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The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has charged political parties to mobilise women voters to effectively participate in elections and politics.
INEC Chairman Joash Amupitan made the appeal at a strategic engagement with party leaders, female candidates, civil society organisations, development partners and the media in Abuja, ahead of the 2027 general elections.
While challenging political parties to move from lip service to concrete action on women’s political participation, he said: “A democracy that mobilises women as voters but provides limited pathways for them to become political leaders is yet to fully realise its representative potential.”
Amupitan, represented by National Commissioner, Rhoda Gumus, at the engagement, told participants that the question before the Commission was “not simply about the participation of women in one electoral cycle”, but one that goes to “the character, inclusiveness and long-term sustainability of Nigeria’s democracy.”
He further noted that women remained a formidable presence in Nigeria’s electorate, pointing out that 44,414,846 of the 93,469,008 registered voters in the 2023 general election (47.52 per cent) were women, “almost one in every two registered voters in the last General Election.”
She said this trend had persisted into the ongoing voter registration exercise for 2027, disclosing that of the 3,867,997 Nigerians who completed registration in the exercise’s third phase as of July 26, 2026, women accounted for 2,037,589, or 52.68 per cent, compared with 1,830,408 men.
“Women therefore accounted for the majority of new registrants in the final phase of the exercise,” she said, stressing that “women are not marginal to Nigeria’s electoral population. They are a substantial part of the electorate.”
While citing 2023 election data, Gumus explained that only 1,556 of 15,331 candidates across major elective positions, representing 10.15 per cent, were women, just as three women were elected to the Senate and 16 to the House of Representatives, representing 2.8 per cent and 4.4 per cent of seats respectively.
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“A substantial gap appears to exist between women’s participation as voters and their participation as political leaders,” she said.
She called on political parties to consider what practical support could be extended to female candidates in areas such as “access to party structures and leadership, campaign platforms, media visibility, fundraising networks, mentoring, political communication, logistics, security and grassroots mobilisation”, and to examine whether women were being given genuine opportunities to rise through party structures.
“The participation of women is not a favour to women. It is a democratic imperative,” she said, urging parties to move “from commitment to action, from aspiration to implementation”, he said.
In her welcome address, the Secretary to the Commission, Rose Oriaran-Anthony, said the advancement of women’s political participation “cannot be achieved by the Commission or by any single institution acting in isolation”, but requires “a collective commitment and sustained action from all stakeholders.”
Director, Gender and Inclusivity Department, Lakunuya Dorothy Bello, who read the address on her behalf, noted that political parties, as “the principal vehicles through which citizens organise, seek elective office and participate in democratic governance”.
She said that they bear direct responsibility for the opportunities available to women, since their “policies, structures, internal processes and practices” shape who ultimately contests and wins elections. She urged participants to approach the engagement “with openness and a spirit of collaboration”, describing it as a platform to move beyond “acknowledgement of the challenges” towards practical, achievable commitments.
