The factors responsible for women’s abysmal performance in the political domain are rooted in and sustained by a deeply patriarchal system that considers women’s leadership a taboo.
In the Nigerian context, is the personal political because women have taken the time to study the manifestos of the candidates running for various offices to determine if their vision is transformative towards women and promotes gender equality or is the personal political because their husbands and partners have said so?
Advocacy around increasing women’s participation in politics in Nigeria is popular and quite widely accepted. I mean, women’s representation in political leadership is a right enshrined in key international and regional human rights frameworks like the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, both of which Nigeria has signed and ratified.
Granted that the most important matrix for women’s substantive participation in politics is enfranchisement, it is important to note that women have always been important players and contributors to nation building-politics, being a component of this broad domain. Women in Nigeria began to get enfranchisement in 1954 with the Universal Suffrage provision of the Lyttleton Constitution. When I put it this way, it connotes that suffrage was a progressively realised right among Nigerian women because the dynamics of regional politics heavily influenced its actualisation. Women in the East were the first to be enfranchised in 1954, followed by women taxpayers in the West in 1955. Down South, women got enfranchised in 1959, while in the North, women gained the right to vote at a much later time of 1979.
Of course, the timeline for women’s enfranchisement reveal that the political, social and cultural mechanisms in each region were characterised by certain peculiarities, which limited women’s voting realities. It is also true that cultural ideals and expectations are the foundations upon which women’s social behaviour rest.
In the Eastern and Western polities for example, it was not unusual for women to participate in public life, especially through organising and unions. In addition, the status of the Obi (male monarch) was equivalent to that of the Omu (female monarch) in Eastern Nigeria. Likewise in the West, women held significant positions within the society as Iyalode(s), Queen Mother, village chiefs and chief priestesses; and in more religious or metaphysical dimensions, as gods, deities and spirits.
The case in the North was very different and this greatly impacted women’s participation in public life. Women’s mobility was revoked during the Sokoto Jihad of 1804 to 1812 and their social and political activities were extremely curtailed. Even though some women like the Queen Amina of Zazau in the pre-colonial period and Hajia Gambo Sawaba of the colonial and post-colonial times stood out as great examples of leaders, women in the North remained largely marginalised in politics and public life. In 1979, the efforts of women like Hajia Sawaba paid off in the eventual enfranchisement of Northern women.
I acknowledge that women have made improved efforts at realising their political capabilities by contesting for office and this signifies that women have some measure of agency in political and public life. I am however inclined to introduce another dimension of women’s agency that might be significantly responsible for the low output of women’s efforts in electoral politics.
Certainly the enfranchisement of Nigerian women is a very important matrix for evaluating their political rights, so is women’s representation in political office as elected and appointed officials. Women’s efforts in electoral politics in Nigeria have garnered increased momentum over the years. A significant number of women have run for positions at the different levels of political governance and, as at today, the total number of women contesting in the 2023 elections stand at 1,524, out of a total of 15,336 candidates – precisely 9.9%. One woman among 18 candidates contested for the office of the president and one woman is in the race for a gubernatorial seat; noting that there is yet to be a female governor in the federation. It goes without saying that the representation of women in politics leave much more to be desired.
The factors responsible for women’s abysmal performance in the political domain are rooted in and sustained by a deeply patriarchal system that considers women’s leadership a taboo. Women are confronted with financial barriers, threats of physical harm and a very strong ideological resistance towards their visibility and leadership in the public space. Ironically, women’s visibility is not resisted when it comes to their performative contributions in terms of singing and dancing to support male candidates. Women continue to be used as tools for men’s political ambitions and, at best, as appendages to men’s leadership as vices or deputies.
I acknowledge that women have made improved efforts at realising their political capabilities by contesting for office and this signifies that women have some measure of agency in political and public life. I am however inclined to introduce another dimension of women’s agency that might be significantly responsible for the low output of women’s efforts in electoral politics. This dimension of agency, though very complex, is instrumental to dismantling misogynistic structures and ideals ingrained in and internalised by women themselves.
A few weeks ago, Iyabo Ojo, a well-known Nigerian actor, made her choice of presidential candidate public on social media and this generated mixed reactions. In one of the reactions, it was insinuated that her choice was influenced by her romantic relationship along supposedly ethnic lines and that had she not made the choice, she would be chased out of her partner’s house. She responded by stating that she is rich and comfortable, such that her support for any political party cannot be determined by anyone, including her partner.
This exchange and especially the expectation that Iyabo should support who her partner chooses to support made me question the real status of women’s agency in political decision making. Do women really have the agency of choice, even if they have the agency to vote or are they still tools in the hands of partners and husbands? Iyabo was apparently to exercise her agency of choice because she is rich and comfortable. What about women who are not rich and have no means? Can they make their choice and stand by it without retribution, especially in their personal relationships?
I do not think that the choice of who to vote for is detached from an individual’s values and ideals. I also do not particularly believe that because two people are partners, they will always have the same values in all circumstances. If it comes to it that values are not aligned in this context, does the burden rest on the woman to abandon hers because she considers the man the ‘head’ or will both their values co-exist…
The agency of choice is so critical to women’s lives because it determines whether or not candidates who represent the interests of women are elected into office. What further makes the agency of choice so complex is the expectation for women to be obedient and submissive, especially in the context of matrimony in the Nigerian society. Would it be an act of rebellion if women declared support for different candidates than their partners and husbands?
When Carol Hanisch declared in 1969 that ‘the personal is political’, it was a call for political mechanisms and agents to give priority to the conditions in which women lived that deprived them of opportunities to pursue other interests that were different from those they had been stereotyped into as mothers, wives and home makers. In the Nigerian context, is the personal political because women have taken the time to study the manifestos of the candidates running for various offices to determine if their vision is transformative towards women and promotes gender equality or is the personal political because their husbands and partners have said so?
This question is not to belittle the mental and emotional intelligence of women in any way, instead it is to question if the infusion of religious, cultural and social norms of obedience, submission and strict acquiescence to the dictates of men has filtered into the decisions that women make at the polls. Is a woman’s vocal admission of her preference for a candidate respected or met with resistance in informal discussions and debates around elections? Do women have the resolve to cast their votes for their preferred candidates – an exercise performed with utmost confidentiality without the conditioning of obedience and submission interfering?
I do not think that the choice of who to vote for is detached from an individual’s values and ideals. I also do not particularly believe that because two people are partners, they will always have the same values in all circumstances. If it comes to it that values are not aligned in this context, does the burden rest on the woman to abandon hers because she considers the man the ‘head’ or will both their values co-exist as an indication of the woman’s absolute agency to make this critical choice as an agentic entity?
This makes me question the position of women’s values. Do women continue subscribe to retrogressive notions about women in politics and leadership? Think about it; the mere thought that a woman is capable of leading as president is itself a strong position against sexist politics, misogyny and the marginalisation of women. Going by my logic, we ought to have more women in political leadership if women basically subscribed to the idea that they should be substantially represented in nation building and governance. Women can exclusively ensure that the 35% quota is attained and surpassed if women vote for female candidates. What exactly has stopped women from doing this? Do they not want to be chased out of their homes, as in the case of the fate that could have befallen Iyabo Ojo? Do women equate their divergent positions to rebellion against the God ordained authority over them in the person of their husbands or men in general? Is the personal political because their partners say so? Do women have the agency of choice, even given the orientation they have been raised with – one whereby women must follow while men lead? These are questions worth answering at this crucial season of Nigeria’s elections.
Oluwatoyin C. Olajide is a gender and development scholar and practitioner.