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From Adetutu Folasade-Koyi, Abuja
Barely 30 days to go before a decisive vote at the National Assembly, advocates of the Reserved Seats for Women Bill have warned that failure to pass the legislation by February could shut Nigerian women out of meaningful political representation until at least 2031.
This stark warning formed the centrepiece of a high-level briefing with editors and bureau chiefs of major media organisations, convened yesterday in Abuja by TOS Foundation Africa, as the Bill enters the critical third-reading stage in the National Assembly.
The session brought together Editors-in-Chief, senior editors and media executives in what organisers described as a “now-or-never” moment for a constitutional amendment that seeks to correct Nigeria’s severe gender imbalance in legislative representation.
Convener of the campaign and CEO of TOS Group, Chief Osasu Igbinedion-Ogwuche, told journalists that Nigeria currently ranks last in Africa – 54th out of 54 countries – in women’s political representation, despite women constituting nearly half of the population.
“Women make up 50 percent of Nigeria’s population, yet they occupy just four per cent of seats in parliament,” she said. “Out of 360 members of the House of Representatives, only 16 are women. In the Senate, just four out of 109. Across the 36 State Houses of Assembly, only 51 out of 993 lawmakers are women, and in over 16 states, there is not a single woman legislator.”
The proposed Bill seeks to create 74 additional seats in the National Assembly and 108 reserved seats across the 36 State Houses of Assembly, specifically for women, through a competitive electoral process rather than appointments.
“This is not tokenism. These are elective positions,” Igbinedion-Ogwuche stressed. “Political parties will field candidates, women will compete among themselves, and the most competent will emerge. What we are doing is creating room in a system that has historically shut women out through violence, culture, religion and structural barriers.”
She argued that Nigeria cannot continue to legislate on issues such as maternal mortality, child nutrition and women’s welfare without women at the decision-making table. “You cannot legislate for people without them being present,” she said.
The briefing also served to clarify widespread misconceptions around the Bill, which has suffered defeats in previous assemblies under different guises. The Gender and Equal Opportunities Bill failed in both the 8th and 9th Assemblies, largely due to resistance framed around religion and culture.
According to Igbinedion-Ogwuche, lessons from those failures informed a far more expansive consultation strategy this time. She disclosed that the Bill now enjoys public endorsement from President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the First Lady, over 50 senators, the Senate President, the Speaker and Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, as well as formal backing from the Governors’ Spouses Forum.
“We were told before that we didn’t consult enough. This time, nobody can make that claim,” she said.
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Advocacy Lead at TOS Group, Barrister Andikan, framed the Bill as a “democratic correction” rather than a gender empowerment programme, noting that some State Assemblies currently have no female lawmakers at all.
“This is about fixing a structural democratic deficit,” she said, pointing to global evidence showing that quota systems accelerate reforms and improve outcomes in health, education and collaborative policymaking.
She added that the media’s framing of the Bill would be crucial in shaping public understanding, urging journalists to present it as an issue of justice, governance and national development, not competition between genders.
During an interactive session, editors raised concerns about political party resistance, grassroots sensitisation, cultural dynamics and the timing of a constitutional amendment so close to elections. In response, Igbinedion-Ogwuche revealed extensive faith-based engagements, including high-profile endorsements from Islamic clerics and the Sultan of Sokoto, whose public support has been widely broadcast to counter religious objections.
She also disclosed that caucus meetings had been held across all six geopolitical zones and that constituency-level mobilisation was underway to ensure lawmakers feel direct pressure from voters.
“Lawmakers have the votes. Our job is to make sure their constituents are watching,” she said.
To that end, TOS Foundation Africa has launched the “469Tracker,” a digital tool that monitors the public and private positions of all 469 federal lawmakers on the Bill, enabling real-time accountability.
The urgency, organisers stressed, cannot be overstated. If the Bill fails to scale through by February, it cannot be operationalised for the 2027 elections, effectively sidelining women for another electoral cycle.
“That would mean keeping 50 per cent of Nigeria’s population on the sidelines for four more years,” Igbinedion-Ogwuche warned.
Participants agreed that while alternative pathways—such as executive sponsorship—remain an option, the current legislative route has made unprecedented progress and must be pushed to completion.
The message from the briefing was unequivocal: the next 30 days could determine whether Nigeria’s democracy finally opens its doors to women or keeps them locked out until the next decade.
