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By Enyeribe Ejiogu and Scholastica Hir
Thirty-three years after the Beijing Conference, held in China in 1995, and with slow progress being made overall to expand the presence of women in Nigeria’s governance space, a demand for quickening the pace towards achieving the goals set at the conference has rang out from womenfolk with a high decibel.
The Beijing Conference, also known as the Fourth World Conference on Women, was organized by the United Nations, to promote gender equality and empower women worldwide. It brought together representatives from over 180 countries, to discuss and address various issues affecting women, including poverty, education, healthcare, violence, and human rights. The conference resulted in the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, a comprehensive plan to achieve gender equality and women’s empowerment.
Ever since then, the UN has sponsored the International Women’s Day, through themes that highlight its primary objective. The theme for this year is twofold. At the level of the UN, the theme is “For ALL Women and Girls: Rights. Equality. Empowerment” which calls for action to unlock equal rights, power, and opportunities for all women and girls, and based on the need to quicken efforts in line with the general goal and spirit of the Beijing Conference, on its website the IWD organizing committee adopted the theme, “#AccelerateAction”, emphasizing the need to accelerate progress toward gender equality. This was done in response to a report by the World Economic Forum, which stated that at the current rate of progress, it will take until 2158 to achieve full gender parity.
Across the Nigeria, notable female personalities in all walks of life, and at various fora, have spoken out and assessed how women have fared in the governance space.
Senior Special Assistant to the President on Community Engagement (North Central), Mrs. Abiodun Essiet, in a post to felicitate with and encourage women on the progress made so far and urged them not to relent in the fight for a better tomorrow.
Her words: “Appreciate the bouncing baby girl in us, think about our struggle for an enabling environment, and appreciate what our sheroes have done for us.
“We are not where we should be, but we are making progress. Young women decide today to deconstruct any norms, beliefs, culture, practices, or traditions that limit your potential. By doing so, you are helping to close the gender gap in all aspects of life.
“Lastly, young women, whenever you find yourself in a position of authority, which is usually rare for women nowadays, know that you are not alone. Strive to bring out the best in your work, and don’t flog yourself too hard if you are not making as much progress as you envisioned. Your success in that position will be a hope for the younger generation and will continue to create more platforms for women.
Women in leadership, you are in that position for us because your success is our success. Thanks for making us proud.”
Nigerian women have made significant strides in governance, but challenges persist, notes the President of Warien Rose Foundation, Dr Efe Anaughe, who is also the Convener of Women Active in Politics, a specialized platform for training, supporting and promoting women seeking elective positions at the federal, state and local government levels.
Looking at the strides made by women pre-and–post Independence and in recent times, Anaughe said: “Historically, women played prominent roles in Nigerian societies, but colonialism and patriarchal structures eroded their influence. Today, women are breaking barriers and shattering glass ceilings. In politics, women like Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti and Margaret Ekpo paved the way. Women like Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala continue to make waves.”
However, women still encounter discriminatory practices hindering their participation in governance, lack access to resources and support needed to succeed in leadership roles, they contend with hostile political environment that discourages participation and perpetuates male dominance. Anaughe posited that the recent controversy surrounding Senator Natasha Akpoti’s experience in the Nigerian Senate highlighted the challenges women in politics face. The incident sparked outrage and reignited conversations about sexism, misogyny, and gender equality in Nigerian politics.
“To address the gap in women’s representation, Warien Rose Foundation advocates for greater inclusion. We do this through a focus group, Women Active in Politics.”
On her part, Director General of Benue State Peace and Reconciliation Commission, Mrs Joseph Habba, took a philosophical look at the situation of women in the governance space, saying: “We can decide to do measurement but whether they are appropriate or not is another question because when you have a tree that is 30 years old and you plant another one that has a sporadic growth and they become the same height, it doesn’t mean that they are age mates. So we cannot measure the result of the older tree with the new one. So for me it’s a work in progress.
“Yes we have cried out about affirmation we are not there but it doesn’t mean there isn’t some work done. Work has been done and that is why we have women in places that we hardly had in the past in this administration. But that does not go without saying that it should have started from the roots because there are reasons, root causes that give unhealthiness to a tree.
“So if you ask me, if we started this from the campaign and we were able to give women the spaces that they needed to have, now we would be talking about this issue from the legislation, from appointment, to ranks in different offices but because from the roots we have not cured it, it’s not so healthy out there. It may look good but whether it is sustainable or not is another issue.
