The move by the Senate to make the federal and state governments give 35 per cent of their ministerial and commissionership appointments to women is commendable. To achieve the laudable objective, Senator Rose Oko (PDP, Cross River State) has sponsored a bill, which seeks to alter the provisions of the 1999 Constitution to reserve 35 per cent of ministerial positions for women and for other purposes.
The proposal seeks to alter Section 147 of the 1999 Constitution by inserting after subsection (6) a new subsection “(7),” which reads: “notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (2) of this section, not less than 35 per cent of persons appointed as ministers shall be women.”
At present, almost all levels of government have fallen short of the 35 per cent affirmative action on female appointees. In the present federal cabinet, only six out of the 43-member council are females. The females in the Federal Executive Council constitute a paltry 16 per cent, contrary to the promise President Muhammadu Buhari reportedly made during the campaign for the 2019 general election.
For the envisaged affirmative action on women to have the desired effect, it must extend to elective positions and indeed all other areas of governance. All political parties should reflect it in their nomination of candidates for elective positions. We say this because our politics at present is mostly dominated by men. For instance, in the 9th National Assembly, nine out of the 109 senators are females, while only 27 of the 360 members of the House of Representatives are females. The scenario in the states may not be significantly different.
We lament the poor representation of women in political appointments and urge the federal and state governments to come up with pragmatic measures to close the gap. They should emulate other African countries that have even achieved gender equity in political appointments.
In 2003, the government of Rwanda approved a new constitution that included a quota system for women at all levels of government that stipulated that 30 per cent of all political appointments and representations in parliament should be given to women. We recall that after the 2003 elections in that country, the female representation in politics increased from 23 per cent to 49 per cent. It increased to an unprecedented 64 per cent in 2013.
Senegal is another African country that has done well in ensuring equitable gender representation in politics. It moved from 22.7 per cent in female representation in 2012 to 42.7 per cent at present. Botswana, Kenya and Ghana have done well in this area. Cuba has achieved 53 per cent female representation in their governance structures.
Apart from the current legislation to ensure gender equity in politics, another hurdle that should be surmounted is gender prejudice. Such gender prejudices can be cultural and religious. It will be recalled that even the United States, the acclaimed bastion of democracy, has not been able to overcome its prejudices against the female gender. That was apparently on bold display during the 2016 presidential election where Hillary Clinton of the Democratic lost surprisingly to the Republican Donald Trump. Clinton lost probably because the US was, according to some commentators, not yet ready to elect a female president.
Apart from constituting more than half of most country’s populations, women occupy strategic positions in most societies. Therefore, the rise and fall of most nations depend on the fate of their women. There is no doubt that most developed countries of the world are those that include more women in their development plans. Therefore, we urge the Senate to ensure that the relevant section of the constitution is amended to make way for the affirmative action on women appointees. We call on the president and the governors to also support the move to include more women in the nation’s development agenda. All stakeholders in the Nigerian project must work with the lawmakers to ensure that this goal is realised.