SISTERS IN PROGRESS
- of women and politics in Nigeria
- of women and politics in Nigeria
by Celestine
Chukwu
It is a hard fact that most Nigerian women of
vision balk at the challenge of engaging in politics and vying for elective
positions, but would rather devote their considerable energies to business and
corporate service. It is also a crying
shame, for since pre-colonial times, the input of women was always a vital factor
in governing the geopolitical environment now known as Nigeria. A female ruler like Zaria’s Queen Amina is famous
in antiquity for military leadership; Ile-Ife’s Moremi and Idia of Benin were
noted for displaying uncommon statecraft and political guile.
The colonial experience was a retrogressive phase
for women in politics and governance in Nigeria, as women played a much less
prominent role in Britain than in Nigeria at the time. Traditional Nigeria
society had developed a public role for women that was far in advance of their
British counterparts. Through
instituting male–only native authorities and customary laws (formulated by male
colonial officials in concert with indigenous male allies) that placed women at
a disadvantage in terms of inheritance, marriage and social rights, the
colonials effectively shut down what was until then a very progressive system
of female participation in the governance of traditional Nigerian
societies. The natural patriarchal
structures of these societies, now strengthened by the ‘female zero-tolerance’
mode of colonial authority, ensured that women thenceforth were perpetually on
the backburner. In addition, the shift
in emphasis to western education for social mobility meant that girls were
further disadvantaged, since families preferred to devote their, often meagre, resources to educating boys, who, unlike the girls, were guaranteed progress
within the colonial structure.
The
undeniably key role the modern Nigerian woman plays in ensuring the survival of
the Nigeria family, especially in the face of tough economic challenges, has
made her a particularly resourceful manager and decision-maker. This combined with the innate feminine
instinct for nurturing means our women are particularly responsive by default
to our needs as a society and polity, and therefore represent a resource, which
if deliberately harnessed could vitally boost the country’s political culture.
But
the obstacles to women flourishing in politics in a developing country like
Nigeria are myriad. Firstly, women are
averse to violence. Unfortunately,
wanton political violence and thuggery are major features of politics and
elections in Nigeria. This alone is
enough to make any right-thinking woman stay out of Nigerian politics. She only has to remember the chilling story
of Meimuna Joyce
Katai, Commissioner for Women Affairs in Nassarawa State, who was murdered in
cold blood by political thugs when she attempted to prevent them from seizing
ballot boxes at a polling unit during the House of Assembly elections in May
2003. Moreover, to succeed politically, a woman must canvass
funds; and there she will face some cultural resistance, as some sections of
the society, especially in Sharia-practicing Northern Nigeria, still find the
connotations of a married woman asking other men for money unsavoury.
The modern epoch of women in Nigerian politics can
be traced to the rise to prominence at the tail end of the colonial era of
women like Olufunmilayo Ransome-Kuti, Hajia Gambo Sawaba and Margaret
Ekpo. They became notable elements in
the emergent corps of political elite in early post-colonial Nigeria. The political profile of Funmilayo
Ransome-Kuti, one of the few women to be in the inner caucus of the
regional government of Western Nigeria, and mother of Afrobeat originator, Fela
Anikulapo-Kuti, reached near legendary status as a result of her role during
the succession palaver of the Alake of Egbaland in Southwest Nigeria during the
1960s.
The involvement of women in the politics of Nigeria
since independence in 1960 has of course been hampered by twenty-nine years of military
rule (or misrule - whichever way you may want to look at it!). The unstable
polity of intervening years of quasi-democracy did not help in encouraging
politically-minded women. With the
restoration of democratic governance in 1999, the irrepressible Nigerian woman
has again bopped up like a jack-in-a-box.
A few of them now relieve the scene at the gentlemen clubs of federal
and state legislatures and executives, but mere tokenism is still the status
quo. Florence Ita-Giwa and Daisy Danjuma
were the female stars of the senate chamber in the early years of return to
democratic rule, where they were outnumbered 25 to 1 by men, and in the Federal
House of Representatives, former TV journalist, Abike Dabiri held it down for
the women. Significantly though, they,
together with the sprinkling of other female federal and state legislators (and
appointees in the executive who are women), bear an extra burden, for due to the
exigencies of the feminine agenda in the suffocating environment from which
they emanate, they must not only represent their constituencies but also every
woman everywhere in Nigeria.
Ever since India’s Indira Gandhi became the world’s
first elected female ruler in 1966, there has been a slew of female presidents
and prime ministers on every continent except (until 2005) Africa; the
Philippines has had two female presidents since the 1980’s. With the election in November 2005 of
Liberia’s Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Africa finally has her first female
leader. Now, Nigeria, already renowned for being
always on the African cutting edge, cannot be too far behind, and you just get
the feeling that somewhere somehow, in some distinguished or obscure political
caucus, like a pearl patiently being crafted by the sea, there’s a Nigerian
female president-in-waiting!
