Women’s active participation in politics and the drive for gender equality in nigeria

Abstract

This paper examines the potentials for women to participate actively in Nigerian politics and its prospects for actualizing the drive towards achieving gender equality in Nigeria. It is observed that the active participation of women in the act of governance in Nigeria has the potentials to mitigate marginalization and obnoxious policies which constrain women’s role to kitchen or the other room. The study is hinged on the assumption that women naturally have passion for leadership and if given them opportunity to play more active role in governance in a multicultural society like Nigeria would no doubt, contribute significantly to the socio- economic and political development of the country. The paper operationalizes active participation of women in politics to include; free party nomination forms for elective positions, full implementation of women’s 35% affirmative action, including appointment as heads of electoral commissions and chairpersons of election tribunals. The paper underscored the fact that the few women who have been given opportunity to serve in various capacities for the purpose of achieving development in a democratic sitting in Nigeria, have exceeded expectation with their performances. The journey so far in women political strive in Nigeria was conceptualized. It therefore recommends that constitutional amendment should be deployed in order to reserve certain percentage of elective positions at both Federal, States and Local Governments for women contestants as a possible way of actualizing gender equality in Nigeria in line with one of the goals for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).