Four years after a group of female parliamentarians visited President Muhammadu Buhari in 2018 with a request that he should consider choosing a female vice-presidential candidate ahead of the 2019 presidential election, another group of women in the All Progressives Congress (APC) rose on Wednesday last week to request that the position of Vice-President to Bola Ahmed Tinubu, presidential candidate of the party, should be reserved for a woman.
The idea that women should beg for a position they are qualified and entitled to contest says a lot about the position of women in Nigerian politics. Have women been squeezed out of prestigious positions in various political parties? Have they underestimated their own ability to take on leadership positions? Do women lack the energy and astuteness to duel with men for competitive political posts?
Why should women ask for a second-rate position when they are constitutionally qualified to aspire to the highest office in the country? Is begging, petitioning, or pleading, as demonstrated by some women, an acknowledgement of their inferiority complex, an admission that they lack the character, charisma, qualities, qualifications, experience, management skills and expertise in leadership to contest with men on a level playing field?
Do women have a future in Nigerian politics? I ask these questions because, contrary to the situation in other environments and cultural contexts where women are empowered because they are regarded as drivers of social and economic progress, Nigerian women seem to adopt a laid-back attitude that suggests they are willing to pick up the crumbs that fall off the dinner tables of political party leaders.
Do Nigerian women accept public perceptions that position them as second-class citizens, never able to hold the same political offices that men have held for years? Paradoxically, although men have dominated high political offices since independence in 1960, their performance scorecard has been less than impressive and certainly below expectations. Is it time to try women in top leadership positions?
Leader of the female legislators who took their request to Buhari in 2018, Elizabeth Ative, argued that: “All over the world, the issue of twinning is being advocated. Currently, many African and European nations are daily finding ways to include more women in governance. Some have elected or appointed women as Heads of State, Prime Ministers, heads of foreign ministries and other key positions of decision-making. It will not be out of place, Your Excellency, for women to be given such opportunities in our dear nation. Even God created them male and female.”
Similarly, Hajiya Zainab Ibrahim, leader of the women who agitated at the APC headquarters for selection of a woman as a vice-presidential candidate to Tinubu, said: “We have the competence to occupy the vice-presidential seat and we have officially made request to the relevant quarters to that effect and only waiting for the response. We requested top-to-bottom arrangements in the allocation of ticket for elective positions for the Nigerian women. We should be considered for the deputy governorship seat, National Assembly and even the vice-presidential ticket.”
While it is true that women are disadvantaged in many ways in our society and while we need inclusive laws to fix prejudicial and inequitable practices to which women have been subjected, it is profoundly unsound to argue that other countries have “appointed women as Heads of State, Prime Ministers”, and so on. To the best of my knowledge, none of the developed countries or even some developing countries that have elected women as Prime Minister reserved that position specifically for women. The women contested elections or were selected in their party rooms to become Prime Minister.
Consider Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s Prime Minister since 2017, or Estonia’s Prime Minister Kaja Kallas who has been in office since January 26, 2021, or even Barbados’ Prime Minister Mia Mottley who has held the position since May 25, 2018. Also, Finland’s Prime Minister Sanna Marin has been in office since December 10, 2019. Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has been in power since June 27, 2019. Also, consider the Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina Wazed, who has been in office since 2009.
Instead of Nigerian women legislators pleading to Buhari in 2018 and the APC women pleading to the party leaders in 2022 to reserve the vice-presidential position for women ahead of the 2023 presidential election, they should take up the challenge to empower themselves. They must learn to break through those socio-political, economic, cultural, structural and financial barriers that have held them back for decades.
Aside from countries highlighted in a previous paragraph, there are other countries in which women served or are still serving in top leadership positions. The countries include Britain (Margaret Thatcher), Brazil (Dilma Rousseff), India (Indira Gandhi), Pakistan (Benazir Bhutto), Israel (Golda Meir), South Korea (Park Geun-hye), Sri Lanka (Sirimavo Bandaranaike), Germany (Angela Merkel), Norway (Gro Harlem Brundtland), Ireland (Mary MacAleese), the Philippines (Gloria Arroyo) and Argentina (Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner). These do not represent all women political leaders the world has produced but they do teach Nigeria a lesson about the need to recognise and appreciate women and their contributions to national development.
It is important to concede, however, that a few women have made noteworthy contributions to socio-political life in Nigeria. Of course, a few does not represent a majority. There is certainly a mix of factors that prevent Nigerian women from rising to the highest political office. As we have seen over the years and decades, every time some women try to participate in party politics at a senior level, they are shot down with invectives by men consumed by bigotry and narrow-mindedness.
The impediments that women face in Nigeria range from constricting traditional practices and beliefs, financial, economic and religious factors and social values that scuttle their dream political objectives. These factors influence public perceptions of women as second-rate citizens fit only for performing domestic chores. Many men, including, unfortunately, Buhari, still believe that a woman’s place is in the kitchen or in the “other room,” as he told former German Chancellor Angela Merkel during a visit to that country.
Specifically, it is not gender that is holding back many women from aspiring to high political offices in Nigeria. Some women lack interest in politics because they are docile, stigmatised or lack the financial strength to match men in the contest for political office. This implies that, right from birth, Nigerian women start from a position of disadvantage.
The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has announced its vice-presidential running mate. The position was assigned to a man, Delta State Governor Ifeanyichukwu Okowa. The APC has also flagged Kabiru Ibrahim Masari as its choice of vice-presidential running mate to presidential candidate Tinubu. Again, the position was given to a man.
If Nigeria must learn any lesson, it must look at Liberia, a country that emerged from years of violent civil war that claimed thousands of lives. But, despite the deaths and disasters, the citizens decided, soon after the war, to retrieve their country’s fate from murderous warlords. Elections were held in Liberia in 2005 and a woman, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, was crowned President. Liberia became the first African country to elect a woman as President. This occurred against the prevalent view that African women are not created to be leaders. Unfortunately, that idea still prevails in Nigeria.
Against this background, it is patronising for anyone to plead for the reservation of the Vice-President’s post for a woman.