“A voice within the forest cannot be heard and this is what is going on even with example of the legislators that we have. It’s good to say that some work is done, I’m not in denial of that, women are becoming visible but the most visible places we wanted to be is at the decision making table, at the principal decision making table, which is the root. Nigeria is in three folds, the Executive the Legislature and the Judiciary and measuring by this, women are not anywhere near it yet.”
When reminded that several major Nigerian banks have female CEOs just like several public and private universities in the country have female VCs and two women have been the Head of Service of the Federation, back to back, in addition to past and present female ministers and legislators, thereby making the claim that women are not being empowered, Habba threw a bombshell as she fired back: “Why are we not being appointed as Chief of Defence Staff, Chief of Army Staff, Chief of Naval Staff, Chief of Air Staff and Inspector General of Police? Are there no qualified women in those services to be appointed to those positions?
“That is the root thing I’m talking about. I appreciate we are going somewhere. It’s not hearsay that women are being empowered and women have arrived at certain positions but it’s a struggle and this struggle has to be sustained. It is not just that the benefits are sustained, or the argument is sustained but the struggle has to be sustained. My argument is that we are not at the root level yet because if the struggle loses its weight now, these people at the branch level and at the fruit level will not survive. These are people that are given appointment and when anybody comes he can weed them off and you can’t do anything about it but it is not easy to uproot a legislator, it is also not so easy to remove certain chief executives.”
Ask a woman like Dr. Christabel Chineme Ifuwe, who deals with figures every day in her professional calling as a surveyor, environmental quality management specialist and a lecturer at Dennis Osadebay University, Asaba, where she is helping to shape the next generation of surveyors through courses in Surveying and Geoinformatics, to share her thoughts on the situation of women in the governance space, she would respond with statistics.
“Women in Nigeria face numerous hindrances, obstacles, and hurdles in both political and corporate governance spaces, which are contrary to the objectives of the UN regarding gender equity. These hindrances directly oppose the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 5, which aims to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. The UN emphasizes women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic, and public life. The underrepresentation of women in Nigerian political and corporate spaces means that policies and decisions may not adequately reflect the needs and perspectives of the entire population.
“The stark underrepresentation of women in corporate and governmental leadership roles is a recurring and recurrent theme. There are still relatively few people in high-level corporate positions, ministerial posts, and legislative organizations. Across all levels of government, women are underrepresented in the National Assembly and other political positions, with an average of roughly six percent.
“Nigerian women make up fewer than 10 percent of the political ranks, which is much less than the 35 percent affirmative action goal set forth in the National Gender Policy. Persistent institutional and societal resistance is seen in the rejection of attempts to modify the constitution to encourage women’s involvement.
“Due to ingrained cultural norms and discriminatory practices, women continue to confront major obstacles to leadership and entrepreneurship, despite the launch of several attempts to eliminate gender inequalities in the private sector.
“Patriarchal social institutions, legal injustices, economic inequality, and a lack of political will to enact gender equity policies all contribute to women’s frequent exclusion from decision-making processes.”
Way forward
Anaughe, Habba and Ifuwe and hundreds of other women all agree that the key to attainment of UN’s SDG Goals 5 for gender equity, empowerment would entail taking necessary steps, intentionally.
“To achieve true gender equality, it’s essential encourage policies that promote gender equality and challenge discriminatory practices, offer women support and resources to navigate Nigerian politics, confront and challenge sexist and misogynistic attitudes undermining women’s authority, said Anaughe.
Ifuwe adds that that there should be effective policy Implementation. “Although there are frameworks such as the National Gender Policy, enforcement mechanisms are inadequate, and accountability for achieving gender equity goals is lacking. Again, there should be legal reforms because women’s leadership and participation prospects are restricted by discriminatory laws and practices that still exist, such as the uneven citizenship rights granted to men and women. It is challenging to eliminate gender stereotypes because ingrained cultural norms that regard women as inferior still oppose change.”
Habba advised that leaders of women’s group to learn from men and begin to build structures in very focused ways with an eye set on the medium to long term, not the reactive, immediate or short term steps,
“We as Nigerians are too reactive because for all I care, we shouldn’t come to an international women’s day theme, we should start implementing from the last international women’s day theme to be able to measure our work in the next international women’s day.
“In the next 2 years we’ll be talking about election, what have we done as women, what constituency buildings are we doing as women, the very minute few that are in those places, what are we doing to see more women come into these spaces.
“The ordinary woman in the market who wants to context election of her line, what capacity have we helped to build in the life of that woman or in the process that she is trying to get in. So, if we talk about UN, it’s too far. I want to start from my village, that community meeting, that church meeting, that women group women, that Miyetti Allah women election, when you get her leadership does she know what it means?”