National Wire About Nigerians, Nigerian Business and Other Stories
…say it’s significant step towards achieving SDG
Oluchi Eze
As part of commitment in addressing the formal barriers(such as finance, media, lack of support) and informal barriers(such as culture, tradition and religion), hindering Nigerian women’s participation in politics and taking up political leadership positions, ARDA Development Communication, held a workshop to equip media professionals and organizations with technical knowledge and skills to enhance women’s representation in political leadership.
The two-day workshop on adequate reporting under the Advance: Women Political Participation in Nigeria (AWPP) Project funded by the Canadian Government through the United Nations Women, brought several journalists and social media influencers to learn and unlearn, as a group attended the first day and another the second day.
The workshop emphasised that women’s representation in political leadership and governance matters and is a significant step towards achieving Sustainable Development Goal 5 (target 5.5)
At the training, ARDA highlighted the non impressive and worrisome statistics that Nigeria ranks 146th out of 146 countries in political empowerment according to Global Gender Gap Report 2023 and that Nigeria ranks lowest among West African countries in parliamentary representation, which is below African Union target of 30 per cent female representation.
Also that in the National Assembly 2023, 7.3 per cent made up the women, as only eighth out of 109 senators are women and only 17 women out of the 360 members.
While at the sub-National level(Governorship), there is no elected female governor in Nigeria’s history, only four female deputy governors as of 2023 and only one female, Virginia Etiaba was recorded as governor(two months acting capacity).
Stark representation of women in politics, facts don’t lie, women need speak up
Speaking with National Wire, one of the facilitators Jesudunsin Olusanya stated:”Data does not lie, you know. That is the fact. That is the evidence, you know. Even looking at the House of Assembly now, we have only 17 out of 360 House of Assembly members, and even the Senate, only three women. The facts do not lie.You know, that’s the stark reality of women’s representation in Nigeria.”
On the allegation that women are not doing much to help themselves, she stated:”I will not say women are not doing much, it’s a systemic If the system is crude against you, what can you possibly do?But that is not to say that women are not coming out, and women should not do.
“That is why we are having this training.Women need to come out.Women need to speak for themselves. Women need to be more represented and that is why the media has been invited to encourage women to come out, participate in politics and leadership in Nigeria.”
Making politics in Nigeria affordable, more women in political leadership should not be seen as competition but collaboration with men towards nation building
Also speaking with National Wire, Media and Communication Development Professional,Adebisi Adetunji, supported the advocacy for making politics affordable in the country so as to make more room for women in taking up political leadership positions.
Stressing that it should not be seen as competition with men but collaboration towards nation building.
“Politics is so expensive and a lot of women are not able to afford this.We may want to consider what it takes to run for a position or an office. We should also importantly look at the fact that men and women are in partnership in nation building.
“We need the men, we need the women.We need the men’s participation, we need the women’s participation because women can bring their angle and perspective to things. Men can also bring their perspective to things which will further help build the system,” Adetunji stated.
Women taking on senior leadership roles, keeping staying power even after election is won
While addressing systemic issues in terms of the political parties, Adetunji said, “Oftentimes, you have women in the party. The roles that are left for them is deputy or chief whip or just the normal assumed roles that they think women should have. When you talk about welfare in any group, they say it’s women and then when it comes to the leadership, they say it is men.
“The political parties themselves should be open to more women taking on senior roles, not just the prototype kind of role. It should not be that when you start the campaign, you find a way of kicking out the women.The woman helps to drive the audience and after a while, after all the singing and dancing, the women go to the background and you have the men both the lead and the vice, as it were.
“Political parties should also be forward looking and forward thinking.I also want to say that women themselves should not just stop at the end of the campaign year. You just stop and go to sleep. Your opponents are not going to sleep.”
The next political campaign starts immediately after an election is won, she stressed .
Adding: “If you have tried, you should be resilient to sustain. If you are really serious about taking on political roles or leadership roles, you must have a staying power. If you did not win at this time, you go again and you start immediately, not at the end.
“Not when another election is just about six months. Women themselves should aspire to sustain the ambition to take on leadership roles. Then there should be support from.”
Women getting to the top and making room for more women, including the perception that women are controlling or bossy
“My advice will be first of all to women ourselves. If you are a woman and already sitting at the table or in the room, make room for other women to come in. Don’t just think, ‘oh! I’m now here, thank God I’ve arrived.’ Woman, if you find yourself in the room or at the table, make room to bring in other women,” the media and development professional stated.
She continued that the bias that women in leadership are bossy, she said the bias is already in the mind of everyone.
“If a man is leading, nobody is feeling he is trying to control. But when a woman is leading, maybe because of the mindset of men in general and the belief of society, you begin to feel that this woman wants to control.
“If you are giving somebody a leadership role, she has to perform.
She has to act in that capacity. You are not expecting that because she is a woman, she should not hold the people she is leading accountable and that she should not do what is necessary to make sure that the organisation or the nation as it were move forward.
“So she’s going to work by a set of rules, and that set of rules may not go well with not just men. It may not even go well with women like herself. Allow her to do her job and let nobody feel that she is controlling them.”
Specific message to the media
The media was encouraged to improve on reportage and storytelling about women in leadership.As journalists, social media influencers and media professionals were tasked on projecting the positive aspects of women in leadership.
Adetunji added:”We should not just tie a woman’s role to just, oh, she’s a wife. We should not just tie a woman’s ability to succeed to just, oh, she’s a wife and a mother.We should look at her capacity. If she has the capacity, if she’s skilled, she has what it takes to take on a role.
“Then we should project that and promote that.We should not have a way of reporting men in leadership and when it comes to women, it’s something else entirely.
“I also want to encourage the media as well.Part of what we have learned here is to use language that is inclusive, that does not say we are dragging anything. Language that is inclusive, that men and women are partners in progress.
“Our reporting should x-ray.
Tell the stories of these women. What are they doing well? Tell that story instead of just dwelling on what is not even important, what is probably not of public interest. That would be my advice.”
UN Women’s perspective
Meanwhile in her address, UN Women Program Specialist, Governance and Participation in Public Life, Chundung Ashley Dauda who noted that UN Women is the United Nations entity dedicated to the promotion of gender equality, said the Advance Womens Political Participation in Nigeria project was launched in 2022 with funding support from the government of Canada, with an overall goal of increasing the representation of Women in elective and appointive positions.
The programme has three strategic areas of intervention:support the adoption and implementation of legal reforms to increase Women political representation, strengthen women’s leadership capacity and agency and strengthen coordination among key stakeholders to create an enabling environment for women’s political participation.
The UN Women further noted that the media plays a critical role in shaping public perceptions and narratives and can support by creating positive visibility around women’s leadership, stating:”The media can assist in amplifying the communication regarding the proposed legislation on reserved seats for women in the National Assembly, which is part of the ongoing constitutional reform.”
