this at the closing ceremony of a training session of 100 women in Plateau state organised by WiPF with funding by UN Women  and Norwegian Government.

She said: “We have an academy where we train young women to participate in politics. We are here in Plateau state training 100 women on the need to participate in politics and majorly to register with any political party of their choice. We want to let women know how to participate in politics and be appointed.

“We also share with them different forms of participation, because it is not all about contest; we need them to participate fully in all the electoral processes. We are giving them out to mentors, successful women and men because we believe that the men can also support our course.”

She added that the academy aims to extend its coverage across the 36 states of the federation before 2027.

Ifendu urged the government and other relevant stakeholders to take necessary steps to ensure women participation in politics for national progress and development.

 “What this means therefore is that as Nigeria prepares for transition in to another face of democracy, these stakeholders who are mostly agencies of government, be it the legislative, executive or judiciary arm, and CSOs have an important role in ensuring that there is an increase in number of elected and appointed women,” she said.

Also speaking, Mrs Charity Anacha, a member of WiPF and expert in gender democracy and governance, observed that women’s participation is central and crucial to national growth and development, adding that it was high time women took the bull by the horns.

She said: “This event in Jos is very important because we are coming at a time gender and equal opportunity law has been passed in the state. There is a need to popularize it and take advantage of it by ensuring that the young women in the state are politically visible and taking advantage of the passage of this law to engage politically and mobilise rural women to ensure increase in political and appointive positions.

“We also want to see our young women advocating for the rights of women, especially on issues that are peculiar to them such as sexual and reproductive health, gender-based violence,  and girl-child education.”

On her part, governance policy and election expert, Mr. Mangi Wilson, said that the forum has to take the women through a particular curriculum that involves the basis and essentials of the political processes of the Nigerian electoral and legal framework, ethics of leadership, its foundation, and some of the early core values that women who are involved in politics are expected to display.

He observed that women have been traditionally marginalised and under-represented in Nigeria’s political process, be it elective or appointive, adding that like the recent gender bills, five of them were thrown out of the National Assembly.

He said: “Most times, due to the patriarchal nature of the system, there’s always the excuse that women are not found as active players within the political process. So, what we are doing is not just a traditional academy where we have women who are excited about the political process. We want to be able to gather those who have shown interest and invest in them so they can become active players within the structure of the political parties, and aspire for political positions.

A programme specialist on women’s political empowerment with UN Women in Nigeria, Chundung Ashley Dauda, said Nigeria stands to lose a lot when it excludes women which constitute half of its population from political processes, lamenting that “young women in particular, are even more excluded, and are in fact, non- existent in leadership positions.”

Observing that while the not-too-young-to-run bill led to the increase of male youths participating in politics, Dauda lamented that young women were rather absent, noting that there are a lot of potential in women, and should therefore, be encouraged to join politics.