GENDER PERSPECTIVES TO POLITICAL REPRESENTATION IN NIGERIA

Abstract

In spite of several years of gender advocacy, women have continued to remain underrepresented at all levels of government in Nigeria. Although several factors seem to be accountable for the cross under-representation, many work in this area tend to pay attention to gender discrimination, thus crowding out the factors that cause discrimination itself. Given this background, this paper examined gender perspectives to political representation with focus on patriarchal structures along with religion, culture and tradition, as well as political institutions as factors that hinder women in political participation and representation in Nigeria. The paper relied an inductive approach predicated on secondary sources of data collection. The Liberal strand of feminist theory was adopted as a framework for the paper. The paper identifies that factors that affect political representation of women in Nigeria to include: patriarchal nature of the Nigerian society, absence of internal democracy, monetization of the political system, financial constraints, physical and psychological violence that characterized the country’s political process among others. As a result of these challenges, women have continued to be relegated to the background in the Nigerian politics. The paper recommended that the gap could be narrowed not only by encouraging women to participate but also addressing existing patriarchal structures as well as religious and cultural elements to favour women, and enshrine in the Nigerian Constitution political systems, structures and approaches to upgrade women’s political representation at all levels.