July 14, (THEWILL) – The proposed bill to create 74 seats for women in the parliament has once again re-echoed the several failed attempts in the country to follow through with the mandatory protocol on women inclusiveness in the political process. The bill, which is being jointly sponsored by the Deputy Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives, Benjamin Kalu and 12 others seeks to create one senatorial seat and one House of Representatives seat in each state and the Federal Capital Territory, FCT.
The bill seeks to amend Sections 48 and 49 of the Constitution to provide one special seat reserved exclusively for women in the Senate and House of Representatives for each state of the federation and the FCT, effective after the end of the current National Assembly and subject to review every 16 years.
Also, it seeks to amend Section 91 of the law to provide three special seats reserved exclusively for women in the House of Assembly of each state of the federation, which shall be spread across the three senatorial districts of each state.
Disappointingly, the bill which had passed second reading at the House had to be stepped down because of stiff opposition from naysayers.
Of all the arguments for and against the bill – gender equality and fair representation, as well as gender bias and unconstitutionality, the crucial point as pointed out by Minority Leader, Kingsley Chinda, is that Nigeria ranks the least country in terms of gender representation in Africa and so, there is a need to address the gap through the proposed legislation.
Indeed, in its March 2024 report, titled ‘Women in Parliament’ the Inter-Parliamentary Union noted, “Nigeria ranked among the bottom five countries globally for women’s representation in parliament.”
Interestingly, Rwanda led the world ranking with women accounting for 61.3 percent of seats in the parliament followed by Cuba and Nicaragua with 55.7 percent and 53.9 per cent, respectively.
“Across the 13 countries that held renewals in 2023, the highest shares of women elected to parliament were recorded in the upper chambers of Zimbabwe (45 per cent) and Eswatini (43.3 per cent).
“In Sierra Leone, a total of 41 women were returned to parliament across the 135 seats that were up for election, representing 30.4 per cent of directly elected MPs following the renewal. In Benin, 28 women were elected to parliament, a historic high for the country.
At the beginning of 2023, noted the report, Benin ranked 169th in the world in terms of women’s parliamentary representation. By the end of the year, it had moved up to 87th position. In 2023, nearly 46 percent of the national Parliamentary seats in South Africa were occupied by women.”
By sharp contrast, Nigeria elected the least gender-representative parliament in the region, with women making up only 2.8 per cent of MPs in the upper chamber and 3.9 per cent of MPs in the lower chamber, following the 2023 polls. These few examples are products of legislation by the mentioned countries.
Sierra Leone, for example in January 2023 enacted the Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Act, which introduced a mandatory 30 per cent quota for women among elected candidates. The result, as mentioned earlier, was a dramatic increase in women representation in the country’s parliament in the polls held in that year.
The reaction from the House of Representatives is not altogether surprising. We recall that a similar reaction greeted a bill seeking equal rights for women, men and persons living with disabilities at the Senate in March 2023.
Sponsored by Senator Biodun Olujimi, the bill was introduced in 2021, but it was frustrated by some senators who objected that it was against the Islamic perspective and some socio-cultural norms. In its reincarnation in 2023, the bill also succeeded in passing second reading.
Without listing the many signed instruments by Nigeria, from the 2015 Beijing Conference on Women Rights to the National Gender Policy launched in 2006 to provide guidelines for mainstreaming gender in various sectors of the economy with the overall goal of reducing gender inequalities and enhancing participation of women, men, girls and boys in socio-economic and political development, we urge the opposing lawmakers to rethink their stand.
Nigerian women are prevented from participating in politics because of institutional and social and economic factors. That IPU report stated that the challenges include gatekeeping by political parties, high candidate registration fees, the inconvenient scheduling of political meetings, the high cost of electoral campaigns, political violence and sexual harassment, clientelism (and, therefore, dependence on narrow networks of men), a ban on independent candidacies and patriarchal social norms.
We agree that these are the issues that should inform the reasons for the bill seeking to reserve seats for women in politics. Any other reason is impolitic.
