From Fred Itua, Abuja
The National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies (NILDS) said on Tuesday it would partner with the United Nations to boost women’s representation in parliament.
The Director-General of the institute, Prof Abubakar Suleiman, made this known while hosting the Country Rep of UN Women to Nigeria, Ms Beatrice Enyo, in his office in Abuja.
He said that in the 9th Assembly, there are nine female senators but following the outcome of the just concluded elections, there will be only three in the 10th Assembly.
According to him, it is the same story in the House of Representatives and the State Houses of Assembly.
The Director-General said the Institute was conducting a study to scientifically ascertain factors responsible for the low representation to find lasting solutions.
“We were so disturbed here in the institute and I called all the female staff here to find out what the problem is; the elections have been conducted, why are we just having three women in the Senate and 15 in the House of Reps after all the workshops and training,” he stated.
“So a task was given to conduct a study which will be a product of a conference on women’s participation in Nigerian politics.
“We want to identify why we got to where we are in spite of the efforts made by institutions, government agencies, and multilateral organisations; instead of making progress, we are going backwards.
“The development in Nigeria is not what we can write home about regarding gender equality; by now we should be talking about more women in governance at the elective level.”
Suleiman stressed the need to look into the issues saying that it is a conversation we need to revisit to find out what went wrong.
According to him, in the last four years, we have done so much but it has not yielded any result, all efforts have failed so need to go back again.
The Director-General said a committee headed by a woman has been asked to link up with UN Women and other multi-lateral organisations to seek partnerships on the project.
Suleiman said that beyond the challenges of the economy and traditional bias, there is also a challenge of women supporting women in politics.
He said that scholars, practitioners and other stakeholders will be at the conference to address the issues and other factors limiting women’s participation.
Sulieman said that the conference would hold before the stand-alone elections in Kogi, Bayelsa and Imo to further sensitive the electorate saying that it is a fundamental national crisis that should be addressed.
Earlier, Enyo said that UN Women in Nigeria wishes to deepen its relationship with the institute.
She said that the organisation has three major mandates which are ensuring a legal framework for affirmative action, gender equality for equal opportunities and an operational mandate that allows field implementation.
“We are looking forward to working with NILDS, if we do not have all our women and men involved in development planning, implementation and benefits, we will not have any sustainable development.
“We are here to say we want to work with NILDS so that we can work towards a gender-responsive parliament, a parliament where men and women are free to put their full potentials at the disposal of the country so we can forge ahead.
“Men and women see things differently so when we put these two ways of looking at issues together, then we have a complete picture; if you are doing something for me without me, you may be doing it against me so it is good for women to sit at the table,” she said.