Women in politics: Coalition submits proposal to NASS for increased participation

Doosuur Iwambe, Abuja

A Coalition made up of 71 Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) have submitted a memorandum to the National Assembly seeking for more women participation in politics in Nigeria.

The memorandum is seeking the amendment of some sections of the 1999 constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria as amended to introduce proportional representation.

According to the CSOs, the need to make constitutional intervention in this regard has become necessary because women in Nigeria are grossly under-represented in political offices, with less than 6% occupying national and state legislative seats.

In the memorandum jointly signed by Pamela Okoroigwe, Legal Defence and Assistance Project-LEDAP, Auwal Musa Rafsanjani, Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre -CISLAC Bukola Idowu, Kimpact Development Initiative and Monday Osasa, African Centre for Leadership, Strategy and Development, the group stated that despite the National Gender Policy 2006, which provides for at least 35% representation of women at all levels, the percentage of women elected into the current National Assembly is only about 3.38%.

The Coalition added that this is a drop from 5.60% in the 2015 -2019 election cycle.

They also said that the percentage of women elected in the State Houses of Assembly is at about 2.49%, dropping from 3.70% in the 2015-2019 election period adding that this is far below what is obtainable from across the world.

According to them, in Rwanda, women represent 51% in the national parliament, 42.7% in Senegal and 42% in South Africa.

“Thus, the exclusion of women in politics has been identified in recent times as one of the major setbacks for economic development. It is unarguable that a nation can progress and attain higher development only when both men and women are entitled to equal opportunities”.

According to the Global Gender Gap Report by the World Economic Forum (WEF) 2017 , women political leadership has shown to have several societal benefits such as inequality reduction, increased prioritization of social issues like health and education and faster development.

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‘’This memorandum highlights the different options on how Nigeria can use the Constitution to increase women’s representation in the political processes. It also identifies other sections of the Constitution to be strengthened to ensure gender inclusivity and equity in political participation and distribution of elective roles’’.

Some of the prayers sought in the Memorandum include, ‘’Amendment of sections 49 & 91 of the 1999 constitution to introduce proportional representation through gender quota, adopting lessons from India randomized policy experiment on affirmative action”.

“Amendment of sections 222-223 to empower Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to mainstream gender equity into party politics at all levels’’.

Other proposed amendments to the constitution include; ‘’ to promote gender neutrality and equality, we recommend that the text and language of the Constitution be amended to remove the gender specific pronoun “he” and also “chairman” and adopt gender neutral terms such as “chairperson,” “any persons” and “such persons”.

‘’The consistent use of masculine pronouns in legal instruments leaves the impression that women could not be in the positions of authority that are often the subject of discussion. The use of “He” and “Chairman” falls short of best standards for inclusion and contributes to making women marginalized and underrepresented in decision-making processes”.

 ‘’The provisions of Section 42 (1) (a) (b) are highly commendable and should not be tampered with. However, a new paragraph (c) should be added to Section 42 (1) to read as follows: Provided  that State shall take steps to accord advantage and privilege to women, children, persons with disabilities, elderly and other marginalized groups and such shall not be construed as being contrary to 42(1)”.

‘’The rationale for the new subsection is to exclude the principle of inclusivity (gender equality) from being construed as running contrary to Section 41 (a) & (b). Thus the new subsection is created to exclude women, PWDs, children and other marginalized groups from the Limitations of Section 42 (1) (a) and (b) amongst others. The Coalition added.