NASS Constitution Review Committee’s Efforts to Improve Women’s Representation in Politics

Sam Hart

Nigeria has been recording women’s low participation in elective and appointive positions. This is a growing concern to many Nigerians. However, concerted efforts have been made by government and non -governmental organisations to increase the level of participation of women in politics in line with the declaration made at the fourth World Conference on women in Beijing, China (otherwise known as the Beijing Conference), which advocated 30 per cent affirmative action.

In Nigeria, the extant National Gender Policy (NGP) recommended 35 per cent affirmative action instead and sought for a more inclusive representation of women with at least 35 per cent of both elective political and appointive public service positions respectively.

From the advent of electoral party politics in Nigeria to the current dispensation, the narrative has been the same. Women are on record to have almost 50 per cent of the population in Nigeria and during elections, they are on record to be responsible for over 51 per cent of the total votes cast across jurisdictions yet, data on women elected and appointed officials in Nigeria have been abysmal.

The 2023 general elections, the most recent general elections in Nigeria, have again, delivered low numbers for women in the National Assembly. The representation of women in the 10th Assembly (2023 – 2027) is not a significant improvement from the outgoing 9th Assembly. The 10th Assembly has women occupying 3 out of 109 seats (2.7 per cent) in the Senate and 17 out of 360 seats in the House of Representatives (4.7 per cent), which represents 4.2 per cent of the 469-member Assembly. In the 9th National Assembly (2019 – 2023), there were 8 female Senators (7.3 per cent) and 13 female Members of the House of Representatives (3.6 per cent), which represents 4.5 per cent of the entire Assembly.

A study by Hadiza  Lemo for the Campaign for the Defence of Democracy (CDD, 2023) shows that in the  2023 general elections in Nigeria, a total of 18 political parties fielded 15,307 candidates contending for various political positions. However, the representation of women on the ballot was strikingly insufficient, with only 1,552 women standing as candidates.

This figure represents a mere 9.8 per cent of the total number of candidates. Unfortunately, the outcome was equally disheartening, as only 78 women emerged victorious, constituting a meager 5.2 per cent of the total women who participated in the elections.

Furthermore, when focusing specifically on the Senate and House of Representatives races, out of the 378 women who ran for these seats, 20 women (3 Senate and 17 House of Representatives) were successful in securing victory.

What this shows is that after seven general election cycles in Nigeria since 1999, the number of women in the Senate has dropped to what it was at Nigeria’s return to democracy in 1999.

Conversations to improve women’s political representation in Nigeria have been on the front burner of civil society advocacy but does not appear to have yielded tangible results.  A novel Constitution Alteration bill to provide specific legislative seats for women at Federal and State levels did not pass in the 9th National Assembly. However, civil society organisations (CSOs) and women’s rights campaigners are braced for renewed campaign on the matter.

The Policy, Legal and Advocacy Centre (PLAC) is at the forefront of efforts to support the 10th National Assembly to resolve this worrisome impasse. This time around, PLAC is working assiduously with the House of Representatives Committee on Constitution Review led by Deputy Speaker Benjamin Kalu to start the advocacy early and get all relevant stakeholders on board.

The Committee has prepared the bill again and it is determined to work on the bill in concert and consultation with other CSOs and women groups.

It is instructive to note that a study by the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS, 2019) shows that despite the low representation of women in the National Assembly, the bills sponsored by female legislators has had significant impact on the lives of all Nigerians.

Women’s lack of adequate participation in Legislative processes has negatively impacted promotion and enforcement of their rights. An example is the Gender and Equal Opportunity Bill which was presented at the Nigerian Senate for a second reading on 15th March 2016 and was rejected. One could argue that one of the reasons why the Bill was not passed is because only seven of the 109 Senators were women. Men’s efforts, if any, to promote these rights are not sufficient, because they are not direct beneficiaries. Discrimination against women resulting in their exploitation was traced to so many militating factors from tradition–culture, to male supremacy and preference in resource generation.

Comparison with Other Jurisdictions

Several countries have done well in terms of fostering greater participation of women in politics. Some of these countries include Rwanda, Kenya, United Arab Emirates, among others.

In Rwanda, women occupy 61 per cent of its parliamentary seats. Over the years, the country has continued to record a consistent increase in the percentage of women occupying seats in Parliament. The 2003 Rwandan Constitution set a 30 per cent quota for women Parliament Members, hence the impressive increase from 18 per cent of women representation in Parliament in the 1990s to 61 per cent currently.

 In the recent Kenyan elections, the number of women legislators rose to more than 20 per cent, more than double compared to the previous elections. As reported by the UN Women, they contributed to this result by providing training to nearly 900 female candidates in all 47 counties and running a Campaign for Women in Leadership to encourage voters to vote for women.

