This year’s election in Nigeria saw some important gains in women’s political participation. President Goodluck Jonathon appointed 33% of cabinet positions to women (up from 10% in the last government), including the ministerial portfolios of finance and education. This is in keeping with Nigeria’s commitments to gender equality, encapsulated in the National Gender Policy, which sets the benchmark for women’s seats in Parliament at 35% - 5% higher than the international standard.
Yet this achievement is precisely so remarkable because of the ongoing challenges women in Nigeria face in becoming politically active from the bottom-up through elections. As the Summit of All Women Politicians in Nigeria have declared: ‘women of Nigeria have noticed with utter dismay the almost complete deterioration of our political and social values, born out of more than three decades of continued male-dominated and-oriented misrule, and have concluded that enough is enough; the time for positive change has arrived.’
Read more on Open Democracy, published 19. December
This year’s election in Nigeria saw some important gains in women’s political participation. President Goodluck Jonathon appointed 33% of cabinet positions to women (up from 10% in the last government), including the ministerial portfolios of finance and education. This is in keeping with Nigeria’s commitments to gender equality, encapsulated in the National Gender Policy, which sets the benchmark for women’s seats in Parliament at 35% - 5% higher than the international standard.
Yet this achievement is precisely so remarkable because of the ongoing challenges women in Nigeria face in becoming politically active from the bottom-up through elections. As the Summit of All Women Politicians in Nigeria have declared: ‘women of Nigeria have noticed with utter dismay the almost complete deterioration of our political and social values, born out of more than three decades of continued male-dominated and-oriented misrule, and have concluded that enough is enough; the time for positive change has arrived.’
Read more on Open Democracy, published 19. December