THE Federal Government has, through the Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development, lately launched a N100 million Nigerian Womens Trust Fund as a mechanism to increase the number of women elected into political positions at all levels of governance in Nigeria by, among other objectives, providing aspiring women politicians with financial and other forms of resources towards their political campaigns irrespective of political inclinations.To complement governments effort, and also in furtherance of the goals of her pet project, the wife of the president and initiator/ grand patron of Women for Change Initiative, Mrs. Patience Jonathan has also given, assumedly her personal money, various sums (up to a maximum of N1 million) to each of 809 female candidates across the parties. These are two of a number of incentives that are being extended to Nigerian women politicians. Some political parties exempted female aspirants to political office from paying some of the very high fees required for participation in the on-going electoral process.It is pertinent to state that the participation of Nigerian women continues to make steady progress, from the very disappointing era of the First and Second Republics. The number of female Senators moved from three in 2003 to nine in 2007, and in the House of Representatives from 13 to 24. But, at only 33, women formed a mere 7.6% of the combined total of 469 federal legislators. In the state legislatures, 54 women (8.6% of the total) were elected in 2007 as opposed to 29 in 2003.However, there is no denying that, in terms of percentages of the total membership at each level, there is much work to do to achieve some gender balance and the 30% representation recommended by the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). Indeed, the 2009 UN Human Development Report on Nigeria read that the country ranked 10th of 128 countries assessed on political empowerment of women.The encouragement therefore, by legal and transparent means, of women participation in the decision-making process at all levels of society, but especially in politics, is welcome not only because it is fair and desirable to involve the other half (Nigerian female population is effectively half of the whole) in governance, but also because their individual and collective contributions benefit the nation immeasurably.Besides, in this age of gender sensitivity and gender equality, efforts to empower the womenfolk is consistent with the spirit of the times, and fulfills the provisions of several international conventionsThe Beijing Declaration, CEDAW, and the Millennium Development Goalsto which Nigeria is a signatory.It may be granted that money is a major factor in political participation, that a hefty financial war chest is a sine qua non, in the exceptionally money-centered politics of Nigeria, and that women are still largely excluded from the mainstream of economic activities that can yield the quantum of money required, the point must be made that increased female participation will not necessarily be achieved by throwing public funds at the problem. Nigerians would be interested to know by what authority and by what due process this was done, who got what and by what criteria. It should also be said that a bad precedent may have been set to share out by fiat or so it appearsN100 million of public funds to persons seeking, by choice, to further their personal careers in politics. Who knows now what group may come forward some other time to make demands either on the public purse, or a dedicated trust fund, for one reason or the other.There are, in addition to finance, many obstacles to women participation in political activities as presently carried out in this clime. These include Godfatherism, political violence, the non-inclusion of women in the top administrative structure of political parties, the less-than-faithful implementation of the provisions of the international conventions to which Nigeria is committed, and in the opinion of some, the embarrassingly little support that the womenfolkfor reasons best known to themgive to female candidates. These will need to be addressed as part of a holistic strategy.We are of the view that the objective to raise women participation in governance will not be achieved overnight, irrespective of the quantum of money thrown at it. It must be addressed from the roots. Women must be empowered with education, entrepreneurial and leadership skills, as well as given opportunities to compete fairly for jobs and positions of power and influence. The political game must be sanitised, the political process must be simplified, and the political parties must practise internal democracy. These steps will definitely go a long way to clean up the practice of politics and make it more worthy of the effort of and participation by more good women and men.
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