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Monday, 3 December 2018

THE PLACE OF WOMEN IN POLITICS

By Chief Mrs Angela Ogeyi Odey

SSA TO the Governor on Mobilization and Enlightenment
The role of women in the society cannot be undermined. To an extent, women have great role to play in the economy, politics and in the sustenance of democracy in every society - mother, producer, home-manager, andcommunity organizer, socio-cultural and political activists. Women population in Nigeria constitutes 50 percent of the total population and 51 percent of voters in elections, yet they have been continuously marginalized and treated with disdain, politically, by their male counterparts.
Concerted efforts have been made by government and non -governmental organizations (NGOs) to increase the number of women in politics in line with the declaration at the fourth World Conference on women in Beijing, which advocated 30% affirmative action.
In Nigeria, the extant National Gender Policy (NGP) under the Government of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) recommended 35% affirmative action which surpasses the global benchmark and sought for a more inclusive representation of women with at least 35% of both elective political and appointive public service positions. Despite the NGP, it is pathetic to see that women are still found to be under represented.
The under representation of women in politics has its root in the patriarchal practice inherent in the African culture, abuse of religion and traditional practices.  However, the re-introduction of democratic governance has witnessed once again an increase in women political participation both in elective and appointive offices.
Statistics show that women’s overall political representation in government is less than 7 percent. Also, women have not still attained the recommended 30 percent seats in government as prescribed by the Beijing platform of Action to which Nigeria subscribes.
In 1999, women recorded only 3% representation in contested offices. In 2003, the figure rose to 4% followed by a further improvement to 6% in 2007.
According to Mrs. Oloyede Oluyemi, the national average of women’s political participation in Nigeria has remained 6.7 percent in elective and appointive positions, which is far below the Global Average of 22.5 percent, Africa Regional Average of 23.4 percent and West African Sub Regional Average of 15 percent. The worst case scenario is the current APC government which does not believe that women have important place in politics.
APC Government only has 5 or 6 ministers in its Cabinet. In the House of Rep., only one out of every 26 reps is a woman. Most of the female Rep Members – 9 out of 14 – belong to the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). In the 2007 elections about 1200 women entered the race, 660 won the primaries while 93 emerged winners. Out of these winners 6 were deputy governors, 9 senators, 27 members of the House of Representatives and 52 won the State House of Assembly seats.
 In 2011, 7 women emerged winners in the Senate out of the 109 members and 19 female representations in the House of Representatives out of the 360 elected members. However, in 2015, only 21 females won the seats of the 8th National Assembly, 15 of whom were elected from the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and only 6 from the ruling party, APC.
The overall analyses show that the number of women in politics continues to dwindle in Nigeria; hence, there is need for a conscious effort on the part of the stakeholders towards revisiting gender policies in Nigeria.
In Cross River North, where I come from, women have been playing visible roles in politics. My immediate constituency has an erudite female (Senator Dr. (Mrs) Rose Okoji Oko) representing us at the Upper Legislative Chamber – she is a distinguished Senator among the six female Senators in the 8th National Assembly.  Besides, in Yala Constituency 1, we have a female representing us – Mrs. Regina Anyiogor.
I want to summit, without equivocation, that a lot still needs to be done to give women more room for participation in politics in Cross River State, Nigeria and Africa as a whole.
This is also a wakeup call for all women to rise up and support the place of women in politics. Remember, what men can do, we can do it better!


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