In this report, ENE OSANG looks at how Nigerian women fared in 2019; their progress, challenges, achievements with gender equality and the empowerment of women as it relates to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Nigeria is one of the 189 countries that adopted the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (BDPfA) in 1995. Not only did this provide institutional legitimacy around the demand for accountability on women’s human rights, it also enables the emergence and coalescing of women’s groups and gender equality advocates around a broad set of shared aspirations.
Since that time, new laws and policies that affirm the BDPfA commitments have emerged at national level and in the states; institutions responsible for promoting gender justice have been created; the experiences and challenges of women and girls have reflected in some critical policy discussions; and funding support to improve the situation of women and girls in Nigeria, has been made available through government budgets and by several international organizations.
However, there are still several challenges. Some of the social norms and structural factors that resist gender equality and the empowerment of women are still as strong as they were twenty five years ago. This makes it more challenging to close existing gender gaps.
It also makes it particularly challenging to respond, as swiftly as required to emerging millennial challenges which are multifaceted but have significant impact on the livelihoods and wellbeing of women and girls, such as climate change and the corresponding demand for circular economy practices.
Women in politics
Women account for about 49.4% of the country’s estimated population of 200,923,640.1, with a total of 99,180,412. However, female political representation in the 2019 elections was negligible relative to the approximately half of the population they constitute.
According to the report by the Centre for Democratic (CDD) of how women fared in the 2019 general elections, 2,970 women were on the electoral ballot, representing only 11.36% of nominated candidates but only 62 of these women have been recorded as elected, a meagre 4.17% of elected officials.
The centre maintains that this figure represents a decline from the 2015-19 period, where women formed 5.65% of elected officials and that in contrast to the reduced total of female elected officials, female nominations for the presidential ticket witnessed unprecedented increments, with six women vying for the presidential position.
“This shows that 8.22% of the total Presidential candidates were women unlike in the past with only a single female presidential candidate. In 2015, this was Prof. Oluremi Sonaiya contesting the position with 13 men.
“In 2011, it was Mrs. Ebiti Ndok up against 19 presidential candidates. In 2007, Major Mojisola Adekunle Obasanjo (retd.) contested against 26 men. However, in 2003, two women out of 20 presidential candidates made it to the ballot – Mrs. Sarah Jubril and Major Mojisola Adekunle Obasanjo (retd.).
“In the 2019 elections, women also formed a significantly higher 30.13% of Vice-Presidential candidates. On the one hand, the disparity between Presidential and Vice-Presidential figures could suggest female candidates were fielded as tokens by fringe parties.
“On the other hand, such a phenomenon could also represent shifting societal views on gender norms seeping into politics. Events leading up to the elections should dampen some of the positive sentiment around these figures. Specifically, all six female candidates stepped down before the national elections.”
“Furthermore, the two leading parties did not field a woman for either position on the presidential ticket. Arguably the most popular female candidate, Dr. Oby Ezekwesili, stepped down from the ticket of the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN), allegedly over issues of party finance. Almost immediately after her withdrawal, ACPN announced the adoption and backing of incumbent and APC candidate Muhammadu Buhari,” it stated.
The permanent secretary at the Ministry of Women Affairs, Mrs. Ifeoma Anagbogu, noted that more Nigerian women are currently engaged in the country’s political processes at different levels including as party agents, voters and contestants for political offices.
She said, “As at 2015, Nigeria had over 35% female representation in appointive political positions. On May 31, 2018, the President Muhammadu Buhari signed into law a bill amending the 1999 Constitution, the implementation of which will lower the minimum age requirements for competing for and holding key elected offices both at federal and state levels.”
She said further that the new law allowed individuals to stand for state and federal elected offices as independent candidates.
“This enabled the emergence of more young women as aspirants to public office and as party candidates in the 2019 general elections. The engagement and participation of more men and boys, as (gender) champions of change under the auspices of programmes, such as UN Women’s ‘HeforShe’ campaign has led to specific gains such as changes in the structures of traditional leadership hierarchies to include women in some communities in the Northern and Southern parts of the country.”
However, she lamented the low numbers of women in state and national parliament, noting that with the 2019 general elections, women occupy only 6.4% of the seats in the Senate and 3.5% in the House of Representatives in the 9th National Assembly.
“This constitutes a regression from the previous elections in 2015, where the percentage representation of women in the Senate and House was marginally higher, at 6.5% and 5.6%, respectively.
“Despite these challenges, Nigeria has made significant progress to demonstrate her commitment to the Beijing Platform for Action. It is on this basis that the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development continues to work with stakeholders across board, including colleagues in other Line Ministries, international partners, civil society organisations, especially women-focused groups and community-based organisations, and the media to deliver on the country’s commitments to women and girls.”
WIPF’s take
Meanwhile, the National President of Women in Politics Forum (WIPF), Ebere Ifendu, has decried the slow pace of women in politics due to violence of various degrees, particularly the brutal burning to death of Salome Acheju Abuh, the PDP woman leader, during the governorship elections in Kogi state.
