30 Percent, For Now
By Ferial Haffajee
NIGERIAN ACTIVISTS want one
in three politicians elected to be a woman. An affirmative
action campaign is gathering steam to push for thirty
percent legislated female representation at the next
election, slated for 2007. |
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Women met on the sides
of the Commonwealth Peoples Forum yesterday to highlight their
call for more effective representation of women in politics.
Yesterday’s meeting followed the Abuja Declaration issued
in September which “urged the government and civil society
to take action and strengthen programmes and networking opportunities
to promote affirmative action for women at all levels of representation
in Nigeria”. In addition to representation in elected
office, women also want a proportion of jobs in the civil
service reserved.
Whereas women in Southern Africa achieved
commitment for a one third quota in the Eighties, West Africa
lags behind and Nigeria is now attempting to take up the slack.
In Southern Africa, the lobby has now moved
on from the one third quota to a 50/50 call for gender parity.
Also known as the zebra principle, women are now pushing for
political candidature lists to be comprised of one woman for
every man.
In Nigeria, a long haul for even the lower
quota seems likely. Nana Tankoh of the Open Society Initiative
of West Africa (OSIWA) said resistance was spread across the
key areas of Nigerian society.
“Affirmative action is resisted at the
community level by traditional and religious leaders. There
is resistance in political parties, where women are not engaged
[in the centre of power] where the lists are prepared.”
Even civil society has not risen to the occasion. Affirmative
action must be pursued as a political front, but individualism
continued to be the modus operandi for non-governmental organisations,
complained Tankoh. “Civil society is not coming together
in a coalition.”
It’s a good thing that women are starting
the lobby four years early – it will be painstaking
work building consciousness from the community level upwards.
Women had to be shown what benefits more equitable gender
representation could bring. “Once they are given bags
of salt and rice during elections, they [women] are fine,”
said Gozie Udemeze of the Women’s Aid Collective.
And it will be an even bigger struggle to
win over leading women to take up a life in politics as electoral
violence drove them from the polls, not only as candidates
but as voters too.
Yesterday’s meeting was a first attempt
to begin to knit together the coalition that will build support
for the affirmative action campaign. Its first major campaign
is likely to be one that lobbies government to establish the
legal framework necessary to make affirmative action work.
This will mean changing the electoral act to provide for a
gender quota.
Nigeria has ratified the United Nations
Convention for the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women
(CEDAW), but now needs to localise the impact of the convention
by passing national laws to make it a real rather than just
a paper commitment. “CEDAW provides for temporary positive
measures for women,” said activist Oby Nkwankwo, explaining
that government had many options available to build up its
gender armoury.
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