Scheming, Intrigues And Financial Constraints, Still Hinder Women in Politics

The efforts of GADA and other women’s rights organisations to position women into governance in Nigeria are still being challenged by various opposing factors.  The Director Gender and Development Action (GADA) Ms. Ada Agina-Ude noted this while speaking at the media roundtable organised to review the role of the media in  the GADA/EU project  titled, Supporting Women’s Entry Into Politics Towards The 2007 Elections And Promoting Gender Equitable Governance In The South West States of Nigeria”. The event which took place at Women Development Centre Ogba, Agege Lagos was also a forum to give an account of how women faired in the last general elections in Nigeria especially in the south West zone.
According to the Director, though the 2007 general elections witnessed a large number of women aspirants for elective positions they could not get to their final destinations due to the scheming, intrigues and financial constraints that characterise the political terrain.
While welcoming the media practitioners to the event Ms. Agina -Ude thanked the media practitioners for giving media exposure to the women and making them more politically savvy.
Ms. Agina-Ude gave a run down of the various activities that were carried out on the project as properly put together in order to complement each other. She said though some of the women had financial problems, it however did not affect the success of the project. She mentioned the different segments of the project which were: strategy and review meeting with partner organisations, production and broadcast of jingles, sensitization and constituency building, media roundtable, media campaign, reflection/route map development workshop, retreat for all female aspirants in Ogun state, advocacy visits to INEC and political parties’ offices in the South West, gender awareness training, gender audit, Project 300 Women Newsletter, review meeting with partner organisations and Feminist   Transformative Leadership Training Workshops.
Explaining that the programmes were designed to give technical support, it also built the capacity of the women and created better chances for them to win the positions for which they contested.
In his own address GADA Programme Coordinator Mr. Okeke Anya said the women were schemed out in their efforts to clinch the parties’ tickets through intrigues and unwritten parties’ constitutions. He noted that even though the record of women’s success was still low, it was an improvement on their performance in 2003. Anya revealed that in the South West of Nigeria there was an increase of 33.5%. Although no woman was able to get a governorship position, three women were elected as deputy governors, one as a senator, eight as members of the House of Representatives, nine at the state Houses of Assembly, while already there were 35 women  councilors  though Lagos and Ekiti were yet to conduct their Local Government elections.
 The media roundtable featured a key discussion by two female politicians namely Mrs. Bimbo Lanre-Balogun a former candidate of Action Congress for House of Assembly in Ogun State, and Mrs. Kofo Martins an aspirant to Kosofe Local Government Chair on the platform of Action Congress in Lagos State. The theme of the discussion was Promoting Free, Fair, Non-Violent Elections and Gender Equitable Governance through Positive Reporting.
The two discussants reiterated the responsibility of the media to promote women’s political participation in Nigeria; they urged that just as the media have assisted the male politicians to gain popularity they should do the same for women.
Mrs. Lanre-Balogun said the media should strive to promote gender-equitable governance and elections that will be globally adjudged as free and fair. Media must recognize the enormity of their assignment and handle it with dexterity and seriousness of purpose.
On her part, Mrs. Kofo Martins affirmed that cultural inhibitions have contributed immensely to the non participation of women in politics. She stated that society had earmarked roles for women and men thus put women in disadvantage position, “a woman’s voting rights are often times subject to external constraints and domination. Many at times she is intimidated by her spouse to vote for particular candidates or parties”.
She explained that politics in Nigeria and generally Africa is still in primitive state because emphasis is still being placed on individual connections and affiliations at the expense of ability and qualification. She called on the press as the fourth estate of the realm to be at the forefront of the vanguard of pushing for reforms both legislative and constitutional that will give credence to women’s participation in politics.

The media practitioners at the event however acknowledged the efforts of GADA and EU to encourage women’s participation in politics through Project 300 Women, and asked that more women be encouraged to engage in politics. Advising GADA to reach out to professionals and religious bodies so as to get credible women to participate in politics, they also appealed to EU not to wait till 2011 before assisting women again. They advised that a project of this magnitude should be continuous in order to achieve the desired objectives.
GADA was also advised to pay thank you visits to all the media houses that assisted in the media campaign in order to foster continued relationship before the next election.
Present at the occasion were about twenty-two media practitioners as well as Ms. Mary George and Ms Funmi Hassan who were representatives of project partners- WARDC and JDPC.