My Choice, My Right: What Form of Personal Life is Political for Nigerian Women?, By Oluwatoyin Christiana Olajide

Women in politics

In the Nigerian context, it is personal politics because women have taken the time to study the manifestos of candidates for various positions to determine whether their vision is transformative towards women and promotes gender equality or it's personal policy because their husbands and partners said so?

The advocacy around increasing women's political participation in Nigeria is popular and quite widely accepted. I mean, the representation of women in political leadership is a right enshrined in major international and regional human rights frameworks like the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Protocol to the African Charter on Human Rights. Rights of Women in Africa, both of which Nigeria has signed and ratified.

Since the most important matrix for women's substantial participation in politics is empowerment, it is important to note that women have always been important actors and contributors to nation-building politics , being a component of this vast field. Women in Nigeria began gaining the right to vote in 1954 with the universal suffrage provision of the Lyttleton Constitution. When I put it this way, it means that suffrage was a right gradually realized among Nigerian women because the dynamics of regional politics strongly influenced its actualization. Eastern women were the first to be enfranchised in 1954, followed by Western ratepayers in 1955. In the South, women were enfranchised in 1959, while in the North, women were granted the right vote much later in 1979. .

Of course, the timeline of women's emancipation reveals that the political, social, and cultural mechanisms of each region were characterized by certain particularities, which limited the realities of women's suffrage. It is also true that cultural ideals and expectations are the foundations on which women's social behavior is based.

In the political regimes of East and West, for example, it was not uncommon for women to participate in public life, particularly through organizing and trade unions. Moreover, the status of the Obi (male monarch) was equivalent to that of the Omu (female monarch) in eastern Nigeria. Similarly in the West, women held important positions in society as Iyalode(s), queen mothers, village chiefs and high priestesses; and in more religious or metaphysical dimensions, as gods, deities and spirits.

The case in the North was very different and this had a huge impact on women's participation in public life. Women's mobility was revoked during the Sokoto Jihad from 1804 to 1812 and their social and political activities were extremely curtailed. Even though some women like Queen Amina of Zazau in pre-colonial times and Hajia Gambo Sawaba in colonial and post-colonial times stood out as great examples of leaders, women in the North remained largely marginalized in politics and life. public. In 1979, the efforts of women like Hajia Sawaba bore fruit in the eventual emancipation of women in the North.

I recognize that women have made increased efforts to realize their political capacities by running for office, which means that women have a certain capacity for action in political and public life. However, I am inclined to introduce another dimension of women's agency which could be largely responsible for the low return of women's efforts in electoral politics.

It is certain that the empowerment of Nigerian women is a very important matrix in assessing their political rights, as is the representation of women in political office as elected and appointed officials. The efforts of women in electoral politics in Nigeria have gained momentum over the years. A significant number of women have applied for positions at the various levels of political governance...