Our women deserve so much more than what they are getting. It’s time to review trends
Women and girls make up about 49.3 percent of Nigeria’s population. They farm their farms, run their markets, raise their children, and are responsible for their futures. What they deserve, therefore, what this country owes them is the ordinary dignity of equal citizenship. At this moment when each and every citizen is required to contribute to the peace and prosperity of our country, we cannot continue to have one hand tied behind the nation. The cost of excluding women and girls is not paid by them alone, but by all of us in a development deficit that worsens with every election cycle we allow to pass without amendment. As people around the world celebrate International Women’s Day 2026 with the theme ‘Give to Gain’, Nigerians must accept the fact that women and girls will receive fairer compensation if they give generously.
On this International Women’s Day, we salute the resilience of Nigerian women. They had to be extraordinary just to stay in the room. According to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, Nigeria currently ranks 180th out of 185 countries globally assessed for women’s representation in parliament. In sub-Saharan Africa, a region not well known for its tradition of feminist governance, Nigeria ranks at the bottom. The average for this region is 27.3%. Rwanda, a model for our continent, has achieved 61.3 percent women representation in parliament. Sierra Leone enacted the Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Act in 2023, and within months women won 30.4% of parliamentary seats. Nevertheless, in the 10th National Assembly, women hold 19 of the 469 seats. That’s 3.8 percent. There are four people sitting in the Senate. 15th place in the House of Representatives. Expanding the lens to include the 36 state capitols only darkens the picture. Women hold 64 of the 1,460 seats in the federal and state legislatures. These 64 women are expected to represent the hopes, rights and interests of over 100 million Nigerian women, as recently acknowledged by the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Benjamin Kalu himself. No one in their right mind can defend this as democracy.
The photo in the executive arm tells the same story. Across the country’s 36 states, women hold a total of just 9% of political offices. Since the return to civilian rule in 1999, no woman has been elected governor of any of Nigeria’s 36 states. Not one. After 26 years of uninterrupted democracy, a feat in itself that we celebrate, not a single state in this federation of 250 ethnic groups, lawyers, professors, technocrats, and activists has elected a woman to the highest executive office. When President Bola Tinubu formed his cabinet, 18 percent of his cabinet members were women, a figure that gender advocates rightly pointed out was lower than earlier campaign promises. Our National Gender Policy, like previous governments, claims to respect this and sets a minimum of 35 per cent for women’s representation in both elected and appointed positions. It’s not half done yet. We’re not even a quarter of the way through yet. We are just a few, and we talk about it as if it is a small administrative problem rather than a structural failure of governance.
Key stakeholders must accept the fact that restricting access to opportunities that ultimately empower women, who make up about 50 percent of Nigeria’s population, is counterproductive to social development. Rebuilding Nigeria will require party primaries, candidate vetting, and legislative decisions starting this year. It requires people willing to share power. Because we finally understand what we all can gain from power.
Therefore, as Nigeria joins the rest of the world in marking International Women’s Day 2026, we must celebrate the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of our mothers, sisters and daughters. But they also need institutional mechanisms to strategically address all the obstacles that are placed against them. That is the only way to assure women that we care about their welfare and the prosperity of our country.
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We must celebrate the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of our mothers, sisters and daughters. But we also need institutional mechanisms to strategically address all the obstacles that are placed against them.