The United Arab Emirates, a predominantly Muslim Country, has also done well to increase the number of women in the country’s parliament. In 2018, President Sheikh Khalifa Al-Makhtoum called for Emirati women to occupy half of the seats on the Federal National Council. By creating quotas for increased women’s representation in parliament, the country made an impressive jump from 85th in the world in 2019 to 3rd in 2023.

A study by Emaediong Lawrence for Borg.re notes that whilst appointments into federal and state cabinets, and other political appointments should be by merit, it is still key that Government should be mindful of striking a gender balance. It is therefore recommended that the country’s 35 per cent affirmative action for women’s representation in politics be codified into law. Having legislation that requires Government at all levels to have at least 35 per cent representation of women in appointive public service positions will be a good way to engender greater participation of women in politics.

 Again, whilst merit should always be prioritised in the appointment of people into public offices, there is a disproportionate number of men in those public service positions. This proposed legislation will also help to encourage the training and empowerment of women with knowledge and skills, relevant to the various appointive offices so that when it is time for appointments, the excuse that there are no qualified women will not hold water.

Conclusion

To fast-track progress towards gender parity in political representation, this study suggests that stakeholders should see women’s political underrepresentation as a question of discrimination against women, rather than that of women’s lack of resources. It is posited that direct and indirect mechanisms of exclusion are at work in the society in general, and that these mechanisms of exclusion have had a special impact on women’s participation in the political process.

From this perspective, the strategy for addressing women’s political underrepresentation should focus on changing how the political institutions themselves work, rather than on adjusting the resources and capacities that women do or do not possess. This approach, therefore, locates the responsibility for dealing with the issue of political underrepresentation of women squarely with the political institutions.

This study considers the introduction of an electoral gender quota for the recruitment and election of female candidates as the most appropriate institutional change required to enhance gender equity in political representation.

 It is therefore commendable that the 10th House of Representatives Constitution Review Committee in Partnership with PLAC, is undertaking a massive sensitization campaign to onboard all stakeholders towards achieving the objective of greater women participation. The Committee has so far reached out to the First Lady of Nigeria, Senator Oluremi Tinubu and Wives of Governors of the 36 states in Nigeria to lend what Chief of Staff to the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Toby Okechukwu termed ‘the other room advocacy’ to get them to lean on their husbands to support this advocacy,

Recommendations

With the foregoing as background, a study by Eke, Blessing Onyinyechi (2022-03) for the National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies (NILDS) recommended that to bring this pathetic situation to an end and/or to reduce it intensely and drastically, Political parties should create a support network for prospective aspirant by pairing them with established women politicians who will be playing key role as mentors and provide capacity building for young or aspiring female politicians as to enhance and develop them ahead of subsequent elections.

There is also the imperative to introduce a quota system at all levels of government as well as identify and engage relevant stakeholders such as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and political parties to ensure strict adherence to the recommendations.

INEC could be mandated to reject candidates list from political parties that do not have adequate female representation.

A similar study commissioned by PLAC and the Ford Foundation recommends the following, amongst others:

• The introduction of an electoral gender quota for the recruitment and election of female candidates as the most appropriate institutional change required to enhance women’s political representation. Related to this is the adoption of strong quota regulations and sanctions for non-compliance.

• Introduction of proportional representation with multiple-member constituencies, as this is favourable to promoting equal opportunities for women and men candidates.

• Adoption of legislation and policies supporting a more gender-balanced representation in elected bodies at local and regional levels.

• Adoption and implementation of gender action plans by Political Parties

• Review of internal rules and procedures of Federal and State legislatures, including the facilities and working conditions, rules for leadership recruitment, etc. to encourage more inclusive participation.

Furthermore, it is posited that greater political representation of women should begin at the local and regional levels. This means that activists and the National Assembly should initiate legislation that would establish a more gender-balanced representation in elected bodies at local and regional level by, perhaps, requiring that at least one third of candidates in local and state assembly elections be women.

Such a law would ensure both a better representation of the diversity of population and an opportunity for women and men to develop a political career on an equal footing.

Finally, this study suggests roles for institutions such as political parties and civil society groups in enhancing women’s political representation.

Among other things, political parties should adopt and implement party-specific gender quotas, informal targets, and other positive action mechanisms at all levels of office, including for internal party positions. On the other hand, civil society groups have an important role to play in conducting information and awareness-raising campaigns to encourage women to stand for election, and in running capacity-building programmes to support women in this process. These actors can contribute to developing the skills, experience, knowledge and resources of women in the pipeline for elected office and once they enter.

It is strongly posited that if these measures are implemented, Nigeria will gradually shed the toga of a non-women-friendly country and join the Committee of Nations in ensuring adequate participation of women in politics.

Hart, a lawyer and member of the National Institute, is a Special Adviser to the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives on Public Affairs and is involved in the Work of the 10th House Constitution Review Committee, writes from Abuja

Email: hartng@gmail.com