Nigeria

The Women's Right Advancement and Protection Alternative (WRAPA) in Nigeria is to work in conjunction with the Club of Madrid's Africa Women Leaders Project (AWLP) to harness resources and canvass for women's active participation in politics and decision making through increase in number and strengthening of their leadership skills.
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A non-governmental organisation, Gender and Development Action (GADA), has confirmed that the number of women's participation during the 2007 elections in the South West was higher than during the previous elections.
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After the presentation of Nigeria's Sixth Country Report to the United Nations Committee on the Status of Women in New York, the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs in collaboration with the International Republican Institute IRI, a United States private implementing partner organised a two day sensitisation workshop on the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).
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In a bid to create an enabling environment for implementation and achievement of the National Strategic Framework (NSF) objectives and targets on HIV/AIDS; experts have begun a review to promote a gender equality and human rights sensitive policy environment in the Nigerian HIV/AIDS National Response.
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As Nigeria tries again to begin its staggered general elections on April 9, spare a thought for the women who will be putting themselves forward as candidates in an overwhelmingly male field. There are 88 women standing for seats in Nigeria's Senate and 218 vying for a place in the House of Representatives. Five women will be on the ballot for governor in various states on Apr. 26 and many male gubernatorial aspirants have women as running mates.

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Wife of the Abia State governor, Mrs. Odochi Mercy Orji, has described the victory of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidates in the last National Assembly poll as a signal that women are now ready to take their rightful positions in the scheme of things. At the Government House, Umuahia, the governor's wife said statistics from voters' registration shows that women heeded the call of the wife of President Goodluck Jonathan to come out en masse, register and vote.

Interest groups on gender equity have called on the President-elect Goodluck Ebele Jonathan to ensure gender balance in the formation of the new government in keeping with his promise to give women 35 per cent of the appointments if re-elected. The President while campaigning in his bid for presidency promised to accommodate 35 per cent women representation in his cabinet if elected.

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From April 9-26, 2011, Nigeria held parliamentary, presidential and governorship elections. Unfortunately the Independent National Election Commission, the body that oversees the country’s public office elections, did not issue any data about the number of women registered to vote.

A senior official in the Ministry of Health and sanitation in Sierra leone Mr Saliu Deen, has contended that women empowerment remained a panacea for eradicating corruption. He said n Freetown that Sierra Leone was already practicing 30 per cent quota allocation to women in all leadership roles and in all sectors.

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