"Reaching the quota for women in government would have been a legacy for Tinubu"

Last Monday, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu inaugurated 45 ministers in his cabinet and in the Federal Executive Council (FEC). But gender and women's equality advocates continued to express disappointment with the composition of the cabinet, pointing out that, again, it fell short of the 35% women's inclusion claim. in governance.

This is all the more true as President Bola Tinubu declared during his election campaign, in his manifesto "Renewed Hope 2023: Action Plan for a Better Nigeria", that he would push for legislation to increase women's participation in government to at least 35% of all government positions.

According to the president, the legislation should mandate the federal executive branch, particularly the cabinet and key senior advisers, to reserve a minimum number of leadership positions for women.

After Tinubu's accession to the presidency, the former national leader of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) party, Betta Edu, also expressed her belief that women would get 35% of the positions in Tinubu's government .

However, with his cabinet now in place, President Tinubu clearly failed to live up to his manifesto proposal regarding the FEC. The founding director of the Women's Advocates Research and Documentation Center (WARDC), Dr. Abiola Akiyode-Afolabi, reacting to this development, described it as unfortunate given that not only women but the majority of the population s expected the president to do something different by increasing the number of women in the cabinet. "That's because he had a track record in Lagos where we had the highest number of women in the judiciary, but what we're seeing now is more or less a list of political compensation where it looks like all the politicians took over the list and had their own list of people on it." The patriarchy took over the whole list. A lot of times when the patriarchy is active, women are left out and that's what we've seen. We We're surprised, because when the initial list came up, there were powerful women who had held different positions in the past, so I don't think it's a matter of

“Where are the women? – whether the government considers it a priority to include women in governance. This is becoming a trend, the Presidential Tax and Fiscal Policy Committee also had this biased figure. I think there were about 40, and only seven were women. Akiyode-Afolabi noted that Nigeria signed the National Gender Policy in 2022 and committed to affirmative action. “We went to court and the court gave a favorable judgment and said Nigeria was bound by it. It would be irresponsible for the government not to do what is expected, especially because the government is also leading ECOWAS. This represents a great influence that the government could have on the whole region.

"I don't know what people choose to consider as a legacy, but it could have been a very strong legacy from Tinubu as President and also as the leader of ECOWAS because if Nigeria would lead by example in an area like gender equality in leadership, I'm sure it would have led to change in other countries. “Obasanjo’s regime had a better record with about 32 percent of female appointments to power, followed by President Goodluck Jonathan and then Buhari’s regime. And the current president has gone further in his campaign for gender equality during his tenure. It's a question of credibility. You don't say what you can't do. It's a dent in the president's name. “Even the day they were called, all the senators were very excited that they had a good number of women. It is as if we were not ready to solve the problem of inequality, because if we had, we would have taken the necessary measures. And I say that the strength of the nine women only is not comparable to that of the named men and I must be wrong, the government must be gender sensitive. For Mufuliat Fijabi, Managing Director of the Nigerian Women Trust Fund (NWTF), the appointment of only nine women ministers is not enough and falls far short of international best practices and standards as the Nigerian government is signatory to a number of documents. , conventions and declarations such as the Beijing Platform for Action, as well as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. “In addition to that, we also have the Optional Protocol to the African Charter on Women’s Human Rights, which is an African regional protocol that talks about minimum representation of women. More importantly, in Nigeria, we have a National Gender Equality Policy which sets a limit of 35 percent affirmative action in appointed positions. On April 6, 2022, a Federal High Court in Abuja mandated the government of Nigeria to ensure a minimum of 35 percent affirmative action as...