She said, “Such incidence if not handled properly will further reduce the number of women participating in politics which in turn stalls their contribution to national development. We are still struggling to find our feet with all the challenges women face and now this. We are afraid and going down on a daily basis, but there must be justice to give us reasons to continue.”
She, however, encouraged women not to run away from politics because of violence, saying that “will encourage perpetrators of violence to continue.”
Women in economy
Women’s participation in the economy and especially within the agriculture sector was said to have gained momentum in 2019 with the Agriculture Promotion Policy and programmes such as the ‘Anchor Borrowers’ programme for emerging agri-businesses being managed by the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
Anagbogu said the past 3 fiscal years have, for the first time in Nigeria’s history witnessed the emergence of social investment spending as a line item in the National budget (the Social Investment Portfolio) which has consistently stood between 3rd and 75th place in terms of projected capital spending within the federal budget.
“This has enabled targeted cash transfers to primary caregivers (mostly women), skills and employment reorientation support and credit access to young female graduates and women owned micro businesses, respectively.
“However, there are still several challenges; the insurgency context in the North-east has not only exacerbated existing gender disparities, but led to the emergence of new ones. Also, the spread of herders, farmers’ conflicts have heightened the rates of sexual and gender-based violence experienced by women farmers in some parts of the country.
“While more women across Nigeria are emerging as business owners, more women – owned businesses fall within a ‘necessity driven’ cluster. They still struggle with access to various incentives and are, therefore, situated at macro and micro-levels within the informal sector.”
She stated further that the gender participation gap in labour force participation “is still quite significant with an estimate of less than 25% of women making up the country’s formal labor force (NBS, 2018).”
Gender-based violence
As contained in the Nigeria’s National Beijing + 25 Review produced by the women affairs ministry in 2019, there have been several defining moments within Nigeria’s progression towards gender justice, over the past twenty – five years, following the country’s adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.
The report disclosed that within the last five years, the causal links between, a more inclusive national development model, and the general wellbeing of communities, states and the nation, have become topical issues in national policy and practice. As a result of this, several sector specific gender shifts, some of which are more significant for their transformative value occurred.
The Violence Against Persons Prohibition (VAPP) Act passed into law in 2015 situates women’s human rights within an institutional paradigm of freedom from economic, domestic, and other forms of violence.
Steps towards addressing the increasing rate of gender based violence was further accelerated with the launch of a sex offenders register in November during the 16 days activism on the elimination of all forms of gender based violence.
Generally, Nigeria’s scorecard, in terms of the empowerment and emancipation of women is varied, but with a very definite tilt towards the assertion that Nigerian women have come a long way.
Some achievements from few years back listed in the Nigeria’s National Beijing + 25 Review such as the adoption of a social protection budget, the passage of the Violence Against Persons Prohibition Act; the integration of gender perspectives into the national security and peace architecture and into interventions in North-east; as well as targeted programmes to improve girl child participation in science and vocational education were further reinforced in 2019.
Women’s strengthened voice and agency are shown by the frequency with which gender concerns are integrated in public policy texts and discussions; the vibrant activist landscape of women-focused NGOs; women’s increasing interactions within the economic sphere; and the higher numbers of women, engaged at different levels within the electoral space.
There was also the commitment by the ministry to ensure that a number of policy actions was geared towards ensuring inclusive growth and women’s economic participation such as actions taken to translate high female primary school enrolment into equally high completion rates at primary and post primary levels; initiatives aimed at facilitating education access for women and girls in states affected by insurgency; programmes being implemented to address gender based violence; and the number of sector budgets that have been refocused to address gender gaps and provide social safety nets.
The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action remains the reference point for the emergence of subsequent international, regional and national frameworks on gender equality and the empowerment of women.
“For instance, the 14 indicators within Goal number 5 of the Sustainable Development Goals, to a very large extent, mirror the 12 critical areas of concern within the Platform.
“In terms of the country level efforts being made per indicator of Goal 5, the results are mixed as progress is more visible in some areas than in others. For instance, there has been more progress with indicator 5.1.1 (laws and frameworks) than with indicator 5.5.1 and 5.5.2 (increasing women’s participation and leadership). Also, there has been more visible progress with efforts to end violence against women and girls (indicator 5.2.1) than there has been with ending harmful practice such as child marriage and female genital mutilation/cutting (indicator 5.3.2),” the report stated.
However, the disparities in different geopolitical zones plus the persistent challenge of cascading the policy gains from national and state levels, to reach women and girls in the rural areas, are serious challenges.
The ministry identified that programmes that deal with gender equality and the empowerment of women tend to refer to women and girls as homogenous blocs which further marginalises specific categories of women and girls such as those with disabilities.
To end the year 2019, the Minister, Dame Paulin Tallen, on December 16, 2019, convened a meeting of all previous ministers of women affairs to seek their support and expertise on the on-going policy discussions in order to identify how issues affecting women and girls can be totally addressed.
